Pies and Prejudice

Hi there, its Millay this time - haven't posted in a while since Andy ran off with the computer to corral bishops, but just thought I would write a few sentences about the past few weeks. After running up and down the country seeing family and attending weddings and suchlike, this has been my first full week in Manchester, being a homebody while searching for work. (I've been much more successful at the former than the latter.)
I'm starting to get a feel for Manchester and so far, it feels good. The past few days have been amazingly hot and sunny and the whole city has spilled outside; all the parks, pub gardens and cafes are littered with locals soaking up the sun while it's here (which I gather is not often). Regardless, this place always seems to be buzzing with something, be it small music and art festivals, a dance performance in Piccadilly gardens, or group after group of bare-thighed ladies out for a hen night on the town.
I'm learning about living in 'The North', a powerful cultural state of mind that is a new and exotic reality for me. Even though I grew up in the Midlands, up here I would definitely be classed as a southern jessie. I'm reading a funny and very enlightening book called 'Pies and Prejudice', written by Stuart Maconie about what makes The North so set apart from the rest of the country.

"Like unicorns or spontaneous combustion, there is no south of England, if we're honest. There's the bottom half of England, naturally, otherwise the country would get all unravelled and damp around Nuneaton. Good or bad, 'the north' means something to all English people wherever they hail from. To northerners it means home, truth, beauty, valour, warm and characterful people and real beer. Square metres of it are crowded, square miles of it are almost deserted. For an area so well covered by cctv, it still says 'Here Be Dragons' on the Daily Telegraph's map of Britain."

Its true that the people are warm. In my short time here I've been addressed as darling, love, luvvie, petal, lass, lassie and duck. How can you not love that?