Home

Home is wherever my Premier Inn Hotel discount card tells me I am sleeping tonight.

After ten years of leading a charity that I love and having an incredible time, I’ve taken the decision to step out and find something new to occupy my time. So far, so good.

I’m not entirely sure what that shiny new thing is yet. I have hundreds of ideas, no funding and far too many issues that I feel passionate about. I used to write a lot (when I was young and hopeful) and then charity life took over and I stopped (writing and feeling hopeful).

This feels like a good time to take up my favourite pastime again and to use some of the time I spend stranded at various train stations, furiously tweeting Richard Branson or sat delayed in dispiriting European flight departure lounges to write about some of the ridiculous things I see, hear, think and do.

I talk about the north a lot. I love the north, it’s both stunning and stubborn. Frankly I’m hardly ever there and spend far more time in Milton Keynes and Port Talbot – however this blog needed a winsome name and the north is way more evocative than Bedfordshire.

I meet a lot of fascinating people and I often wish I’d written about them and the conversations I have. I’ll start tomorrow.

 

Oh and I have chosen the infamous Guardian-loving picture of the girl in the red coat for this page. Their picture editors use this to symbolise everything northern, everything disadvantaged and also everything negative about the UK.

Says a lot really – its just an energetic kid running down an alleyway.

Come to the north, you’ll see loads of them.