I’m back in Bristol, my spiritual home, the city I thought I would settle in forever…then left on a whim to move to the other side of the world.
It’s been an emotional experience. Driving our hire car up Park Street I was reminded of how amazing this city is. The Wills Memorial Building at the top of the hill still takes my breath away. While my other half sorted out the paperwork to hand the car back, I stood outside, looking towards the Triangle, tears in my eyes for what I have left behind and what I may never find again.
And it’s not just been nostalgia that’s made me sad on this fleeting visit. Due to my pending unemployment, we have been staying at the Harbourside YHA. Unfortunately so have a group of very noisy German schoolchildren, who appear to have mistaken our corridor for a football pitch. I knew I should have learned to speak German, or at least some swear words.
The chuggers – charity muggers – are still out in force on Clare Street. This morning I was accosted by four separate representatives of Greenpeace as I made my way along the street, which can’t be more than a few hundred yards long. I will never understand how, but even in a recession this direct and intensely annoying approach to fundraising clearly works – just not with me.
More seriously, the city centre is looking a little depleted. The shiny new Cabot Circus shopping centre opened not long before we left, and it is still as shiny and lovely as ever. But it is clear that the recession has had an effect, with Broadmead, the other shopping area in the centre of town, now sprinkled with empty units and cheap outlets where major stores used to be.
I’ve met up with some great friends who did not abandon me when I abandoned them for Australia. I’ve realised that others, who I had thought would still be around, have moved on. We didn’t need all the tables we’d reserved at the pub for our homecoming bash – and I have had to remind my paranoid self that it’s about quality, not quantity.
Tonight we’ll visit our old neighbours and feel resentful of the people living in our old house. Then there’s a curry planned at the Sheesh Mahal, possibly the best curry house in the world. I wonder if the waiters will remember us?
Down under, out west 