SO. In, like, six weeks, @mikeysthoughtfactory (who will, by then, be my husband!) and I are moving from London to Belfast.
BELFAST!
This is incredibly exciting and we’ve been wanting it to happen for a long while, but now that it is, we are getting a bit bogged down in the stress of it all (truns out that getting married, finding a house, moving countries and starting new jobs all in the space of six weeks is a bit stressful, WHO’DA THUNK IT) and forgetting why we’re doing it.
So here it is. Here is why we’re moving to Belfast. Here are the top ten reasons why leaving the lights of London and all that comes with it is going to be totally, totally worth it.
(This one’s for you, Mikey.)
1. FAMILY. Both being closer to Mike’s wonderful family - especially his niece and nephew who are GROWING UP SO FAST, omg - and also being able to create our own family, with more choices about how we do that, and being able to put it as our number one priority.
2. EATING. First off, food in Northern Ireland - especially Belfast - is THE BOMB. No, seriously. I’ve eaten the best food of my life in Northern Ireland (the seafood! so fresh! the vegetables! so flavourful! the potato dishes! so plentiful! the menus! so unpretentious and fully of quality! the plates! so actually plate-shaped!) and I am so excited that soon our idea of a treat won’t be a rubbish takeaway, it will be a beautifully-cooked, reasonably-priced meal. But even more excitingly, we will have a kitchen big enough to STORE and COOK food ourselves. REVOLUTIONARY.
3. HOUSE. For less than half of what we pay for our super-tiny third floor one-bedroom flat (so small we have to keep our clothes in the communal hallway), we’ll be able to rent a two or three-bedroom HOUSE, with STAIRS, and a GARDEN, and a KITCHEN SO BIG YOU CAN GET A TABLE IN IT. And then, as if that’s not riches enough, we’ll be able to afford to BUY ONE. A whole house of our very own! It seemed an impossible dream for so long.
4. COFFEE. Screw Italy (ahahah Mike will kill me for that one), the best coffee is in Belfast. Imagine the most amazing hipster coffee bar you’ve ever been to in London - the one where the coffee was like velvet and the music was the perfect volume and the staff were really friendly and bearded and knowledgeable and the scones were huge and fresh - and now imagine it stripped of all traces of pretension, and you have Every. Single. Independent. Coffee Bar. In Belfast. I know. You can’t imagine it. Nor could I, before.
5. WORK-LIFE BALANCE. Don’t get me wrong, London jobs pay well. They pay really well. But my GOD, they expect their pound of flesh. More than that, they expect you to engage in the kind of workplace politics that make my skin crawl. In Belfast, our jobs will be jobs. We’ll leave the office at 6pm and that will be it.
6. CHURCH. Church is a big thing for us. It’s really hard to find a church in England that feels inclusive, that doesn’t make us uncomfortable by hinting at its underlying bigotry. In Belfast we’ll have our pick. I could write an essay on the reasons why many churches in NI are more inclusive (there are lots of reasons, but they mostly, I think, boil down to there already being enough division in the country’s history) but it makes it so much easier to find a community that you fit in to. The one we have our eye on is a very artsy church, with a big focus on music, theatre and film.
7. CULTURE. There’s no doubt that it will be a bit of a wrench to leave the myriad film and theatre options available in London. But Belfast has the Lyric theatre and the QFT cinema, both amazingly well-respected institutions. We’ll be able to see just about everything they have to offer; we’ll be regulars. PLUS it will be about seven times cheaper, which is amazing.
8. FRIENDS. Living in London makes friendship hard. It takes ages to get anywhere. Like us, most of our friends live in small flats that aren’t really conducive to having dinner parties, so you always have to go out which is expensive. We all work long hours. It’s hard. In Northern Ireland, we’re going to make an effort to make really good, quality friends. We’ll be able to see them more regularly, in a more relaxed environment. And on top of that, we’ll be able to have the friends we love from London (and the rest of the UK) to stay with us, giving us quality time with them.
9. PUBS AND BARS. Imagine walking into a pub and knowing you’ll get a table. Imagine walking into a bar and knowing the live band playing later on is going to be the kind of music you love. Imagine THIS being your local. And then imagine them all filled with the most delicious (and reasonably-priced) ales, craft beers and - most importantly - PROPER Guinness.
10. EACH OTHER. The thing that won’t change, no matter where we are, is Mike and Ems. When we move, things will be different. We’ll be in a new house, in a new city, in new jobs, with new friends, new local haunts and new routines. But we’ll still be us. I’ll be there hand-in-hand with my best friend, my soulmate and my husband - for life. Together, we can do ANYTHING.
