[Dawn]

It would appear that I upset you when that wasn't my intention. You have every right to display anger if anger is what you feel, you shouldn't apologise for it. Maybe you feel disappointed and let down that NZ wasn't what you wanted it to be, maybe that means that you have to re-evaluate your future and what you want from it. I don't know whether you had set your heart on NZ or whether you were just considering it as a possibility and so I can't comment on your situation. But it does seem to me as you write so vociferously, that this has hit you quite hard.

You're obviously a high earner in the UK which is very fortunate for you and your family, you've come to expect a certain 'standard' of life, and that's great but your expected standards are not necessarily other peoples and you are wrong to assume that the same things that matter to you matter to others. By suggesting that most of the people on this site are blinkered you are assuming a lot of things about a lot of people that you don't know.

I'm sorry that you feel so bad about yourself as to think that you look like an old hag without cosmetics, I'm sure you don't, I for one don't need the superficial hype of some multi-million corporation to make me feel better about myself. I used to, then I got divorced, did some soul-searching and got to grips with what I really didn't like about myself that I thought I could cover up externally and hide behind - saved myself a whole shed load of money too.

Many, many people live in poverty in the UK, more in fact than the whole population of NZ. They too work just to pay the bills and have nothing left, they too can't afford to leave the country on holiday, they too struggle to feed their kids, I don't think the factories that most of them work in offer superannuation either, they too have no choice but to accept a shit life. I know these things are true because I work with the kids from these families every day and I see the consequences of such a life.

I know we all need money, I didn't suggest that we can have a life without it, what I did suggest is that we should spend it with a little more integrity because for every pound you have there are many more people that don't and we'd all do well to think about more than ourselves and our own little (in the grand scheme of things) lives.

You've made up your mind about NZ gossage and you have every right to say and feel the things that you do. Many of the people on this site already in NZ are discovering some of the same things that you did, others have discovered things about themselves that they didn't know that have made them stronger people, others have found themselves a better way of life that makes them happier and more fulfilled even with less money and fewer 'things'. Everybody's trials, failures and achievements should be respected because there is not one of us anywhere who is any more deserving than anyone else.