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Another Grandson! Archie Fraser Dickinson 🩵Born 4.8kg/10.5lb on 15 Sep 23 to Josh and Gabby. Shares his birthday with Josh's brother Jake.

Visa was finally granted overnight. Let the fun begin. Omg crying this morning.

I've known since the first week I've been here that I will eventually move back to the UK. My partner feels the same way. It's a funny thing really - I've spent almost a decade aiming to return to Aus after travelling here years ago and wanting give it a go at living here. But it took me being on the other side of the world to truly realise that I couldn't imagine spending the rest of my life in another country to my family. I think now that I'm in my 30s I've become more family orientated and maybe more family dependent. I used to see family at least fortnightly. And I never disliked where I lived in the UK either. My partner and I have been here for 3 months now, and obviously that isn't long enough to give it time to settle. I'm enjoying where I am and getting settled in with work and we make the most of our days off exploring but I think at some point the pull of family will make is return. In the mean time will make the most of being in Oz.

I would say that you were out of order speaking to a young lad like that, don’t you know that your not aloud too speak to kids like that anymore. The young lad could well end up with anxiety from this

I've just realized that our blinds at the front of the house are nearly always closed. I thought this was to keep the heat out, but maybe the wife is operating a clandestine meth lab that I don't know about? If she is, I'm not getting any commission!

Our house goes on the market next week. Fingers crossed for a speedy sale. The hours we've put into getting it ready have been exhausting! Looking forward to a few relaxing weekends now. We've lived there for 13 years and bought our kids up there. They are both feeling a bit sad about us moving out. The worst of it is the house never looked so good. 100 x better than when we fell in love with it!

Thank you all for your replies and well wishes I'm sure it has me that's changed but also I never really lived in Aus before, I only ever travelled. Obviously the usual daily grind exists and that's fine, but it's definitely made me think about what I want long term and it will eventually be to live close to family and keep to short term travel/holidays throughout the world. I have no regrets about coming and I won't be too hasty in returning. There's a lot of things I like about Aus, and we are both on better wages so that helps too and will make the most of earning and saving more . We aren't sure on the area we are in either, it's gorgeous but we are after a bit more hustle and bustle so thinking about travelling for 2-3 months and then re-settling elsewhere if we decide to stick it out longer than 18 months. At the moment we're just gonna see how things go. Now I've been working a couple of months I'm gonna make more of a conscious effort to meet people - going to meet up thing this weekend. We fully intend on making the most of being here though, have already booked an Aus holiday for next month . PS not intending on starting a family, we don't want kids, so its just us which makes deciding what to do a bit easier as well.

What do you mean used to be? Parley's still Cross frequently.

I was one of the 10 people who acknowledged Rob's good news with the celebration emoji, which seemed appropriate considering I hadn't been actively involved in the discussion until yesterday. I was granted my 189 decades ago, so I don't pitch in with advice on this part of the forum as I know my experience of the process will no longer be relevant. What's still relevant are the emotions you go through while you are waiting. From when I sent off that big brown envelope (long before the days of the internet) to receiving my grant was one year and ten months. It took so long that at times I'd forgotten I'd applied, until someone would casually mention "Have you heard anything from Australia?" I also met a very nice lady during that time who wasn't in a position to join me, and I nearly didn't go because of her, but she was adamant I should. The letter went to my mum's address because I was working away from home at the time, and she called me with the news. "Well they're letting you into Australia, so I guess I'll be seeing less of you than I do already". It wasn't exactly how I'd envisaged the moment! I reassured my mum that I'd get back every year to visit, which I did (at great expense, I might add) apart from one year when she came to visit me. She'd never been interested in Australia, but after a month over here she said "I don't blame you for leaving England. The country's gone down the nick, and it's bloody lovely here!" Congratulations again to Rob, and good luck to the rest of you who are following this thread. I hope it won't be long before you get your respective grants.

I’ve moved so often, gave up counting after 17 moves since married, and up to now I was fine with off with the old, on with the new. I have lived in our house here now for 20 years, the longest I have ever lived in a house, and I love it, and don’t ever want to move again, finally really home Good luck with everything xM

Apparently a lot of people get damaged by the internet.

Anywayyyyy out of respect to the OP, time to move on please, feel free to discuss parenting rights via PM or in another thread if you so wish. Cal x

The misery endured by those animals is not something a humane society should accept.

That is the place where i was born @Amber Snowball

Wow I havent looked at this thread since we got the news. What a day from utmost joy and crying with happiness to absolute rock bottom. I'm not going to say much, but take life every day as you can and appreciate what you have today as you never know what is around the corner. Life is too short to be having silly arguments on a forum, as someone said words by themselves on here can be misinterpreted. Just be nice.. x

True, but in the worst-case scenario if you've never had chickenpox you could get that and then get shingles at a later date. It doesn't bear thinking about. For a while I felt like I could've killed to take the pain away. It started during the first week of the school holidays and didn't improve until the last week. I was housebound for the entire 6 weeks because the rash was so painful I couldn't put a shirt on. My doctor was kind enough to sign me off for the first two weeks of the school term so we were finally able to have a proper holiday. I think there's a perception that shingles isn't serious because it has such a harmless name in English. 'Shingles' doesn't exactly conjure up fear or sound anywhere near as bad as a hernia or dislocated shoulder - both of which I've had and are far less painful. The Chinese call it the 'creeping snake', which is much more sinister and believe that if it goes all the way around your body you will die. Clearly that's not true because I'm still here but it can cause blindness and brain damage in rare cases. The risks should never be taken lightly.

