If you lived here you would be home by now.

A start has an end.

Wine from plastic glasses in the park is no more.

Getting on a train in the morning and eating croissants by lunch by the Musée d’Orsay – no longer.

Chris Martin’s eminently twattable giant face on practically every billboard: over.

Lumpy grey clouds that can’t even be bothered to rain properly, and not seeing the sun for five days: abolished.

Always having to stand on the regular commuter train to the city – extinct.

A regular commuter train to the city – um, also extinct.

Black mould in the bathroom, no insulation and an oven that sets food alight: now passé.

A staff job as a senior copy editor on a national newspaper website – gone (though hopefully not for too long).

Paying tax for nuclear weapons, ID cards, and tennis court heating for Tories: error 404.

Feral town centres after dusk where everybody is either violent, drunk, naked, randy, puking in a drain, or all five: all vanished.

Mail delivered through your door: defunct.

Sunset over Waterloo Bridge – not found.

And the dampness, vibrance, anger, excitement, isolation, overcrowding, rootlessness, atmosphere and unique culture of the city and country I was born in and raised are now all memories in the past.

I have always believed that creation and destruction can’t be separated. To start afresh anew, you have to know what you’ve just cut away. That way, you start to grow again.

Toronto, well, I think I like you so far. Let’s see how we get on.