to want to move 'up north'?

[onemiddlefinger]

That is if South Yorkshire is actually considered 'up north'?
We have always lived in London and now DH might have a job offer near Sheffield and i'm actually surprised that really want to move.
If someone told me 3 years ago that we might be moving nearly 3h away from London i would have been laughing, but now it might be a reality and i'm really hoping it works out.

We would have less money each month, but i would be able to stay home with DC for a few years and we would have much more space, a lovely house, a garden and DH would have more free time to spend with us.
I'm just so sick and tired of squeezing into our tiny flat and worrying about the downstairs neighbours coming to complain again about the noise and the commute on packed tube trains and just generally people everywhere.

AIBU?
Maybe it's just a phase of being fed up and once we actually move i'll be missing London? This is really all i can think about the last few days and in my head i'm already decorating the house and imagining us there - kids happy playing, our family able to come and visit (they live in another country) and actually be able to stay with us comfortably.

Just looked at Chorlton's restaurants on Tripadvisor. Found these categories:

Japanese
Chinese
Central European
Lebanese
Spanish
Italian
French
Thai
Indian
Dritish
Mediterranean
South American

Not sure why anybody would think that only London has a diverse range of restaurants.
I certainly love eating out in London as you can definitely experience a huge range of foods fairly reasonably priced, as there is so much competition!

However, I have no doubt that other major cities are similar,. Just thinking about two I know well, Bristol and Liverpool, and I have no doubt that Manchester has some fab restaurants, although I have only eaten curry there.
I love Dalston and Stoke Newington for Turkish food.

I can't help but think of the X factor when I think of northerner. Those northern towns and villages of semi successful contestants behaving like it's the most exciting thing that has ever happened in the area. Ever. I have to say, it skews the perceptions of hardened southerners such as myself!

Enjoying - james Arthur was the worst thing to have come out of here and we were glad to be rid haha :-) vic reeves and Bob mortimer however - now that's a different story :-)

Trying to think of a pithy comeback to someone who bases their views of the North East on the X Factor, but I'm struggling

Bit rude to put that about Rotherham just because of all the bad press at the moment! There are lots of nice, decent hardworking people live here, we're not all bad. There are good and bad areas the same as any other town!

There are no words Durham

I named my child James Arthur's name in reverse. I don't watch the X factor at all and was completely unaware of it. I then rocked up at the children's ward at UHND having been sent up from urgent care with my then baby only to be met with complete confusion as they were not expecting us. Then I noticed that they had written James Arthur on their board .

Ex northerner here, now based in SE.

Our plan was to come down, work in the smoke for 2 to 3 years, make a killing on the property market then move back home. That was 20years ago...

As long as your DP has a job that he can do anywhere and is not looking to relocate to South Yorks for one particular firm with no choice of others close by (in the event of that one not turning out as planned) then I too say go for it!

You will be on the doorstep of some stunning countryside and without doubt the people are on the whole much more friendlier than most Londoners.

Those northern towns and villages of semi successful contestants behaving like it's the most exciting thing that has ever happened in the area.

How man hinny, yer canna say that. Ye should see wot happens when the Ocado van comes roond.

Ooooh now that would be exciting Cat, they don't deliver round here.

Sorry about the lack of accent. Not local. Only been in the area around 10 year. I think in local a fair bit but it still sounds daft coming out of my mouth .

I'd like to think it is that we have a nice sense of community going.

I'm trying to decide what my life most closely resembles, a semi successful northern X Factor contestant or the gritty realism of a Postman Pat story..

Ooooh now that would be exciting Cat

No, the capitalist bastards won't deliver round here, either

Sorry about the lack of accent.

No worries, IAmAPaleontologist my Geordie accent is entirely derived from Viz and Jimmy Nail in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet

I employ a fleet of grateful northern people to translate my received pronunciation into northern demotic, and iron one's handkerchiefs,

but that's another thread.

Reminds me of the Victoria Wood exchange :

Are you Northern?
Yes.
Ahh, I could tell; there's a pain behind the eyes...

whispers There's northern cosmopolitan and there's, well, grimy AND grim, dreary, depressing, insular, ex-industrial, run-down northern. The best that can be said of the latter is that's it's gritty.

I'm thinking of the likes of Liverpool versus St. Helens. Both within only about 15 miles of each other but worlds apart. One a world-class city, the other the land that time forgot. Sorry, St Helens.

You could say the same thing about London and the South in general. There are the lovely, upmarket places we would all like to live in and then there are utterly revolting deprived areas that I would do anything to avoid living in.

I've spent half of my life in the South and half in the North and I've seen just as much squalor and depressing places in the South as I have in the North.

I left Bucks to move to Durham, people couldn't believe that I was moving to the a North. Until they came to see where I lived. Then they wondered why I hadn't done it years before.

I lived in Sheffield in the 70 s, out at Totley. Fabulous, loved it.

London is great for a visit but couldn't live there.

Thinks ....I need another visit to Sheffield.

Curlyhaired: I get what you are trying to say but you cannot class Liverpool as a world class city. Yes it is a great city (my mother was born there) but it has very poor transport links and apart from a good university and The Beatles - who no longer wish to live there, that is about it. No industry and all the money poured into it to redevelop from the Mersey Docks society was government funded.

Huyton is in Liverpool and that compared to St Helens I know where I would live...

I come from one of the poorest parts of the north which even today has a bad reputation and now live in one of the wealthiest parts of the country. Good and bad points to both.

Durham is beautiful and so is Northumberland - tourists flock there from the south all year round (so I'm told by a friend in the industry)
You can't really tar all places with the same brush just by north/south area.

I agree with the poster who said.... Depends where you are. There are "nice" parts and awful parts to any region. The North, is no different to the south in that respect.

Eh? I typed a long message and it's just disappeared! Bum!

Anyway, Aesops, I wonder when you last spent a few days in the centre of Liverpool? From the sound of it, was maybe sometime before 1990?

Interested to know where you live now, Aesops?

I am afraid that I can't respect the opinion of anybody who watches X Factor!

I am afraid that I can't respect the opinion of anybody who watches X Factor!

Surely rules out most of the north then?

Er...has anyone mentioned job security?
OP: if you/your dh are confidant there will always be plenty of work in Sheffield for one or both of you (and/or if you're happy to potentially not go back to work/be financially independent) then of course it makes sense to move.

We have relatives in the far South West who benefit from cheap housing, friendly locals, lower cost of living, shorter commutes, beautiful countryside etc. We love to visit them. They've also faced redundancy, long term unemployment and have only managed financially through family support.