I love this place, love my new position at the Sustainable Housing and Urban Studies Unit at the University of Salford. It’s been crazy though. Moving two suitcases of things up from Bristol on the Friday, first two days of work on Monday, Wednesday off to Malta for the Cities as Community Spaces Conference, a week of work, been to London yesterday to remove almost all my worldly belongings from a dear friend’s East London attic and to meet the man and van this morning who I met this evening back here (on the train I beat him here by hours) — it has been six months since I have seen everything I own. I can’t wait to place it where it belongs. Tomorrow off to the Snowdonia region of Wales to conduct some interviews, back two days, Sunday off to Merthyr Tydfil for more interviews. Arizona the 16th.

I am tired.

But look at how beautiful Manchester is. From the days I stayed in Stockton to scout out flats, complete with beautiful dog:

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I’ve already had some time to wander through the city, visit the Working Class Movement Library

Visit Engels’ beard

I’ve been here a couple of times before, and written about Salford itself as it’s portrayed in Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood, and of course Engels’ account of Manchester — The Conditions of the Working Class in England.  Its early suburbs were a model for further development, so a little about them can be found in Robert Fishman’s Bourgeois Utopias. When I walk to or from work (a long long walk to take on everyday I am finding, even for me) I pass Elizabeth Gaskell’s house, Mary Barton has been on my list of things to read forever…

But now a bit more unpacking, now that I am finally reunited with all f my things after over six months. If you don’t count the absurd number of books I have very little, but what I have I love very much and I have missed it…Just as I have missed having somewhere that is really home. That I can afford some graciousness here in this amazing city just makes everything that much better.