Winton Weekend this year was one of the best. There was a great atmosphere. The city just swelled with graduates from the University, and the bars and clubs at night felt really busy, and gave a great buzz to the city centre.

For those of you who haven’t got a clue what I’m on about, Winton Weekend is a two-day celebration held every February as an exciting festival of sport and re-union for those graduates of the University of Winchester or its previous incarnations. Graduate team members are known as ‘Wintonians’, and those from an earlier era remember themselves as ‘Alfie’s’. On top of a huge party on the Saturday night, the weekend includes sport matches between current teams and Wintonians.

For me, it brings to life one thing I passionately remind everyone – if you’ve ever lived in Winchester, there are very few places quite like it. Every person I spoke to passionately exclaimed how much they loved being back, declaring their love for all things Alfie and saying how much they missed being in Winchester. That might be because they have been reminiscing about their university days before responsibility and mortgages took over their life, but I have a feeling it’s because the city is genuinely quite a unique and special place.

I’d argue that all cathedral cities do tend to have a particularly special atmosphere about them, perhaps because of the architecture and history mixed with contemporary features, but I feel very much drawn to Winchester, and am very happy to call it home.

I meet a lot of people who have lived here all their lives, and have this burning desire to move away, but then I constantly find loads more that have moved out, and have returned, sometimes within months. If anything, I would say as a city, it draws people in however odd that may sound.

So, to those who sit there cursing the one way system in town, the lack of a budget supermarket, or the fact they see friendly faces they know every single time they walk out of the front door, moan all you like, if you do finally move away, you will soon be back.