I have been scrapping article after article, I had nothing interesting to say and, honestly, I was lazy. Thankfully there is one topic I can talk about for hours and it is about living space. Whether it is about houseshare, flat, town, village or city, Having moved about a dozen times in the last five years, I am always on a quest for better - or worse - and I can’t shut up about it.
Growing up in the smallest village in the middle of nowhere, I could only think about escaping. I dreamed about living in the big city and never going back, and well I manage about half of that. I have never felt more alive than when I was living in Brussels, for a long time I thought it was a result of my freedom as a student. I have now reconsidered.
What I loved about Brussels was its size. Big enough to allow anonymity and constant discovery, but small enough to not be overwhelming and easy to cross. Moreover, what I need in a place is enough variety -of bars, restaurants, museums, parks, shops, etc. - to feel like there are endless possibilities. Not only that but those quantitative possibilities, which realistically are limited, must be qualitative. It is true that I went every day to the same bar but I had other options if I wanted to.
Let me elaborate with an example, Reading and Cambridge are roughly similar in size (40 km2, the first is a town and the latter holds the status of a city), I lived in both of them for one year and got tired of them for different reasons but one thing they had in common was a limited amount of offers. If, for whatever reason, I had to move back to one or the other I would pick Cambridge without the shadow of a doubt.
Obviously, Cambridge is a masterpiece and Reading is, well Reading, but that’s not the point- although it plays. The qualitative offer was just better in Cambridge, the bars were nicer, the museums more interesting, the life more exciting. I can be fair play and add Gloucester to the mix: 40,3 km2 city with its gorgeous red bricks-industrial-quays recently renovated into shit chains (behold TGI Fridays and Spoons!), right on the border to Wales and the much more attractive Cheltenham (posh, 10 minutes by train). Cambridge still holds its title.
In a recent study1, I found that most of the British towns are basically the same. Take out the architecture and you’ll find the same things: a weird street full of kebabs’, a posh and a bad spoon, about 4 or 5 pubs with a beer scented carpet and old white men, then you have all your classic chains of stores (get in there H&M, Primark, Poundland…) and restaurants (is your Italian a Prezzo, Zizzi or Pizza Express?). And Greggs. Oh, so many Greggs.
Was Brexit worth it? I lived in other countries, in other cities and towns, and I can assure you: if you are not living in London or Manchester or any city bigger than 40 square meters (see elements of my study as reported above), you are fucked.
I like smaller towns, some of them. They have their very own advantages and a sense of community, Anne Helen Petersen describes life in small towns perfectly in the HGTV podcast Townsizing. I listened to it while staying in a Welsh seaside town, right after Christmas last year. The local pub was buzzing, the multicoloured lights decorating front porches and frost air coming from the sea. It was all very The Holiday if you see what I mean. However, after those two weeks, I was looking forward to going back to a busier place.
Maybe I need to find myself a winning lottery ticket and buy a seaside house, isolated in the middle of nowhere for my hermite retreats, and a city flat (a house? in this market?) to disappear and live an exciting busy life. Seems a bit unrealistic but can’t a girl dream?
So I wonder, is it a problem of size or of the Britishness of the towns? Last Sunday, a glorious day bathed in the golden autumn sun, I took a train to Cheltenham (46 km2!!!) and I felt alive again. I wandered around, went to two different bookstores and it felt like a luxury. I was overwhelmed by the choice of food and independent pubs and it was great. The joy. If like me you get the Sunday scare and, as a child, it was a synonym for boredom, you know how it feels to have an enjoyable, eventful Sunday. Are those 6 extra square meters2 the secret to a good life? They surely were the solution to my writer’s block.
By yours truly, very unofficial.
Further personal research in my memories reminded me that I had the same feeling when I took the train from Reading to Oxford, which is 45 km2. So yeah, maybe I’m onto something here.