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Manchester is Growing
This site was born in the US (Tennessee), it is run by many people in 4 continents, and it is hosted from London after nearly 20 years being hosted from the US (where Tracy and others did the hosting, sometimes for cheap or for free). Manchester, however, is where most of the curation is happening. Rianne leads the way and I mostly do leftovers, clustering together related news picks which don't merit standalone pages.
We're just over a couple of days away from May and it'll be 22 degrees here later this week. That's considered summery for England and yesterday we spent over 2 hours walking in the sunny streets and observing the skyscrapers being built not far from us. There are almost 10 of them already and more are on the way. We're starting to look a lot more like central London, at least the skyline (Beetham Tower used to be the only very tall building).
We enjoyed the walking and I got a nice tan.
Prior to that, in the morning, I met again a bunch of Estonian tourists and spoke to them (they were there to watch the Manchester United match). They told me that Poland was fast-growing, Sweden and Denmark invested in their country, and Finland was deteriorating, more so in the past couple of years. They also talked about their bad neighbour (Russia) and how their leadership has long warned (2 decades or more) about imperialistic ambitions festering there. That was long before Russian annexed Crimea (2014).
Rianne and I are very happy in Manchester. Rianne knows a lot of people here, I have many routines here (improved over the years, refined to keep living costs low), and our 'pet' birds depend on us for food. They cannot "move", they're outdoors and "free-range". They're OK to feed in residential green spaces (not urban).
Later this year Rianne and I celebrate 15 years since we began dating. █
Also see (this month): Is Manchester considered England's second city? | 'With four jobs in London I couldn't afford rent so I'm going to Manchester'
Image source: Manchester, England on the rise