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Bournemouth, Dorset, South-West England
Bournemouth (pronounced as 'Bourn-muth'.)
My original hometown where I was born; I spent most of my childhood here.
Many of my maternal and paternal relatives
were born and died here, dating back to past the Victorian era.
Dorset is one of the counties in south-west England
which is known as 'King Arthur's West Country';
which includes the counties of Dorset, Devon, Somerset and Celtic Cornwall.
Bournemouth is a small conservative town on the south-west coast of England.
The Conservative Party hold their annual conference
in Bournemouth every year.
Bournemouth is 90 minutes train ride from London, with award-winning public gardens,
clean and safe beaches, and lots of fun things for children,
so I enjoyed growing up here and have lots of happy memories of the place.
The town is popular with tourists and it has the best beaches in Britain.
Ancient World Heritage sites like Stonehenge,
and also Avebury, Woodhenge, Beaulieu, etc,
are close to reach from Bournemouth,
along with the World Heritage City of Bath with its beautiful Roman Spas,
the New Forest (actually an old forest!)
Corfe Castle (the ruins of a Norman castle on top of a hill,)
Maiden Castle (an ancient Celtic hill fort - the largest in Europe,)
Cerne Abbas Giant,
the UNESCO World Heritage Jurassic Coastline between Dorset and Devon,
(an area showing continuous fossil-findings
and proof of life dating to over 185 million years ago,)
and a world-class sailing location are all nearby in the West Country region,
as well as the English Riviera between Dorset and Devon.
Steam trains still run through some pretty villages in Dorset too.
Folk dancers can be seen sometimes in the villages,
and local bandstands perform in the Pavilion Gardens during the summer season.
Bournemouth has some of the best nightclubs on the south coast.
Lifeguards are on the clean beaches.
Ferry rides and a local airport provides quick rides
to the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey.
There's fun mini-golf courses, horse-riding in the New Forest,
Childrens motor-carting, childrens mini-train rides, childrens mini boat paddling,
windsurfing, paragliding off the cliffs, speedboats, jet-skiing,
childrens adventure parks, an Oceanarium Aquarium,
a swimming pool with a wave-machine in the Bournemouth International Centre,
and there's aerobatic displays in the sky over the sea by the elite RAF Red Arrows,
and also night-glider twister jet planes with fireworks coming out the planes
give performances over the sea during the summer accompanied with music.
There's cliff-lifts and zig-zag paths along the cliffs, a pier with entertainment,
a fun Science Centre for children in Poole Park,
childrens mini train rides around the edge of the entire park,
a 'sandman' in Weymouth who makes ornaments from sand,
and the local public participate in candle-lighting
of candles placed in coloured glass jars
which are arranged in decorative designs in the gardens during the Yule season,
plus loads more to mention.
Open-roofed buses travel on the ferries to Brownsea Island,
and catamaran's travel to the Isle of Wight.
A nationwide survey found that people who live in Bournemouth
were found to be the happiest people in the UK
in their responses when people across Britain were asked
how happy they felt with life in the nationwide survey.
Maybe it's due to the extra sunlight hours in B'm'th.
http://bournemouth.co.uk/
Compton Acres in Dorset.
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