Just after my 29th birthday I left the city behind for a more rural aspect. The city and I never got along. I grew up in the vast open spaces of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Scotland. Feeling hemmed in and surrounded by way too many people, not to mention the chronic pollution, this move produced a feeling that it was somehow going back to my roots and the natural order of how it all should be. The new house was over an hours drive from the last one in Leeds, West Yorkshire. I soon found that almost all friends had decided it was too much of a chore to visit. Those that did visit the new place made it plain they wouldn’t be making the journey again. Two of the latter were girlfriends who were quite happy to have fun without any huge commitment but not when it involved driving that distance. I suppose you could say that the time, fuel and effort involved in such a sojourn are most definitely a commitment of sorts. A great many of those friendships had been formed through a shared interest you might say of religion. Humans can be quite a fickle animal at times.