The most southernly northern city

Sheffield is our home. A year and a month after leaving, we made it back up north on April 10th after spending a couple of weeks with family. It’s taken a while to get settled in again, and we’re still not completely settled yet, but it’s been wonderful to be back.

Very kindly, two friends took us in for a month in the end while we looked for somewhere permanent to live. Along with two other friends, we’ve moved into a house share in Broomhall. Depending on your knowledge of Sheffield, you may look in horror or smile obliviously on hearing the district. I’ve been told all sorts from it having a good community centre to someone got stabbed there recently. Well, it’s a pretty area of terraced houses, the odd drunken group of students or homeless people shouting down the street, friendly neighbours who gave us food for Ramadan and the house has the biggest bedrooms and kitchen we saw out of all the houses we viewed. We also have a spare room if you’d like to visit us! With the town centre, train station and my place of work all within 30 minutes walk, we’re pretty happy. It even has a small mud patch beyond the seemingly endless concrete garden in which I’ve planted some herbs.

I was hoping this post to update those interested in what we’re up to now we’ve returned would have gone out earlier but I’m still a little in limbo. I do have a job, working cover shifts in a vegetarian and vegan cafe with lovely people, but I’m still looking for something more permanent yet part time. Mischa has returned to his previous job with ease and they let him go part time too. This seems to baffle some people still, why we would choose part time work (and therefore less money) over full time work. Plain and simple, the biggest lesson learnt over the past year is how little time we do have in life. Neither of us get satisfaction from doing one thing five days a week and being too tired in the evenings to do other things, so why waste our time. With part time jobs we are free to learn new skills, volunteer more and generally be less stressed and more happy. We are lucky in that there’s two of us and in choosing to house share in a cheap city like Sheffield means our money goes further, and we can still save for a house (or woodland) while enjoying our lives.

“So what on earth are you doing with all that free time?” many have asked. Well, I’ve gone back to volunteering at the community allotment I went to before I left. I had missed it a lot, the kind and generous people and the green oasis in the city. Mischa has applied to volunteer at Citizens Advice Sheffield and he’s waiting to hear back. We have been visiting friends across the country (a five hour drive down to near Gatwick doesn’t seem so bad anymore after the journeys we took last year) and enjoying the countryside on our doorstep. The best thing about Sheffield is the Peak District, within 20 minutes on the train you’re in a national park with so many hills to climb! Mischa finally had to get new walking boots and mine are on their way out too…