Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
Mar 31st 2009, 7:16 am
#31
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
If the train journey in question was through the desert - what were you expecting? Volcanos?
British scenery is mostly stunning.
Stunningly dull. Stunningly built-up. Stunningly covered in Beazer and Wimpy homes. Stunningly suffocated by millions of motorcars and trucks.
Small parts of the UK are stunning (north Cornish coast for instance), small parts are pretty (the Cotswolds), but the vast majority of it - what little bit of it that hasn't been concreted over - is duller than a butter knife.
British scenery is mostly stunning.
Stunningly dull. Stunningly built-up. Stunningly covered in Beazer and Wimpy homes. Stunningly suffocated by millions of motorcars and trucks.Small parts of the UK are stunning (north Cornish coast for instance), small parts are pretty (the Cotswolds), but the vast majority of it - what little bit of it that hasn't been concreted over - is duller than a butter knife.
You're obviously not very travelled in the UK then are you. English countryside can be very beautiful and Scotland is stunning. I don't know Wales, personally, but I've seen great photos of the mountains. Northern Ireland has also great beauty. So ...I don't know where you've been???
Mar 31st 2009, 8:11 am
#32
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
You're obviously not very travelled in the UK then are you. English countryside can be very beautiful and Scotland is stunning. I don't know Wales, personally, but I've seen great photos of the mountains. Northern Ireland has also great beauty. So ...I don't know where you've been???
Hutch, where were you? Spaghetti Junction?
Mar 31st 2009, 8:12 am
#33
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
and back to the question.....why are you leaving/have left/want to leave Britain? Has the weather generally got to you, do you see it as a country with no hope, are you just after a change or have the vice squad finally caught up with you?
Mar 31st 2009, 8:20 am
#34
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
I'd love to say it was the vice squad!Better weather to enable us to do more of what we want to do outdoors. Change of life, try something new, more laidback lifestyle & somewhere that the kids can be kids for a bit longer with hopefully more opportunities for all of us.
All sounds a bit whimsical written like that but we did actually put a lot of thought into it, pros & cons etc.
Mar 31st 2009, 8:47 am
#35
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
Mar 31st 2009, 8:49 am
#36
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
How anyone can describe Britain as stunningly dull is beyond me
True, there is ugly urban blight (there is in most countries) but the countryside for the most part is beautiful in a way that only small areas of Australia can compare with - and there are plenty of ugly bits. They may not be built up with lots of buildings, cars and trucks but they are uninspiring in a brown, barren, drought stricken way.
Just think of how many lovely and varied places can be reached in just a couple of hours or less in the UK compared to OZ. No contest!
True, there is ugly urban blight (there is in most countries) but the countryside for the most part is beautiful in a way that only small areas of Australia can compare with - and there are plenty of ugly bits. They may not be built up with lots of buildings, cars and trucks but they are uninspiring in a brown, barren, drought stricken way.
Just think of how many lovely and varied places can be reached in just a couple of hours or less in the UK compared to OZ. No contest!
Mar 31st 2009, 8:51 am
#37
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
Without wanting to get party political, which I loathe, this is one perspective on things.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs
http://youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs
Mar 31st 2009, 9:01 am
#39
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
It's not stunningly built up and dull in the Lake District where I came from - it's beautiful - can't say I have seen anything here in Canberra that comes remotely close!!!
Mar 31st 2009, 9:17 am
#40
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
Which just shows how personal the concept of 'stunning' is. Give me the Peak district any day. In fact one of my happiest moments recently was looking over a muddy misty field in the middle of Brum. Yet I'm aware that the magnificent gum trees at the back of our house here in Sydney are stunning by anyone's standard - yet all they do to me is remind me of how much I miss the oaks, birch and chestnut trees. Nostalgia can be a painful poison.
Mar 31st 2009, 9:22 am
#41
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
Without wanting to get party political, which I loathe, this is one perspective on things.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs
http://youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs
Wow, what an eloquent chap; in fairness we didn't see Brown's response, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be nearly as succinct or make as much sense. I personally worry about the future for our kids in any country that is spending to get out of the recession - taxes are going to be horrendous. I don't however have the answers (presumably if I did I would be paid considerably more than I am) and I would like to have heard his suggestions for a solution. It's pretty easy to be in opposition and shout about how things are being done wrong but not having to worry about the ramifications of any actions taken. Please don't mistake me for someone who supports Labour and I personally think Brown should be hung up by his testicles for his part in how this country has gotten into this mess.
Ref the countryside, I live close to the Cotswolds and can confirm that a worrying amount of it is indeed being paved over. We have a stunning hill (Leckhampton) near us which is a large feature of Cheltenham, but residents are having to trek to the Houses of Parliament to try to stop 40,000 houses being built on it. Much of our countryside is breathtaking, but I do worry about how much will be left in the future.
Mar 31st 2009, 9:53 am
#42
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
How anyone can describe Britain as stunningly dull is beyond me
True, there is ugly urban blight (there is in most countries) but the countryside for the most part is beautiful in a way that only small areas of Australia can compare with - and there are plenty of ugly bits. They may not be built up with lots of buildings, cars and trucks but they are uninspiring in a brown, barren, drought stricken way.
