Store

Further adventures in Leeds after dark. This 1930s former department store at the corner of Briggate and King Edward St. is lit very sympathetically, while the crane peeping in at top right is wearing its Christmas gaudiness. The chestnut seller (foreground) was helping someone with directions.

I’d done a little more Christmas shopping after work, and was on my way to see a Christmas performance by Eliza Carthy and friends (Jon Boden, Marry Waterson, Emily Portman and one other male member of the Waterson clan whose name I didn’t catch - possibly Marry’s sibling, Oliver Knight ?) at Howard Assembly Room. A lot of the songs were featured on Carthy and Boden’s 2023 ‘Glad Christmas Comes’ album, and there was also plenty of storytelling, with tales of Christmases past in the Waterson-Carthy households on the North Yorkshire Moors. Approaching the interval, the band pelted the audience with soft ‘snowballs’, many of which were promptly returned in their direction - good fun. They were filming the show for online on-demand shows, and there is second performance tonight (i.e. Friday, as I always post a day behind) with a few tickets available.

I think that will be my last gig of the year having managed at least one a month during 2024. And it’s starting to feel a little bit Christmassy.