North & South

I never thought it would actually happen but I’ve moved back up north. No… really…. I have.

I was born and bred in Liverpool but moved down to Oxford when I was 18 to go to university, yes you heard right, moved to Oxford to go to university. What I didn’t say was which university I went to, it was Oxford Brookes University, only the finest ex polytechnic in Oxfordshire!

Actually Brookes was a brilliant university, consistently voted the ‘Best Modern University’ (which basically means ex polytechnics) by The Times newspaper, winning 10 years in a row, I was there for 3 of those years obviously.

I always thought that after I had finished university I would move back to Liverpool to be nearer my family and all my friends again. The problem was I lost touch with nearly all my school friends after a couple of years. I put this down to the fact I didn’t get a grant when I was at university and as great as my parents where at supporting me, they couldn’t stretch to forking out for everything so I worked part time during term time then full time throughout the summer. This meant not being able to go home during holidays because I was working for the extra cash for the following term (that really means extra beer money). Most of my friends from back in Liverpool would put it down to me being a bit flakey. They’re probably right. This meant though it halved my reasons for going back home to Liverpool, my family where still there but the friends were gone.

I’m very close to my family so it was a big decision not to go home. The friends I had made while at university were fantastic and I had been offered a job in Oxford working in retail which made a big difference, it would have been regular money coming in.

Anyway fast forward a few years I met my much better half who was also a northerner but I still didn’t see us moving back up north, I actually wanted to move further south, to Cornwall in fact but this would have been a step to far for Claire. She was closer to her family than I thought was possible so a 5hr drive to see them was just about acceptable, turning that into a 10hr drive was a definite no no. This is where I get a little soppy so excuse me, we fell further in love (after a couple of break ups and heart ache…..she eventually agreed to take me back after a bit of pleading) and we had our first child together.

This puts a slightly different perspective on things. It was while we were on a self catering lake district holiday that everything changed. The peace, tranquillity and beauty of it all changed my mind (and the fact that Claire’s family lived near by and mine were now only an hours drive away).

We still see most of our friends because they love coming on holiday up here, we love it because life is now so much less stressful and our daughter loves it because she can’t remember anything about where we used to live, well…she is only 2.

So yes I’m here. I’m a true northerner again, I feel much more at home, the accent had softened so much down there (I was sick of people constantly saying what? or excuse me?) that people didn’t even realise I was a scouser. Luckily it’s returned although that hasn’t stopped people from calling me ‘Posh Scouse’ that’s fine though I could think of plenty worse things to be called!