EvilPandas Travel Journal

I’ve just got back from two glorious days in Leeds, a city in the midlands of the UK. Time enough to forget about life in London, and enjoy the sites, sounds and pubs of this lovely little city. My first impressions were that everyone was quite friendly almost small town mentality with everyone saying hello to everyone that sort of thing. Well it turns out that everyone is extremely friendly, I couldn’t actually sit in a pub with my mate and just talk with out someone saying Hi, how are you, ooohh you have a funny accent where are you from.

Here are a few photos from the ground and the ashes for you.

When we got into the ground they had a display on how Gray Nichols bats are made and it is quite a fascinating process,

If you wish to see way more photos of my time at the ashes please go to

This Link to my flickr page slide show

The game unfortunately was almost all over by the time we got there, England had collapsed in the first innings for 102, Australia with the rest of that day and most of the following day got 445, and at the end of play that day England were 5 for 96 with fading hopes that the 3rd day tickets that we had were not even going to be worth going. We ended up going to the ground obviously on the third day as it was the only day I had tickets for, however we thoroughly enjoyed the day. England added 140 odd in the first session with Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann both posting half centuaries, in a wonderful display of close your eyes and swing.

The result was inevetiable, it was going to be Australia’s win regardless of the England fightback.

The rest of the afternoon we spent in a bar with a load of English fans which provided great banter as expected. Even up until the final ball was bowled and the final wicket taken the English fans were still singing. “Stand up if your one nil up”. and gave Stuart clark standing ovations as he was contributing big time to the England score. All in good humour.

At the end I was dissapointed that I still heard boo’s ringing out, and apparently this time they were for Andew Strauss and not Ricky Ponting,  but still that is a disgraceful thing to hear, you don’t boo at sport, ever! There was also a low light of a big fella from Sheffield, that was boo-ing well the loudest in our area, then had the nerve to go up to Big Merv Hughes, and try and barge his way into a photo. Then had the nerve to wonder why he was told you fornicate himself in another location.

So yes there was a slight dissapointment at the end of the trip but the places, bars, pubs resturants we went to made Leeds and the whole experience. I would throughly enjoyable. My time was spent at the Ashmount Hotel Leeds,  and am looking forward to the rest of the test series where hopefully it shall be 2-1 to Australia!