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There was a documentary on "Terry Wogan's Ireland" on TV last night. At one point he quotes his father's saying (concerning the Potato Famine and the period of mass emigration), "You can't eat the scenery".
Cornwall Council also has this stark (and saddening) message on a similar topic:
"What is it like to live in Cornwall? You can't eat the view".
I hope that in future it won't be necessary for the Corfiot authorities to start issuing similar warnings and reality checks to potential expatriate settlers/incomers, and to people thinking of going to live and work in Corfu.
Relocation or residential tourism may not be the best economic solutions for everybody, whether in Cornwall or in Corfu.
You can't eat the view.
But maybe life is more tolerable, even without a good income and a satisfactory standard of living, if one does enjoy a good view or beautiful natural surroundings?
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It's not quite the point but all year I celebrate the view towards Epirus from Corfu - when I'm there and when I'm not. It took me a while to grasp that this and all the other beautiful places I know mean nothing but for those with whom I share them. Lose child, partner, friend, good neighbour and the most heavenly landscape is without solace.
ReplyDelete.. let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain
Thanks for that, Simon. I agree with your comment.
ReplyDeleteI tried to explore some related thoughts in my book on the islands and Epirus, which has as series substitle "Landscapes of the Imagination".
Yes of course you do. When we saw the cottage w ine bought the Forest of Dean we stood in the middle of waist high grass near a run down place up a hill with no road access. I just stood there and turned to Lin "I love it" she said echoing what I had only thought. And we still do. The same in a different way applied to our decision to make a home for half the year in Ano Korakiana. Durrell spoke of leaving Greece as an 'amputation' for which all Epictetus was inadequate. Indeed. Isn't his sweetest book, for all its landscapes, about the friends he made in Corfu?
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