You should join her and move back here to blighty. I can say that we've now got a pretty vibrant tech scene here in London and have sources of investment lined up and ready to go.
I feel there is little point in hanging out here as long as it is effectively American only (YC, not the boards).
Hacker News is largely American because it's an outgrowth of YC, which is American Only.
I would hardly think having a website portray a particular provincial bias would be a reason to live somewhere.
Seriously, though, we Brits just hang out wherever the interesting conversations are. That's the beauty of teh interwebz: nobody knows you're not a Yank (until you go off and spell something with an s or an extra u or something silly).
Seriously, though, I've not really noticed not being back in a local "tech cluster" on a day-to-day basis these days (except that when I meet people that aren't in the industry they have NO idea what I do; in the valley, everybody has some clue). Mostly we like to know who each other are so we can all drink together. Tech social functions, like ALL social functions here, involve much beer.