Goose Green and Darwin

I went to the annual Goose Green ram sale a couple of weeks back. Being the townie that I am, one ram looks much the same as another to me. Anyhow, I was reliably informed that they are all different and the way that farmers choose to buy them is by looking at their teeth (which gives an indication of health), checking their fleeces for no black spots at all (no good having lambs that have anything other than a white fleece so that the wool can be dyed) and for the number of microns in the fleece (the lower the number the better). The farmers are always striving to improve the quality of their sheep for producing wool so it is important that they choose well. They had come to the event from all over East and West Falkland.

I had a look around the settlement of Goose Green and the 2 pictures give you an idea of what it is like. One is of an old stone cottage and the other is the village hall where all the residents of the settlement were locked up (including a baby) for about 6 weeks in 1982. I understand that the conditions were quite grim. Today it has a store and a small school.






After the look around Goose Green, I went to the Argentine Cemetery at Darwin. The site of this was understandably controversial with the locals and it looks a bit bleak. It was thought that the dead would be repatriated but this did not happen. Many of the crosses are marked with "Soldato Argentino" which just means Argentine soldier and so is unidentified. Even though this memorial was only built a few years ago, replacing an earlier simpler version, the paint is peeling on many of the crosses and the granite has been subject to quite a bit of weathering. The materials chosen were not perhaps ideal for the Falklands climate. It is going to be tidied up a bit by the Falkland Islands Government this year.