If the authorities are so controlling then how come I have seen the same UK matriculated cars on the road (from the British neighbours) during the past year and a half? Surely the authorities would have scrapped the cars by now and fined the owners?

Spain gets a bit brown come the height of summer. No great surprise. The trees and bushes are still green.

The scrub browning is the price you pay for a hotter, drier climate. The UK is green all over all year, and the price you pay for that is that the climate tends towards the wet, grey end of the scale. You are what a friend of mine would describe as a winter person. You shun heat, and persistant grey skies doesn't seem to bother you.

Me, I'm a summer person. I love the blue skies, the sunshine and the heat, and I found living in the UK with the almost continuous grey skies, depressing beyond belief.

Nowhere is perfect, but for some the grass on the other side really is so much greener. I'm glad you have found somewhere to be that makes you happy. Me, I'm happy here, and happiest of all when the sun is shining.

Absolutely, same here

If you want some green all year round scenery than you can go to the Spanish Atlantic coast. In Asturias the colours are a bright radioactive green, compared to the muddy-green in the UK.

Cádiz province is actually pretty green thanks to the Atlantic rains. I enjoy the change in scenary when we cross the Sierra de Ronda into Cadiz province. You can even notice it in the middle of summer

Yeah, but we specifically moved as far south as we could because the last thing I wanted was lots of rain.

I must admit, I love the green and am prepared to put up with the rain to get it.

However, we live right on the border of Granada and Almeria provinces and Almeria is the dryest place in Europe, so it is a really depressing brown and frazzed in the summer.

The mountains however are beautiful in the Spring, covered in flowers and smelling of thyme and menthol.

My husband needed a few summers of 40 degree heat, so we livd here full-time for five years. I can't stand the heat so we now spend several months in the UK during the summer, where I can get greenery and rain. Then we escape the grey winter (my husband gets SAD by December if he stays) and have the sunshine and blueness that graces southern Spain's skies even for most of the winter.

Make sure you don't get into the same situation this guy did ! - http://www.tumbit.com/blogs/860-nega...ng-the-uk.html

Poor chap!
I was talking to my Mother on the phone a few weeks ago and she was ranting on about the number of Polish that were in Hull and how they were taking over all the shops and setting up their own little country in "our" country. I remended her how she'd visited us in Benidorm () a couple of years ago and how many Brits do exactly the same in other countries........(insert short silence)...."oh, well I suppose you're right" was the reply.

Yeah, I was listening to an expat here raging on about bloody immigrants in the UK who don't integrate and live in urban ghettos of their own kind.

A couple of questions extracted the details that he lives on an urb and speaks **** all Spanish. He also seemed puzzled that I had problems keeping a straight face.

Ah well.

I avoid British bars because I can no longer be bothered to listen to some idiot who has been unemployed for the last 20 years complaining about Poles stealing his job in the UK.

But the Spanish don’t come out of it too well either, if you go into a real Spanish bar in a real Spanish town, and they think that because of your blue eyes and fair hair you don’t understand Spanish, you will hear them discussing Moroccans and even Brits stealing their jobs too.

I blame it on the Mail and the Sun, and the Spanish equivalent.

I think the Polish have been an asset to the UK. They are hardworking and do the jobs that all the layabouts won't do. Unlike the Romanians who just sponge and thieve.

That's a bit like saying all the expats here in Spain live in a British ghetto on the Costa del Sol and eat fish and chip or hamburgers..... and we all know that is far from the truth!

Well yes, but if you only had 5 seconds to describe the situation...

Yes, bit like all the Poles are an asset! There'll always be the exceptions.
Bit from my local paper,

I'm glad I live in a nice place where the many Romanians seem to be quite hard working folk and don't just sponge and thieve and not in a British ghetto on the Costa del Sol and eat fish and chips or hamburgers.

Some of you should try moving.