Which is best ?

This is not so much a sentimental hand over the distance which lays between us but a quiet reminder that, it can be attractive here, just as attractive as other parts of the world.  The importance is to think and recognise that difference doesn't necessarily mean one is better - just different !!!

I struggle for perspective. My struggle is of one who has been there, done that so to speak.

Life can be divided up into segments, which in great part relate to age, ones inner vitality and confidence.  
I am at a stage where, old age is the relevant factor, vitality (I wish) and confidence (also fast disappearing). And yet I remember with great fondness the drive and open ended-ness of those years of travel.
The climate, the light, the people and their different methods of living and playing, these were the on going revelations that never once induced me to look back over my shoulder.




Yet as I sit here in England and tap tap this message I look back and ask myself were these places better or just different. 




When I return to South Africa I return as a stranger. The old has been replaced with something different and whilst the material pieces on the set are largely the same, the interplay between the people has altered. No amount of warmth or light would tempt me back because the other ingredients, trust and security are missing.


Australia I didn't know, like I knew SA but it had many of the same ingredients.   It has an open society that has great self belief and has the vigour to pursue its ends. It has the space to provide each Aussie with the sense that they own their piece of the country and are not hemmed in by the incessant need to share the resource of space and time with so many others. You are your own man !

Of course this comes at a cost. There is a lack of "subtly" in the overall arrangement. The bonds that exist in the Italian or the Greek communities are there but are coarsened by there connection with the Anglo Saxon lack of respect for things, other than money and success.


In Europe the European society had grown through an organic readjustment to times and circumstances, each period leaving behind a flavour of the past.   It is this flavour that is so beguiling, it is rich in the sense of a developed culture which has fostered societies that are unique.The fervour of a person from the Mediterranean is considered in their love making, and their consideration of "time" as something they own, not the company that would own them ! 


 Northern societies are much more conformist, much more militaristic in their willingness to put off personal pleasure and be willing to entertain a plan,someone "else's" plan. The ideologies are poles apart but make rich pickings for someone to explore. 

As I become, more and more, an observer the texture of my surroundings becomes more important. The English countryside is rich and complex. It comes with a more benign relationship to the man or women who is enjoying it. The scale is complementary to the humans ability to get around.





 No three day exposure to heat and drought, no particularly poisonous reptile or insects to compete with and there's always a pub within reasonable distance !!!