Who is Farhan Lalji?

The Bee has started a blog about our move and two posts in she’s definitely proven she’s the writer in the family – I can’t believe she’s written about how we’re using stolen cutlery! Crazy to think after a combined 14 years in London (my eight and her six) we’ll be leaving for the hills of Switzerland.

Eight and a half years ago I came to London with little more then a dollar (actually I came with about 50K CAD in debt, thanks OSAP) and a dream. Even though I’m really looking forward to leaving London, there are a lot of things I will miss, off the top of my head:

• The cool areas and discovering at least one new area every year
• The parks, Hyde, Regents, Primrose Hill, great for picnics, kite watching, and general “veg”- ing out when the weather allowed (which wasn’t often enough)
• Borough market and flower power brownies
• The free museums, especially when the budget was tight or friends were visiting (especially the Tate, the National Portrait Gallery, and The V&A)
• The people, Londoners are a special breed; it took me about 16 months before I really felt like one
• Great restaurants, forget whatever you’ve heard about English cuisine, the food is brilliant from the restaurants of big name chefs to the chains to the local cafes.
• The tech, biz and media communities - it may not be wall st or the valley but can’t think of another place that has so many diverse vibrant communities

The not going to miss list is much shorter – the weather. I’ve got the man flu right now and I’m sure it’s because the rain/sunshine mix is so unpredictable. London has two seasons rain and more rain.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I feel more at home here in London then I have anywhere else in the world. It’ll always have a special place in my life and one that I can’t see being taken.