“I like to make my own gifts. I try and buy things from bric-a-brac shops and then decorate them myself. I was in the Victoria Quarter earlier and there was a guy looking at a £13k piece of jewellery. I mean, that is just obscene amounts to spend when you consider what you could do to help people with that amount of money”

It’s Thursday, so I was in early into town for another class at the Ministry of Food - this week it was soups.

Using four basic ingredients (Carrot, Celery, Onion and Garlic) we were taught how to make a soup base, and how to cut and chop them properly using professional knife techniques. I’m glad to say there were no chopped fingers or cuts. Later in the class, we added peas and fresh mint to make a pea and mint soup which was scrumptious. I donated my portion to Darren, a fellow classmate, who usually drops the food off at a local old peoples home.

Afterwards, I met up with MrJohn and we had a walk round the market as we always do. He, and I, ended up taking a bunch of street portraits as it seemed everyone was out in force today, due to Christmas no doubt.

I spotted a girl who had both a dSLR and an analogue Canon AE-1 on her, (which I’ve been after for some time now), and stopped to have a chat about what she was up to. Charlotte was a student, out also taking street portraits with the AE-1. The pictures she had previously taken had been spoilt due to a faulty loading mechanism so had to make them up for her project.

After a tasty fish & chips lunch (mushy peas mandatory), we walked round aimlessly for a bit more before heading to the Corn Exchange as MrJohn had an appointment to take a portrait of a camera shop owner who only deals with analogue cameras. MrJohn was of course going to use his brilliant Halina twin lens reflex camera. Tom, the shop owner, was not around so we did a bit more wandering and ended up in the marque in the centre of town where there was a show going on. It was deeply embarrassing and I was even asked to participate at one point but had to refuse politely, I do have some street cred ;)

We headed back to the Corn Exchange later, where I spotted Tom loitering outside. Tom was infectiously happy and friendly, and had a very moralistic view of Christmas, which I admired.


Humans of Leeds