I know I've said my plans to move to England died out, but it doesn't stop me from looking around, browsing at places, just because I'm forever tied to the place and also might eventually, for god knows what reason, move back there in the end anyway. Plans change like the tide!

So with that in mind I occasionally look at rental properties, or go on Google Maps and browse a couple of towns and areas, just to get a feel for the place. If nothing else, it satiates my urges to go over there by reminding me that it's not all green rolling hills and gentle cows with a tin whistle playing the Lord of the Rings theme tune just above the sound of the birds tweeting delicately.

That does exist in the UK, but you don't tend to live there unless you're a farmer. Realistically, I'd be living in a town. And that is a depressing reality.

Back in the day, England was viewed how it was in Hollywood movies. Posh rich snobby people drinking tea, or the kind of polite chimney sweepers and charismatic del-boy cockney lads, depending.

It was never really true but true enough that this is how we were viewed internationally. Nowadays, the world sees England very differently.

I see so many videos and memes coming out of countries like the US, China and Europe mocking us for being irrelevant, depressing, and Middle Eastern. London isn't really associated with patriotic music over Union Jacks anymore, but strange foreign music, knife crime and drill rap.

It's sad to see how far the country is falling, and how far it yet has to fall before it hits rock bottom.

So when I'm looking around towns for the possible imagination of living there, I'm trying to find a place that is modern and lively, but also not just depressingly terrible. Apparently, you can't have both!

The Barbershop Trio

This phenomenon is actually quite incredible. It sounds a bit conspiratorial when they talk about it on the media, but there is apparently a sharp rise in Barbershops, Vape shops and Nail salons across the entire country. People are talking about them being fronts for various money launderings, as they all have a lot of things in common: Cash only, Turkish owners, empty all day every day, and all clumped together in the high streets of every given town. And I mean every given town.

It's seriously mad how this is not an exaggeration. I just checked out Bristol on street view, and then moved over to Reading for a browse of their downtowns. They're identical, for a start. But what's worse is there's barely a single street view photo that doesn't include one of those three.
Here's Reading:

Nails, Nails, and Vape. First frickin street view shot I saw.

Here's Bristol:

Barbershop, Barbershop. I think I clicked one time to travel a few metres before seeing this.

A single street might have half a dozen barber shops all in a line! It's ridiculous. How much hair needs to be cut in a given day??

Here I'm gonna do it again right now:

Random town: Grantham

Zooming into the high street, I admit I needed to click one step forward in street view before I saw this:

Boom

Nail Salon, Barbers, and Nail Salon, all in a row!

Random town: Lincoln (I very briefly lived here many years ago)

Zooming into the high street...

Boom

Nail Salon, Hair Salon - FIRST shot I zoomed into. Awkwardly they're opposite sides of the street so I can't get in one screen grab:

It's just absolute madness.

So yeah, this is basically all UK towns are now. People getting their their cut and nails done while smoking vapes 24/7.

So where do I go?

Why do I feel like I have to choose somewhere like this if I had to move over there? If I live outside the towns you end up in the terraced house areas where there's nothing but pizza takeaways and knife crime.

Manchester?

Weirdly, this place keeps calling my name. I don't know why. I associated it with homeless people, being stabbed, and old factories converted into depressing, concrete apartments.

But at the same time, I've only ever been there 1 day in my life, helping a friend move in to a place so it's not like I know the place.

But I keep hearing good things. My wife's cousin said it's good which made my ears spin. A real human opinion is really helpful.

A bit of research shows it is cheaper than London - although pays less obviously - and is really the new up and coming powerhouse of things like tech and design (my wife's forte) and music (mine).

It might not have much green in the downtown area but it's hardly a few minutes on a bicycle to get to quite surprisingly natural parks and spaces. Barely a half an hour drive to the East and you're suddenly in the Peak District - a vast landscape of natural beauty second only to the Lake District further North:

Literally 35 minutes drive from the City Centre.

It's quite bizarre to me but Manchester might actually be the place to be. Finding a home there that isn't the quintessential picture of depression, however, is another thing entirely.

Of course, there's always London if I want to bleed my savings away in 2 weeks on a one-bedroom studio apartment shared with 9 other people. Maybe?