Moving to a new city, or a new country as in my case, not only means coming to grips with a different lifestyle, but also trying to make friends.
During my life, I have lived in a few different places. I spent the first 18 years in Redhill, Surrey, but surprisingly I don’t actually have many friends there now.
My parents still live there and I generally know and recognize a lot of people around town from primary school, Brownies, Guides, swimming or church.
But most of my friends have moved away to London or other parts of England.
I went to school in Croydon, which is about half an hour from Redhill, and my sister now lives there but again, most of my school friends now live in other parts of the country, particularly in London.
So it means when I do go back to Redhill to visit, I spend most of my time catching the train up to London. It’s not very far (about half an hour to London Victoria) but it does eat a lot of my money.
After I left school, I spent three years studying for a degree in English literature and creative writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.
Norwich is a beautiful city with a cathedral dating back to 1096. My friends and I had a wonderful three years getting to know it but then we all moved away.
Now if I went back to Norwich, I would only know one person. My friend Suzie was the only one of us who opted to stay in our university town.
I then went to Cardiff University for a year to study for a post-graduate diploma in journalism. Our course was very tight knit and I made some very good friends.
A lot of these friends did stay in Cardiff for quite some time after we left so it was fun to go back and visit the capital of Wales, but now most of them live in London.
My first job was at the Grimsby Telegraph. Grimsby is a fishing town in North East Lincolnshire.
Being a journalist, it was easy to make friends. The reporters were about the same age as me and we all went out together at the weekends and to pub quizzes in the week.
I enjoyed getting to know an area of England I didn’t know very well and will always be fond of Cleethorpes for its lovely fish and chips. In fact, I may dedicate a later column to this topic.
I’ve kept in touch with my housemate and fellow reporter Katie. She has long since left Grimsby. After a stint, coincidentally in Cardiff, she has now retrained as a paramedic and is working in London.
I then moved to Shrewsbury to work on the Shropshire Star and again, all the reporters were the same age and quickly welcomed me into their clan.
We’ve had countless fun, classic and hard working moments together — everything from complaining about spending the weekend working to practically a whole year of hen-dos (translation — stagettes) and weddings.
So basically, I have friends spread all over England and now I’ve moved to Canada, I have friends across the world.
My fellow reporters Carter and Lyndsey have been great at introducing me to their friends and I’ve met people through 15 Wing and my work at the paper.
In fact, this week I hosted my first girls’ night. They basically work on the same principle as those in England — good food, a good film and wonderful company.
Rebecca Lawrence can be reached at 691-1258.
