I LEFT LONDON YEARS AGO, AND I’M STILL JEALOUS OF FRIENDS WHO CAN AFFORD TO STAY
It’s been four years since my partner and I left London for Somerset. Four years of a house with a large garden – the type we could have never afforded had we stayed in SE15. Four years of clean air, space and unlocked bikes in the garden that are still there in the morning. We had our son here, and there are more farms with children’s play areas than you could shake a Tractor Ted at. Our street is quiet. Our neighbours are our friends.
We can walk into the small city where we live, see great theatre or dance to Patti Smith, eat at a great restaurant, and be in bed for 10.30 pm. We spend Saturday mornings scrambling up unspoiled gorges to drink in breathtaking views before finding a country pub where no booking is required.
This is what we swapped London for. But I miss London.
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And sometimes I miss it so much that it feels like heartache over a former lover, envy at the life they are enjoying without me, and envy of anyone else who gets to be in their orbit.
London provokes envy. Living there is more expensive than ever; wealth and status weave through the city’s arteries like Lime bikes. Many of those who stay only do so because of rich parents. I feel a pang of envy every time I see my friend’s three-bed just off Newington Green, which her father bought her. London’s always harboured the wealthy, but once there was room for the rest of us, too. That feels like it’s changing.
Yet aside from rich parents, the things that make me jealous of London dwellers aren’t necessarily the obvious ones.
I still attend many of the art shows at the capital’s incredible galleries. I see more theatre now than I did when the West End was a bus ride away. Shopping in physical shops is my idea of hell. Apart from a Christmas stroll through Liberty’s, there’s absolutely nothing I miss about Oxford Street, Covent Garden or even, increasingly and sadly, Soho. I’ve always loved a pub more than a bar, and Somerset has an excellent list of those. There are hip, buzzy restaurants in the small villages a short drive away from our house.
Yet my love affair with London was never about the things I did; it was about how it made me feel.
I miss the energy. The life. That intangible quality that infects the air and gets into your lungs, your bloodstream, your bones, until ultimately capturing your heart. That feeling which pulsates through any great city, but especially one as old and creative and couldn’t-be-any-where-else as London. I wish I could still feel that on my skin every morning, reminding me not only where I am but who I am.
I wish I still had access to both more like-minded people and the great diversity. I’m jealous of my friend’s children who will grow up surrounded by different languages, cultures and ways of being and living. I wish my little boy could play on the Southbank with one of the best cityscapes in the world as a backdrop. I miss the inspiration and joy provoked by the sartorial delights that can be witnessed on a simple tube ride.
I’m jealous of those who could afford to stay in the place they’d spent years building their lives and communities and careers, who haven’t been through the daunting and lonely process of starting over. I miss having a network of interesting contacts who I’d meet for coffee or bump into at an event. Succinctly put, I miss being at the centre of the universe.
And I’m jealous of those who have found a way – even when London friends say they barely leave their borough and wish the local park wasn’t covered in dog s**t. With the constant social media highlight reels, in which people document their Zone 3 house renovations without any indication of how they afforded a £1.5million property, or their day running around Camberwell or Cannobury with three kids, a dog and a bike, like some sort of millennial fever dream, it’s hard not to feel envy. How can they make this work? Should we have stayed? Compromised? Found a way?
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Every morning, after my son has woken and I’ve brought him into our bed, I ask him if the sky is pink. He clambers over the covers, hops off the end of the bed and slips between the curtains. One of the reasons we bought our house is the view. We’re at the top of a very steep hill. To the right is the city of Bath: you can see a cluster of houses and the spire of the cathedral, which looks like a postcard, especially after snowfall.
To the left is the valley, a wash of patchwork green as far as you can see. The sky is wide and empty, and the sunrises are spectacular as pink clouds float past our window. In the winter months, mist collects on the rooftops. In the summer, hot air balloons drift by. Compared to the city, the seasons are acutely pronounced. I notice changes daily, and it’s those shifts in the sky, the weather, the nature, which I now feel on my skin each morning – a calming, soothing replacement I’ve learned to love, undoubtedly telling me where I am, even if it still doesn’t feel like who I am. “It’s pink! It’s pink!” my son will yell in delight.
I know why we left London. And I’ve found things that I can’t imagine leaving behind nor depriving my son of. But once you’ve known the centre of the universe, how do you go anywhere else?
2025-09-22T09:51:50Z
