Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
1st October 2017
Extremism is no good, especially in world politics. Whilst Corbyn hails the UK unions' strength, Macron launches the opposite in France. "Concrete and major measures," said Macron, overhauling France's complex labour laws to tackle mass unemployment and make France more competitive globally. Of course, the French unions don't like it. It will reduce their hefty influence and end the jobs-for-life culture that Macron says is a brake on economic growth. Just like the UK argument: Labour v Conservative. Remember the 70s, when Union leader Scargill was at his height? I certainly do. Sitting at home, 9 months pregnant, with no electricity or heat and outside no rubbish collections or even burials. I wonder how many in the UK know the salaries of top Union leaders like Len McCluskey? Whilst apparently sympathising with his members' pay freeze he awards himself a pay rise of 3.7% to over £140,000 p.a. I always mistrust their motives: are they really trying to help workers, or merely wanting to sustain their own personal power? Union leaders should never gain so much strength that they are effectively running the government. I hate extremism of any kind: far right (Hitler) or far left (Communism). What the UK needs is a Macron-type centrist government.
13th March 2016
Frank Sinatra sang It's so nice to go travelling. Judy Garland sang Over the rainbow....
When I wrote Pensioners in Paradis I told of the joys of moving to France. Oh the sunshine, le bien manger and la qualite de la lumiere. And it was all those things and more. But, 11 years later I'm older and wiser. In all that time it's been like a wonderful, extended holiday, enjoying all the material things of life. But, what of the immaterial, the spiritual, the inner contentment, the feeling of home? Gradually, petit a petit, I've felt a growing feeling of loneliness, and a strong feeling that people were visiting for the place rather than to see us. We've met some nice French people over the years but somehow there's been a lack. We've been living in a tiny, English bubble in the middle of a foreign land. But once recognised, how on earth to correct it? UK property prices were all against us, Bruno's still (at 13) fighting fit and certainly couldn't live in a flat. Well, at last I've found somewhere where bungalow prices are low and, a stroke of luck, if we sell our house and large back garden separately - the land price here in Gaillac is much sought after - it's just enough. So, yes we're on the market. Watch this space as the saga unfolds.
.........but it's so much nicer to go home.
When I wrote Pensioners in Paradis I told of the joys of moving to France. Oh the sunshine, le bien manger and la qualite de la lumiere. And it was all those things and more. But, 11 years later I'm older and wiser. In all that time it's been like a wonderful, extended holiday, enjoying all the material things of life. But, what of the immaterial, the spiritual, the inner contentment, the feeling of home? Gradually, petit a petit, I've felt a growing feeling of loneliness, and a strong feeling that people were visiting for the place rather than to see us. We've met some nice French people over the years but somehow there's been a lack. We've been living in a tiny, English bubble in the middle of a foreign land. But once recognised, how on earth to correct it? UK property prices were all against us, Bruno's still (at 13) fighting fit and certainly couldn't live in a flat. Well, at last I've found somewhere where bungalow prices are low and, a stroke of luck, if we sell our house and large back garden separately - the land price here in Gaillac is much sought after - it's just enough. So, yes we're on the market. Watch this space as the saga unfolds.
.........but it's so much nicer to go home.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
