19th September

Ever since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden to search for a better life, man has moved around the planet. In today's world, due to vast inequalities in opportunity, work and wealth , this movement has reached epidemic proportions. The trouble is, with no-one to manage this enormous switch of manpower, anomolies occur.
This week the Office of National Statistics in Britain reported that the number of people living in England is now 400 people per sq km and rising rapidly, already quadruple that in France, where we live. But, as you will have read this week, England has taken its position as the most crowded country in Europe at exactly the same time as economic recession has taken hold. So, what on earth can be done? Not every one can desert their country (as we have done!). People's personal circumstances have to be right to contemplate that.
Of course, the British government is trying, at last, to do something about immigration. But everyone is yelling at them: 'it's 40 years too late!'. You only have to go up in a helicopter and look down at such a tiny island to realise that there are far too many people living there. There's no room to breathe. Now, I'm no expert on population density nor on mobility - although I've certainly tried the latter. But, it seems to me that globally there needs to be a group, be it the UN or similar, who can set up work opportunities in countries that have vast tracts of sparsely-populated land - like parts of Africa/Asia/S. America - offering 'carrots' of work opportunities for people to move from over-crowded places to set up homes in these new areas.
But for me and him indoors? After three years, we have never regretted our move to France. It may not have been for work that we moved, but it certainly has produced a better life. Our new home, though modest, is our veritable Garden of Eden and we wouldn't willingly go back to our former crowded island for all the money in China.