'A new life in Oz' .... not!

[Guest guest36187]

Sorry Gill have you been on the sherry?

 

Only poor people would enjoy what Australia can offer? I'm sorry (and I do like you, you add alot to PIO etc) but you sound like a bloody snob.

 

I can understand and agree to a point that people who are not living in the best areas can do better in Australia if they apply themselves, but doesn't that mean, that Australia has better opportunities for people to get ahead in life?

 

I'm not saying Australia is better than the UK it's just a different way of life, maybe that way of life doesn't suit you?

 

As for your sister good on her, it just sounds like she put her personal happyness above wealth. Money is not the be all and end all, give me a loving family and a healthy and happy house and I'm richer than anyone you know. :wubclub:

 

Well said Geoffrey. It is a different way of life. I came from a good life, house, job etc in the UK but I have a better life here. Its richer in different ways. You`re so right Geoff, personal happiness is so much better than wealth!

 

Good on ya mate. They are my kind of ideals! I`d rather more time with my husband and family than a stack of money.

 

(Not saying money will never be welcome!!!)

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Thanks Gill, you have just jogged my memory. I spent all day yesterday trying to remember the name of a wonderful place i used to go diving - it was Lulworth Cove, Kernow got me reminiscing with his/her fudge post, I remember buying a huge slab of it to take home - bootiful....

BTW is Lulworth Cove the one where you have to drive through the ex army training village (very eerie)

 

Hi Aldo

 

Lulworth Cove is one of the most beautiful spots that I have ever been to in the UK (and it is part of the Lulworth Estate, qv my sister, though James is a younger son!)

 

I've been swimming in the Cove. I didn't know that there is any diving there? I've never been diving in the UK because everybody seems to say it involves diving on wrecks, which is an idea that frightens me. I don't even like swimming underneath a boat that is on the surface, though. My own idea of scuba diving involves coral reefs and tropical fish, which is probably too tame for serious divers.

 

The village you describe is called Tyneham.

 

Pictures- The lost village of Tyneham, Dorset

 

I agree that it is an eerie place. I was told (by my OH about 20 years ago, who may not have been right but he took me there and I just accepted what he said) that the village was deliberately evacuated during the War because of the Lulworth Firing Ranges, which I suppose must have been established at the same time. The firing ranges are still used for Army training, so I suppose that is why the village has never been re-populated.

 

Since you live in Spain, though, have you ever visited the Valle de los Caidos, near Madrid?

 

Valle de los Caídos - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Just the photo of the entrance gives me the shivers. OH knew about it because he had lived in Spain at one stage and we went to the Valle de los Caidos about 20 years ago when we were driving through Spain. We could see the cross from miles away and OH said that it is the largest cross in Christendom. He also said that the distance from the door to the altar is said to be a mile. It is a huge, underground cathedral that was blasted out of the rock, inside the mountain. OH said that 50,000 people, mainly Franco's prisoners of war, had died in various explosions and accidents whilst it was being built. I think that the mountain is almost all granite.

 

Inside it was very beautiful, very tranquil and spotlessly clean. I saw at least 30 elderly Spanish men wandering around, many in tears and all of them very deep in thought about something. I didn't know whether they had been involved with building it, or whether loved ones of theirs had died whilst building it or what but I felt that it was more of a monument to the dead than any sort of a statement about a Christian God.

 

Several nuns seemed to be in charge of looking after the place so I got chatting with one of the nuns, who spoke fluent English (which was just as well since I can speak French but not Spanish.) I told her, "This is a tragic place. If there is such a being as God, I am certain that He would not have wanted people to die solely to build this place." She said quietly, "But now that it has been built, we have to look after it because otherwise those people died in vain."

 

I realised that she was right. As a first time visitor, I was stunned by the story of human suffering and tragedy. The nun could see beyond the initial distress - which I reckon that every visitor to the place would feel - in order to try to make something positive out of an idea that I felt had been totally misguided of Franco, whose brainchild it was, apparently.

 

The only thing I know about the Spanish Civil War is that it happened. I literally don't know anything else about it except that Franco seems to have been involved. However I was told that most people only ever visit the Valle de los Caidos once in their lives because once you have been there, you never forget it and you don't really need to visit it again.

 

It was a monument to tragedy, suffering and death, which was completely at odds with its sheer beauty, tranquillity and the God that the place represents. I suspect that everyone who goes there feels the same contradiction.

 

Cheers

 

Gill