LOL, this is just pile #1 of many Piles O’ Crap that I need to haul ass to various charity shops over the next year. Moving is horrific enough, I want to leave with minimal junk. (Not pictured: the 1,000 books I’m keeping…)
Change is in the air… Well, maybe it’s just that the weather is so windy and the wind has changed direction like at the end of Mary Poppins, still one of the most bittersweet film endings of all time amirite?
Regardless of weather, change is coming. I’m – deep breaths – breaking up with London. Come 2014, I’ll have lived here for a decade. That’s kind of enough for me, when I don’t really have a reason to be here.
I’m giving myself a year, and then I’m leaving. For pastures new and, as yet, unknown. I’ve got a year to decide where, and how, and indeed what I’ll do when I get there… (Any job offers for a surly sub-editor, most welcome!)
I’m both lucky and unlucky enough to not have a home town: my parents both moved around a lot as children, as did I, so there’s no “Reuter Hapgood homestead” to be attached to, which means the UK is my oyster. Wherever I choose to hang my hat next, that’s where I’ll call home.
Instinct (which is a totes reasonable way to make a big life decision like “where to live for the rest of your life”!) has ruled out my former stomping ground of Newcastle; I was a student there and returning as a grown-up just doesn’t appeal. But the north is calling me… Mostly for the weather. Um, I’m serious. I’m so the wet girl. Rain, sleet, cold, wind, greyness, drizzle: bring it the fuck on.
Moving is a while off yet, though. I’m still at stage one: daydreaming about where to go. I want… a small city, one I can walk across. Possibly close to the coast? An abundance of charity shops. Excellent pubs. Bands and books and films and friends. The kind of rent that doesn’t make me do a sharp intake of breath each month. To get home from work at Oh I Can Still Have a Life In The Evening O’Clock. Stanley will, of course, be accompanying me on this adventure.
Any suggestions most welcome…
The other part of stage one? Downsizing my enormous amount of crap. Living in one place for a long time, you don’t half build up a lot of junk. Making a possibly-across-the-country-who-da-fuck-knows-where move is going to be upheaval enough, I don’t want to be dragging round half-read copies of Proust that I’m NEVER going to finish because my god, man, get an editor and cut down on the crap about madelines.
So, yeah. September 2013, I’ll be matriculating at THE UNIVERSITY OF LIFE, BOOM!
I would definitely consider Liverpool. It seems to tick all of your boxes, plus you’re only a stones throw from North Wales/Manchester/Lakes/other lovely places if you fancy a change of scenery.
Just a glance at your charity shop haul fills me with moving dread, good luck!
Ooh, good suggestion – ta! Don’t know the city at all, but a friend is moving there in December… P’raps I’ll visit and check it out.
Bristol.
I know its not exactly north.. Might be more south than London? BUT WHO CARES ABOUT GEOGRAPHY LIKE THAT!? It’s so close to Cornwall, Wales and full of music, art, charity, cheap rent and nice old buildings and MOI obvs!?!!
We can be best buds IRL – whuuut!!??
You may lol but my Big Fear in moving is that I’ll have no friends, converting a Twitter bud to IRL is a major selling point!
Bristol is very much on my mental shortlist: lots of publishing jobs, obv, plus all that stuff you just listed. Deffo in the running for the coveted prize of Harriet’s New Casa!
I’m excited for all the gin we can have. There is a gin bar in Bath, btw – should that help. It helps me..
With my alcoholism.
ALL THE COOL JOBS ARE HERE (all the London sub-branches).