Anniversary in Manchester
29 November 2025A year ago today was the first time I stayed in my Manchester apartment which was right in the middle of two months of upheaval which involved a few weeks in temporary accommodation, not really knowing how my new life situation would pan out. It had its mix of sense of adventure alongside ups-and-downs but overall one thing is certain: No matter how things are cut Manchester was and remains an outpost rather than “home” with any sense of permanency. The place has proved itself as somewhere to be for work but so far building up a social life has been abortive and hence yet to earn itself as a place to live.
To be fair there was a lot to sort out compared to 2014 and the world as a whole is a far less favourable place, so maybe some of my ambitions were unrealistic. Had this article not been an in-the-works draft over the last year I probably would have forgotten most things, let alone put any thought into them as they drifted by.
Getting on with life
The start of the year was effectively the start of a new life following the back-end of the previous year in temporary accommodation and the first quarter was dominated by the basics of getting accommodation sorted. Back in 2013 taking a car-full of stuff on the ferry pretty much got everything sorted but with Manchester for better or worse it was taking things up in dribs and drabs on the train, and the apartment aside from furniture was missing almost all the things that my previous rental places had included as standard. It also did not help that rather than the dry and unusually warm mid-autumn of 2013 it was the dark depths of a cold winter when everything was having to be sorted out, and there seemed to be far more set-back compared to overseas.
There was the new city novelty but in the grand scheme of things there is not really that much to be nostalgic about, particularly as it is not anything like the post-emigration starting over done twice in the past. In reality the ‘eventfulness‘ of this quarter was really a choir and was most notable for how much time was spent in Manchester compared to the rest of the year. Perhaps of the whole year it is the only time I really enjoyed being in the place.
The middle quarters
Between Easter, the spring bank holiday, a conference, a long-standing as well as long overdue appointment, and a spontaneous whistle-stop weekend, the result was being away from Manchester for a signifiant portion of the second quarter. This included six of the fourteen weekends which were mostly invested in finally sorting out some of the things related to the London apartment that had been gathering dust, a huge increase that was mostly due to being able to take the train rather than flying, and conversely had a stop-start effect on everything up in Manchester so unlike earlier in the year the northern life amounted to semi-settled day-to-day things rather than anything noteworthy. With the passing of company probation was the start of obtaining a normality that had been becoming a distant memory, particularly with a distinct lack of confidence which proved to be unfounded.
Just like a decade ago the nearest thing to an on-going personal project was gym activity although it was haphazardly adhered to at times, only really getting into and staying in gear towards the end of July. With the majority of August including all but one weekend spent down south, Manchester was at best only half-heartedly being treated as a place to live as opposed to just work, which was not helped by logistical infeasability of relocating things like my electronics kit as well as a decision that stuff lying around unused should be returned. In short things in Manchester were kept to a limited functional subset and the trend accelerated when it turned out that things kept there were not where they needed to be when rebuilding technical infrastructure.
An exception was the mid-August rearranging and general clean-up of the apartment which was most notable for the addition of a project workbench and altogether felt transformational. The black-out curtain had been put up when it was dark & cold but opening the area up coincided with some of the best days of summer so it also made a massive difference to the general feel of the room. Even with five months of tenancy remaining there had been contemplation of moving, but August was the point where the idea of actually moving at the end of the tenancy was finally buried, and with newly-started projects felt a lot better about being around the place. The August bank holiday week was the first proper holiday and a lot of issues outstanding finally got closed off.
The LCD timer enclosure project was virtually complete by the end of this bank-holiday week and a follow-up thermocouple readout project did not go ahead due to problems with components, with no new projects then being thought out in part due to the mess that milling plastic created. I suspected mild irritation was down to residual plastic shards and dust which after a scrub-down disappeared so the previous project work was done for, as from this point on it was considered an outside-only activity which could not be done here so the equipment was taken away. Only the presence of a company event in the latter half of the month made that weekend the first time since thre start of June that two weekends in a row were spent in Manchester, with the place being essentually relegated dormitory status with the majority of weekends spent away.
By this point it was Manchester where choirs were stacking up as the backlog in London was edging towards being cleared, and any prospect of developing a social base before the year was out had in practice been written off. A bout of very wet weather at a time when days had also quickly turned cold and dark did not help. The vast majority of annual leave was unspent and all motivation was to spend spare days down south. Gym attendence was back to square one and the month ended up being un-memorable aside from a flooding of the office which I was not around for.
The final sprint
October was the end of the year as far as the company client contract was concerned so aside from a rescheduled event in London on a Thursday the month was kept clear, but overall it was much like the previous quarter in having little that was either special and/or different. The first two weekends were both spent away with the trend of moving stuff back to London and during these visits finally fixed a long-standing issue with the Berkhamsted office: A broken ethernet wire that limited speeds to 100 megabit. Had previously removed a large section of the slack in the attic but in the end the break turned out to be right on the socket.
Project deliverables
The rest of the month was a hard slog to close out contract deliverables, with the three weeks being the longest continious stay in Manchester since Febrauary–March. The deliverable involved development board bring-up so for once was able to have hardware directly on my desk but the scope of the task was extremely ambitious and what counted as meeting deliverable requirements was not entirely clear. All this not helped by discovering that the hardware specifications did not meet assumptions baked into system design. For reasons of company confidentality finer details are omitted here but I did wonder why this had not been spotted earler.
This was all at a time when temperatures suddently dropped another five degrees with days becoming even darker and wetter so motivation in general was running low, one casualty of this being giving up on the gym. Was able to get an extension to my tenancy with only a minimal rent rise which was a no-brainer to accept given the hassle of moving and needing to have £3,000 on the nail due to the delay getting previous deposit back, but due to the slowness of getting confirmation I was right on the verge of looking elsewhere. As in only a matter of days. My plan was to have something lined up for signing by the time my next pay-day was due, as this also coincided with a week of leave that would be spent away.