Am I a Londoner?

I was going to write a couple of posts along the lines of "5 Things..." about what I'm going to miss about living in London and what I'm going to like about living in Hemel Hempstead.

The second of those is pretty easy. There's the fresher air that will come from living just a couple of hundred yards from open fields, the spectacular 180 degree view from our bedroom across the valley to the hills rising on the other side, having a good selection of shops close by without having to go to Oxford Street or Brent Cross, the ease with which we'll be able to go into the town when we want to and escape from it when we need to plus a whole myriad of smaller reasons.

On the other hand, I can't think of much at all that I'll miss about living in London. The only thing that will definitely be worse in Hemel is public transport. It's very fashionable to complain about London transport but when you stop and think about it, on the whole it's actually pretty good. Currently I have various options for getting home which can involve the tube, the train and several bus routes. Generally, it's all reliable, quick and frequent. If there are problems on one route then another is okay. It's also relatively cheap (assuming you have some form of season ticket)

In Hemel, there will be a single bus route that goes anywhere near our house. It will take me to the station and the town centre but only runs every twenty minutes and will cost about a quid a time (even for the three minute journey to the station) so it's pretty much out of the equation for regular use.

Other than that, and a couple of local pubs that I like, there isn't anything I'm going to miss about either Finchley or London.

I guess that means I'm not really a Londoner after all.