What Salisbury means to me

THIS is an extract from something I wrote several years ago now, when life suddenly changed unexpectedly. We were unsure about whether we’d have to move, and we decided we needed some time out, somewhere sunny, before making any big decisions.
I started a blog about that trip, Home Sweet Motorhome, by trying to encapsulate how I felt about the city I might be leaving behind.
And I just thought I’d share it here now, as it still sums up what I feel is precious about Salisbury and why I’d like to do my bit as an independent councillor. Here goes:

“I find myself standing, staring out of the bedroom window in the dying afternoon over the water meadows to Salisbury Cathedral silhouetted beyond. A thin layer of mist has already risen from the river and sits suspended above the heads of the sheep, otherworldly against the darkening sky. I love this place. 
“How fortunate we have been to have this glorious backdrop to our daily lives, changing with every passing cloud.
“This is, after all, the town – it calls itself a city but it’s on a much more human scale   – where we chose to base our lives with our young children. A place I plumped for in preference to Bath because, as a colleague of my husband’s put it when I sought his advice, ‘Bath is all fur coat and no knickers, but Salisbury is real.’
“I wanted for our boys something I never felt for the London suburb where I grew up – I wanted them to have roots. 
“When people later in life asked them where they came from, I wanted them to know the answer in their hearts. Somewhere that gave them a standard against which they could compare everything they encountered as they set off to explore the world. 
“Not too big, not too small, a self-contained community with some of the finest architecture in the country, with a wonderful cultural heritage.”

And I’ve never regretted it.