Nobody catches shingles, it is a resurgence of the chickenpox virus from a past infection. The risk to you is getting chickenpox by exposure to someone with shingles. Chickenpox is dangerous for adults. I always have a small question mark over this, as I know people whose mum has shingles and then they have it, so you can’t help but feel there must be an infection passed on. But they say not. https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/infections-and-poisoning/shingles#:~:text=You can't give shingles,has dried and scabbed over. Definitely have a chat with your GP about what your risks are.

We moved to Perth from Brisbane at the start of the year and I love it so far. Been working a bit too much to get lots of experience but able to cope with the workload due to the lovely environment. We are in Subiaco so I can walk to work (hospital) alternating with driving our daughter 10mins to school then 10-15mins back to work. Bike paths are pretty good for nice loops around the Swan river or further afield South or across to the hills. Generally cycling not as varied/interesting as Brisbane. However, beaches more than make up for that and the Swan river is unbeatable for kids' water sports. We have bought in Cottesloe for a move next year to somewhere with a little bit of work needed but a 500m walk to the beach and 7Km bike path to work. There are great coffee shops both there and in Subiaco. These two areas would be my top choices for where to live and we plumped for being by the beach at the expense of livelier night life and easy access to the city that Subi provides. We're completely isolated from any issues with drug misuse outside of work.

Such a shame that Rob's good news and visa grant has been overshadowed by negativity. Only a couple of people have actually congratulated him even thought this is his thread. Others have ignored or not noticed it in favour of carrying on a disagreement. I have noticed that some of the visa information/advice given by those who went though this many years ago is at times incorrect or outdated. That could end up being problematic for some people but I generally take the approach of appreciating people taking the time to try and help if the intentions seem well even if it's not actually helpful or I disagree with it. I would also advocate for people being realistic but at the end of the day it's a personal choice and no one will really know for sure if it's right for them until they make the move. We're all grown ups making a huge decision and people need to take responsibility for the decisions they make based on the information they choose to engage with and judge for themselves what's useful and relevant and what's not. People will always be free to post whatever they want even excessively negative or factually incorrect information and others are free to ignore it and look to alternative sources of information or provide a counter point if they feel they know better. Once again congrats Rob and fingers crossed for the rest us still waiting.

Back in the day, on a different forum, a case officer actually signed up and posted the answers to questions like this. He was soon "Advised" by his superiors that it was a career-limiting move, and closed his account, but some of us had gained a few interesting insights from his short visit. Most of us who post on here have been through the visa process, and the stress that goes with it, at least once, and would not post stuff like this as a wind-up.

You're discovering that there's a big difference between travelling in Australia as a young person and actually living here as an adult. It's not just that Australia has changed, it's that you've changed. I agree with Ramot -- see it as an extended holiday for a year, or two, or three. However, if your goal is to settle back in the UK eventually, don't leave it much longer than that. It's surprisingly easy to get stuck in Australia, especially once you start a family.

When they paid that money in they expected to be allowed to retire at 65. That’s changed. It wouldn’t be all that hard to build a media campaign to get support for this would it? Something along the lines of “people who retire in the U.K. put 100% of their pension back into the economy by spending their money here, benefiting us all. Those drawing money from the U.K. public purse whilst living elsewhere are hurting patriotic Brits by giving that money to foreign economies, weakening Glorious Britain”.

Well I apologise for offending YOU by asking a question of another poster! You are talking as if I was advising her to try and cut the father out of her life. All I was doing was ensuring that if there was another parent on the scene, then she was aware of their rights - both his, hers, and those of the child. I would never "proactively try and stop a father from being involved" with their child and I don't know what gives you the right to assume that from my post. I deliberately said that I didn't want to cause offence, because I thought she just might be in a similar position to that of my niece, and I knew that was getting a bit personal. How the heck you turn that into anti-father bias beats me!

Beautiful blue skies and 30 degrees today. I have a meeting at 3pm and after that Im going to have a walk along the river and pop in to pub for a nice refreshing pint.

The TV literally had the migrants on a loop when I was back, the story rotating from hotels being full, to the new barge then statistics of how many arrived.I spent 3 weeks on teh south coast near Folkstone, the coast guard sat mid-channel every day. The news hardly touched on the fallout from Brexit, the Tories awarding billions in contracts that evaporated to their mates, the councils going bankrupt, and the NHS issues. However, they did seem to villainize the same people applauded during the corvid for having the audacity to strike over crap pay and conditions. Yes, it's an issue with people coming over but glaringly obvious that these people are being pushed to front and centre of public attention. A more cynical mind could think it was a distraction from other issues. My cousin summed it all up, living here is better if you watch your finances and turn your TV off. Trust your own eyes and not what you're told to see.