Thanks for your replies. Maybe cos it's grey and rainy I'm thinking about this situation more than usual today. And cos DH said in passing before he left for work today that he'd really wished that someone would invite him out for a few drinks.
Just doing some more thinking out loud here really, but if anyone has any advice then please fire away!
It's weird, but despite the lack of friends and sadness about it, DH insists that he likes where we now live, more than he liked London, and feels we made the right move. I, on the other hand, keep thinking that if we don't feel more settled in a social way in a couple of years we'll have to give serious thought to moving back to London (and all the hassle - emotional and practical - that'd go with that) but maybe lots of our friends will have moved on by then, even left London themselves.
I know that to a certain extent I'm doing what I always have a tendency to do and comparing me / us to other people and thinking that all the other parents we know have amazing social lives - which I don't know for certain that they do. But most of them have lived year for a number of years, some even went to uni here, and so I know they've got a big social network of people they've known for a reasonable amount of time and that's what I miss.
We've had friends from London come to visit since we moved and have spent lovely weekends with them and that feels like quality time that we wouldn't have had in the same way in London but it's not the same.
DH is getting back into swimming regularly once a week now with a club. He enjoys it but it's not an especially sociable activity and most of the other club members are younger, childless and carefree.
The neighbours is a good suggestion. We meant to introduce ourselves to everyone when we moved in months ago but got caught up with unpacking and sorting out the baby etc and feel we've kind of missed the boat. We've chatted a fair bit to one set of neighbours who are older with a teenager. Our other immediate neighbours were v elderly and have just moved out. Most others in our street are elderly too.
I used to work in a large workplace with lots of like-minded people which was pretty sociable too. DH would often join after work drinks and parties held by colleagues too. That helped make up for the lack of socialising at his work. His work is still as unsociable though and I now work with just one other person so my situation has completely changed too.
We've started to attend church more regularly too. It's quite a busy church with a few young-ish families attending but again, it's the time thing that's a problem. Going to Sunday morning service can take over 2 hours all in and that's without staying for coffee after the service (the sociable bit!). That's half of Sunday pretty much gone every week. We're also involved with the local political party which is pretty active and sociable but again, as nice and welcoming as people are, there's that sense of breaking into social networks of people who've known each other for a long time and who aren't necessarily all near our age.
I just don't feel we've met any couples as yet that we've 'clicked' with who are in similar situations. It's all pleasant small talk, mostly baby related. DH met a friend through the climbing he was doing and they got on great and climbed together weekly and went for the odd beer but that guy recently lost his job and moved back to another part of the country. We also met a couple we had lots in common with (including a young baby!) at a baby group when DS was tiny but they relocated after a couple of months of us meeting.
I feel that fundamentally what we lack is the time you need to 'invest' in meeting people and developing friendships and the same probably goes for most of the people we might be friends with, and I can't see how that's going to change anytime soon which makes me feel a bit hopeless about it all. :(
I still have plenty of mummy friends that DS and I see pretty regularly and I'm grateful for that but would just like DH - and us as a couple - to have the same.