Thumbs Up for the North

Thumbs up for Lancaster

After 25 years (or two life sentences) I now have an address in the North once more. I moved to Hereford for work, intended to stay 5 years at most and ended up spending a quarter of a century there!
Before moving to the graveyard of ambition I lived in Bolton, Preston, Carlisle and Salford and I've been waiting to get back to the North-West for quite a while.  So, what does Lancaster have that Hereford doesn't? Here's what I've noticed so far:

• Proper pubs with landlords who know how to look after the beer.
• Houses built from stone.
• Buses that run four times an hour, not four times a day (or week!)
• Shop assistants who call you "luv"
• Rain
• Cycle lanes that are all linked up and don't disappear when you most need them.
•  And, of course, Navigable water in the form of the Lancaster Canal.

Starcross will be staying at Norbury Junction though, at least for the foreseeable future: I don't fancy doing the Ribble Link every time I want to go anywhere, but I'm going to have my hands full getting the new house how we want it so I may not have too much to post about for a while.