Some thoughts about having left London

So I returned perman­ently to the UK in Septem­ber and moved to Margate. I grew up in Kent, but haven’t lived here perman­ently since I was 18, which feels like a long time ago. Settling in has been both good and hard. I trav­elled non-stop essen­tially from Janu­ary to Septem­ber, and adjust­ing myself to being in one place and the idea that I live some­where has taken a while. It’s also kind of weird pretty much only being surroun­ded by people I’ve known for 1-2 months- you feel like the awkward new kid at school.

So I moved back to Kent…

So I moved back to Kent last week. (I’m knackered after trav­el­ling round Germany for three weeks and then moving house back-to-back). To Margate in partic­u­lar. I grew up in Medway, a little way to the west, but left when I was eight­een to go to univer­sity, as it didn’t feel like there were any oppor­tun­it­ies for me. Nearly fifteen years later, here I am. A lot has changed in that time.

2016 in review

I spent a low-stress and low-key Christ­mas with my friend Vicky up in Manchester, and have returned to Kent over the New Year to see homet­own friends. I’ll be in the UK for a few more weeks (includ­ing my birth­day), then head­ing off to Austria for 5 weeks for work, then a further 2 weeks in Japan, mean­ing I’ll be abroad until April. A vari­ety of factors has meant that I’ve not worked full-time in months, and to be honest I’m itch­ing to go back to work and being busy all the time.

It’s fair (and easy) to say that 2016 was not a good year for me. And the consensus is that it was also a terrible year polit­ic­ally, that has seen fascism and far-right polit­ics on the ascend­ant. Here is a brief list of my posit­ives and negat­ives for the year.

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