I think we rather hijacked Rich's thread about Great Dixter, but it got sooooooo interesting, it deserves a thread of its own.
The last thing Pip said was:
"I think you made a very valid point Pens. If you are planning to move to a non-English speaking country then you need to learn the language of that country. You also need to learn the culture of the country, not only to avoid offending the natives, but also to understand what is expected of you in order to integrate.
If people took these two steps before venturing forward to a life in another country then it would obliviate a lot of the racial hatred that is prevalent in the world today."
She is absolutely right, of course. However, there are so many Brits in Spain, France etc. that I don't think language is a huge problem. One should, of course, make the effort to learn the culture and language, but I think you can do that by osmosis whilst you are there, so don't let it put you off.
We recently visited friends of ours who have just moved to Spain on a permanent basis and I have to say I can see the allure. They are indeed learning the language, although they don't, strictly speaking (no pun intended), need to on a British type community, but they are doing really well on a day-to-day, asking for what you want, basis. Of course, these are retired folk, which is quite a bit different to moving to a new country as a young person who needs to make a living.
So, the question is (if you're fed up of the UK, and plenty of people are) - whether to go not too far away (Spain, France etc.) or really go for it in Oz or NZ which are great but the seasons are all the wrong was around, to our UK way of thinking.
The last thing Pip said was:
"I think you made a very valid point Pens. If you are planning to move to a non-English speaking country then you need to learn the language of that country. You also need to learn the culture of the country, not only to avoid offending the natives, but also to understand what is expected of you in order to integrate.
If people took these two steps before venturing forward to a life in another country then it would obliviate a lot of the racial hatred that is prevalent in the world today."
She is absolutely right, of course. However, there are so many Brits in Spain, France etc. that I don't think language is a huge problem. One should, of course, make the effort to learn the culture and language, but I think you can do that by osmosis whilst you are there, so don't let it put you off.
We recently visited friends of ours who have just moved to Spain on a permanent basis and I have to say I can see the allure. They are indeed learning the language, although they don't, strictly speaking (no pun intended), need to on a British type community, but they are doing really well on a day-to-day, asking for what you want, basis. Of course, these are retired folk, which is quite a bit different to moving to a new country as a young person who needs to make a living.
So, the question is (if you're fed up of the UK, and plenty of people are) - whether to go not too far away (Spain, France etc.) or really go for it in Oz or NZ which are great but the seasons are all the wrong was around, to our UK way of thinking.
. In fact I am a typical white middle class person myself (father solicitor,
mother teacher, private school education etc etc).
CWM 
); and the adventure of mediterranean
gardening.
They get housing and benifits that locals who need them have to fight hard
to get and that is a awful way to treat your county people ! If we moved to Auss we would have to have a cetrain amount of money and a job to go to or we dont
get in, why cant we imply that measure here ??
