I heart Manchester

Everything about Manchester makes my spirit soar - how could you ever be truly miserable when you live in a city that offers the cultural delights that are Beetham Tower and the Pev within a two minute and seventeen second walk of each other (in heels)? I've lived here for over a year now, yet I still find myself constantly having to apologise for bumping into people because I'm too busy staring up at the skyline, or admiring the stained glass window in Central Library that always surprises me as I walk past.

Part-walking part-dancing to work yesterday morning (my Ipod selection was just too good not to) I found myself taking the longer journey along the canal path. It was half way through Marrakech Express and half way across the mini NewcastleGateshead Blinking Eye bridge on Castlefield Locks that the dawn of realisation struck as to why I heart Manchester quite as much as I do. It's the people. They are passionate, creative, friendly, exciting. They are fucking bonkers and I love it.

A barge was nearing the mouth of the canal as I was passing over the bridge and on it stood a Highland terrier with a piece of toast in his mouth, and a tall (some would say lanky but I'm not that rude) guy in his early thirties wearing a grey suit and pink tie. He had short dirty blonde hair and in his left hand was a briefcase that had seen better days. It was strange enough that this Rodney Trotter circa 1989 lookalike should be standing atop a barge but the fact that he was urinating into the water whilst the dog looked on was just too much to bear. Despite my ipod being cranked up to its deafening limits I could just about hear myself tut loudly in utter disapproval. But then the strangest thing happened. He smiled at me and said "Good Morning". Even when having a piss on a barge at 8.30am on a Wednesday morning, Mancs are the politest of folk.

What could I do? I smiled, mouthed "Good Morning" and then felt slightly dirty for the rest of the day.

So simple yet so beautiful

I realise that this may not be the most endearing of beginnnings, but I would like to begin my blog with something I read in my horoscope almost 15 years ago. To make things even worse for myself whilst ensuring I never have a repeat visit to my site, I'm going to 'fess up that this was the Mail on Sunday horoscope section. In my defence I was 11 and the only reading material I had available to me was the Mail on Sunday (courtesy of Dad who bought it for the telly guide because the boxes to write the lottery numbers in on a Saturday were bigger than the Telegraph's telly pages) or the Sunday People.

Horoscopes are normally even more useless to 11 year-old pre-pubescent girls than they are to 26 year-old pre-alchololic, workaholic, shopaholic women (yes reader, I achieved my three goals in life and not necessarily in that order), but on this occasion the astrologer dude skipped over the "love will bump into you in the rain and will begin with the letter Z" rubbish and offered us Cancerians something so simple yet so beautiful the words will dance around my soul forever.

"One cannot consent to creep, when one feels the impulse to soar."

And so, the first chance I got I packed my bags and moved to Manchester.