Just think of how many lovely and varied places can be reached in just a couple of hours or less in the UK compared to OZ. No contest!
True, there is ugly urban blight (there is in most countries) but the countryside for the most part is beautiful in a way that only small areas of Australia can compare with - and there are plenty of ugly bits. They may not be built up with lots of buildings, cars and trucks but they are uninspiring in a brown, barren, drought stricken way.
Just think of how many lovely and varied places can be reached in just a couple of hours or less in the UK compared to OZ. No contest!
I shall add stunningly beautiful Sussex to the list heres a huge pile of pics to make anyone homesick
And i shall be wallowing in it next week...yippeeee!!!!!!!
http://www.picturesofengland.com/Eng...ctures/1027955
Mar 31st 2009, 10:39 am
#43
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
We've been here in Oz for an eternity...the longing to return is only stronger. Yes, we've been back; loved it...ok, not the grimy horrible, decrepid inner city bits, but the countryside is bloody stunning, the people ARE warm, witty and friendly (mostly) and the weather isn't really that bad is it? So why exactly are so many Brits desperate to get out...what do you see that we don't? Is sunny weather and a lack of Gordon Brown worth the loss of all the other things. Anyone gone back and realised they made a mistake? Honestly interested to learn more...
And have seen the other side to living in a warmer country and feel instead of coming and going all the time we would like to live and settle in that environment of living.
And also having a health condition that needs the warmth, feel that as age is creeping up on us the time is right to move.
Mar 31st 2009, 10:50 am
#44
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
Wooo - plenty of knickers in twists. Always nice to see ....
And you're obviously prone to making sweeping assumptions about people you know bugger all about. I've been all over the UK - it has its moments, but it's not the be all and end all, is it. You've never been to Wales - but you've seen photos. I know Wales well - my kid brother lives on the Gower Peninsula - surely one of the most over-rated and utterly average parts of the whole UK.
Dorset. Ermm, yea - so that'll be fields and hedgerows then. According to Wikepedia, the county is "mostly grassland and some arable agriculture". As I recall the only vaguely interesting bit of Dorset is the coastline and even then it's pretty tame with the odd pretty bit (Durdle Door). The Lake District? Give me strength - dull lakes, dull tourists and the thrill-ride that is the Cumberland pencil museum. The Yorkshire Dales - more fields and hedgerows.
It's not just the urban blight though is it. It's a country that's utterly choked by the internal combustion engine - cars, vans and trucks. If - by some miracle - you actually manage to make it to scenic beauty spot through the traffic-jammed grid-locked road-worked contra-flowed road system, you can guarantee you'll have to share your magical moment with several hundred other gawpers. And what is this variety you're talking about? Vaguely different arrangement of fields does not constitute variety.
You're obviously not very travelled in the UK then are you. English countryside can be very beautiful and Scotland is stunning. I don't know Wales, personally, but I've seen great photos of the mountains. Northern Ireland has also great beauty. So ...I don't know where you've been???
I know Wales well - my kid brother lives on the Gower Peninsula - surely one of the most over-rated and utterly average parts of the whole UK. The Yorkshire Dales - more fields and hedgerows. How anyone can describe Britain as stunningly dull is beyond me
True, there is ugly urban blight (there is in most countries) but the countryside for the most part is beautiful in a way that only small areas of Australia can compare with - and there are plenty of ugly bits. They may not be built up with lots of buildings, cars and trucks but they are uninspiring in a brown, barren, drought stricken way.
Just think of how many lovely and varied places can be reached in just a couple of hours or less in the UK compared to OZ. No contest!
True, there is ugly urban blight (there is in most countries) but the countryside for the most part is beautiful in a way that only small areas of Australia can compare with - and there are plenty of ugly bits. They may not be built up with lots of buildings, cars and trucks but they are uninspiring in a brown, barren, drought stricken way.
Just think of how many lovely and varied places can be reached in just a couple of hours or less in the UK compared to OZ. No contest!
Mar 31st 2009, 11:39 am
#45
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Re: Perhaps an insane question...but why exactly are you leaving?
My God....I love the Gower - the mad shaggy ponies, the walks over the hills, along the coast, ice creams at Oxwich Bay (in summer) or walking along the howlingly beautiful sands in winter. The fact that the villages don't have numbers on the houses and the postman knows each villager by name, the tiny lanes, masses of wading birds on the salt marshes, trecherous paths at low tide, higgeldy pickeldy cottages and stunning sunsets as the sun dips over the edge of the sea....sigh!
I digress....apart from the bloody weather and Gordon sodding Brown, why is everyone leaving, or are they reason enough? Crime, horrid kids, infestations of rabid badgers......????
Someone must have a moment of revelation to discuss...
I digress....apart from the bloody weather and Gordon sodding Brown, why is everyone leaving, or are they reason enough? Crime, horrid kids, infestations of rabid badgers......????
Someone must have a moment of revelation to discuss...