They pay their own income tax. The Falkland Islands are self sufficient and get no funding from the UK. As for defence yes, it's a British protectorate and along with other UK territories it is, and has been defended by UK Forces.

I've just come across an interesting arrangement involving my offshore tax-haven home... Phoning my local bank last week on the local phone number, I found myself talking with someone in Halifax, Nova Scotia. That happened three times - a different person each time. For some unknown reason, none of them could switch me to any bank employee here in Cayman. In the end, I had to email one of them my home landline phone number, and ten minutes later a local (Cayman) employee phoned me and asked me what I wanted.

This is not a grumble about the bank, just an illustration of how "offshore" and "onshore" offices sometimes interact. The bank presumably pays its Canada staff less than its Cayman staff; and somehow the arrangement helps the bank make profits that aren't taxable in Canada. The Nova Scotia government - and maybe the Canadian Federal government too - must be happy to help. Go figure, eh?

Maybe a contract contact centre, who pay Canadian tax, the employees in Canada will be paying income tax in Canada spending their earnings locally in Canada, helping local business and paying sales taxes. Happens the world over.

Yes, of course it does. But usually, high-tax countries such as Canada strongly object to their residents taking advantage of the facilities of offshore tax-havens like Cayman. It amuses me that a Cayman bank is taking advantage of Canada's facilities, that's all.

(In that story about Cayman being Brazil's #1 supplier of oil, maybe the Cayman oil-supplier was a subsidiary of a Canadian company that was dodging Canadian taxes with the assistance of my Caymanian bank!)

Back to Turning Points... Sometimes they go un-recognised at the time. My son and his much-loved girlfriend are about to re-locate to a jungle retreat in a South American country, where they will be part of the staff. The son has a long history of hippie life - on and off - but it's the girlfriend who is leading the way this time. So who knows? Anybody else reading this thread whose child is about to take a real "Life's Turning Point"?

A young friend of mine "hears voices", and has done since her mid-teens. (She's a lovely person, and not stupid at all. We have long and interesting chats from time to time.) It's not nearly as rare as I thought it was. There is an international HVN (Hearing Voices Network - you can Google it) with associations of some sort in many countries. As one would expect, her life took an unpleasant Turning Point back then, and I wonder if any other BE members know someone with this problem.

History has quite a few fellow-sufferers: Joan of Arc and the Virgin Mary are the most famous, and several young Christian girls in miracle-scenarios over the centuries. Even Jesus himself, during his 40 days in the wilderness. I comfort my friend with the fact that pretty much everybody hears voices, only usually in dreams while sleeping. Any useful comments from the readership?

My son and only child (now 48) is a barely-reformed hippie who twenty years ago lived for six months in a rough tree-house platform in Guatemala with a Norwegian girlfriend and her toddler. That was one Turning Point, of course; the latest one has him working (well, "working"...) at a yoga retreat in Ecuador with his current girlfriend, a Polish girl who was formally qualified as a "medicine woman" by the local aboriginals earlier this year. The retreat is a paying venture for adventurous gringos, so BE won't let me post a link. But I guess I can say that it's near the provincial capital of Puyo.

This thread is for Turning Points of all kinds and all people: parents and children included. It's an interesting topic, but this will have to be my last post if nobody else comes to the table. Sigh...

At the age of 48, my son is at last settling down. Marriage will be his last "Turning Point". She is a lapsed Roman Catholic - which is relevant to the story because my mother also married a lapsed RC. Mum's marriage was a wonderful success, despite her in-laws' family giving them a hard time. (Well, giving her a hard time; Dad laughed it all off, and when his cousin and best childhood friend pressed the issue Dad banned him from our house.)

Back then, for us, a "mixed marriage" meant between a Prod and a Mick. Here in Cayman in the Caribbean, the term means between a native Islander and an immigrant ("expat"). Religion, colour and nationality don't come into it. What is it in other places?

I hope I'll be allowed to register one last possible Turning Point of my life... I have moved - temporarily - to a house in South America, in a cosy backwater far, far away from civilisation! My great-grand-children will wonder what the heck did I do here. The answer is "not a lot". When it gets too boring, I'll go back to my currently-rented-out home in Cayman. Sigh. So much to do in life, so little time!

Of course Turning Points don't require exotic adventures in foreign places. Even our parents had their turning points. Not if they married the boy or girl next door, perhaps, but they can't all have done that!

Oh well, it was worth a shot! But the topic of Canadian BE families' Turning Points seems to have run its course, and there's nothing to be gained by beating a dead horse. So this thread might as well close down now. All the best to those who visited. Cheers.