A few observations on north versus south

Outside the house in the back yard there were still the remains of two outdoor toilets. Plastic wrappers and other pieces of litter thronged the ground. Though it was cold there was a bench and a barbeque as though in expectation of sunnier days. Occasionally stray cats and junkies would make exploratory ventures into the yard at night.

Fencefive liked the north. He felt it easier to be himself, as though being yourself were somehow more acceptable here - and if you were not quite right, damn the consequences. The rows of terraces were somehow more communal than the decadent southern semi, two-up two down, but the ceilings were high and there was room to dream, not like the mean little rooms that he’d lived in in Kent, where everything was packed in, not as though it had been dropped down there by some untidy God but as though it had been designed to achieve an effect like a bizarre game of Tetris. And when everything were ultimately so clustered as to make it impossible for anyone to move, then would it disappear?