kellyjamie

Thanks everyone, we are going to head down for 4 days in july check it out see what we think, i know thats not long enough to make a decision but its the best we can manage. Weve had this in our heads for about the last year but just dont know whats best. I am hoping by going to some mother toddler groups i will make more friends. Dont get me wrong we "know" loads of people here, i chat to mums at school, hubby gets on well with the boys at work, we will bang into people we know in coles and say hi, but we really only have a couple of friends whom we actively socialise with, and not thru the want of trying but the people we know all seem to have their circle of friends already and arent very willing to let us join, im beginning to think its us lol!! I also agree that we wouldnt be moving for the nightlife etc, altho the idea of being able to go out fr a meal and the place still be open after 9-10pm is appealing lol! I also however agree Brissy is a great laid back place to raise kids, but im feeling a tad stagnant here, and yes it could be because im not working just now so have no real conversation other than hubby at night time. Its just not really turned out how we envisaged it would be? We have recently bought an older house a Dakabin and were renovating it to make some decent cash on it, so any move would be after that. Im even wondering if maybe a move closer to the city would be better. Its funny because we came out here on a reccie and found North Lakes and always said if we end up in Brisbane we would love to live in NL, now were here im feeling differently.......

Hey guys, Hope your all well. Weve not been on for ages as weve been living life here in Brissy and weve just had a new addition to the family, a little girl born 2 weeks ago! Im coming on to ask for your advice please? Ive already spoke to a couple of peeps on the fb page so thought id ask on the main site. Been here in Brisbane now for 2 years and we have itchy feet to move down to Meloburne. Dont get me wrong we love Brisbane but we just feel somethings missing for us here. We do like the laidback lifestyle but at times we find Brisbane very very boring. I absolutely detest the weather at this time of year its awful. Im so over the lack of social life here aswell, i envisaged more than always socialising in the boring taverns that clear your plate by 9pm or revolving round a snag on a bbq in a back garden!! We have also found it extremely difficult to make friends. We have a few close friends here, whom without i would left and returned to the uk by now if im honest. And we are very out going, we will chat to anyone but we just cant find friends here. I dont know if its because were further out the city i find it so boring, we live close to north lakes. Hubby works with Mazda who are based in Melbourne, but theres also a lot of work for him in Melbourne outwith Mazda. We also have friends in Melbourne weve known for years. We dont know what to do for the best????:confused:

Thankyou :-)

Hi everyone, Quick q, we have pr and living in Brisbane, if we have a baby does it go on our visa even tho we already have pr? And am I right in thinking that as we are perm res it will automatically be a aus citizen? Many thanks Kelly

pretty gutted we cant get work in tas as we done so much research into living there an were all set for it, but we just couldnt get work there never mind work that would provide a liveable wage. we wont move again as our daughter is now extremely settled here. we now love brisbane but i do at times find myslef quite frustrated at how slow things can be up here, also the heat at times is hard to deal with

yep same as us, hubby was a season ticket holder east stand for years, last year easter road done a release of granite stones to put in the new east stand that you could have engraved so he got one in memory of his dad and himself, says that means where ever he is he'll always be at easter road! sado lol. you'll need to track the old fella down for sure! you on any of the fb hibs pages? so you and your wife settled down in SA?

jeezo, the miners! its still going strong i believe lol. I say tranent but he was from pencaitland and drank in Big T! You still following butchers barmy army?

Thanks pal, hubby from tranent but we lived out by bonnyrigg, hubbys as green and white as you'"ll ever meet aswell lol. yep were loving it still miss home but i reckon il visit with in the next couple of years, Thanks for the tip about the business il look into it Kelly GGTTH

Hi Old and New poms We are old school members on here so theres probs more of you who dont know us now than who do lol but i thought i would drop in say hi to one and all and let you know how our first year has gone :-) Well we arrived in Brisbane Feb 2013 after an emotional farewell with friends at the airport. My parents refused to do the airport which im glad of now. We were very lucky for two reasons, we had friends here who put us up for 3 weeks and hubby was offered a job to start ASAP. We had received Tassie sponsorship but we tried and tried for jobs from the UK and it wasnt happening. We spoke to several people in TAS who told us that the job scene was very very tight and jobs were few and far between. So as we had friends in Brisbane we decided to head there while hubby would head to Tas for a few days at a time to find work. He luckily got a job offer with Mazda doing a job he done a few years ago on the north side of Brisbane so our plan was take a holiday let make some cash and head to Tassie. That didnt work out because hubby was going to Hobart every 2nd weekend job hunting but there was literally nothing in his chosen field of youth and homeless work, nor could he get anything else that would pay enough to live while i also looked for work. So we contacted Tas and told them and we stayed in Brisbane. So hows it been??...... A rollercoaster is how i can describe it. The first 5 weeks were horrific i was very homesick felt like i was in an alien land. No familiarity was the killer, and we had been to Brisbane twice before to visit friends. Not knowing a single person when you go food shopping is a crap feeling. Hubby was working and staying with friends was great but we despo needed our own place so took a short term lease on a small townhouse while we figured getting work in Tas. I didnt really unpack which didnt help and we bought cheap furniture while we waited on our shipping, word of advice bring as much as you can afford in your container. Started our daughter at school and she took to it like a duck to water and has never looked back. She was 6 and its been the best move for her. So i struggled with hubby at work and little one at school. It was at that point that we decided to stay where we were. I needed to make friends and i needed a job to do it. So i got full time work for Budget Direct insurance, i hated the job but it was my saving grace. I made some great friend there and without that job may well have gone insane or gone home! So we began to settle in work and school, hubby made good friends with his boss and we socialise regularly with him and his wife. I left Budget after 6 months because i wanted part time work which they wouldnt give me. Hubbys boss left and he was promoted and is loving his job with Mazda, long hours way longer than he worked in the UK, hes usually sleeping on the couch by 830pm! BUt in less than a year he has tripled his wage he was on back in the UK. Which has afforded me the chance to do what i always wanted and started my own cake business! Its doing really well, and im about to start selling at markets around the North side most weekends, ideally in the next 3-5 years we would like a shop! Im also one of the lucky few to have been offered a job with the new costco which is a huge bonus as its part time. We are in North Lakes and really enjoy life here, we recently moved to a gorgeous townhouse over looking a lake and the view from our balcony is just fanatastic, we sit out at breakfast and still just pinch oursleves. Not sure we would buy in North Lakes if im honest, but it suits us renting for now. Our daughter is at North Lakes State College nd i cant speak highly enough of it. My parents are here just now as is my 17 yr old son, which is just wonderful but i am dreading him going home, my parents can now see why we are here, and they have both said they know we will never go back. I say never say never. Hubby loves it here, hes like his old self again which i love to see, our daughter has just soared since being here, her hair is sunny dyed blonde, shes never out the pool, she never wants to wear shoes and shes just generally living the aussie life lol. I too love it, but i have my moments where i find it extremely difficult. I struggled with homesickness coming up to xmas and hubby had a xmas pressie for me which i wasnt allowed until the Saturday after, i thought he had got me a puppy, anyhow i wont bore you with the whole story but basically he totally decieved me and made out like he was at work, when really he was picking my best friend up from the airport and bringing her home to stay for 3 weeks!!!! She couldnt have timed it better, it was the first time ive been speechless, it was just wonderful. Now the test will be once the folks go home, how i will cope. My cousin is out in October so its a busy year for visits which is good and the business is taking off so that will keep me busy. I have just briefly given you our story without going into all the things like prices, and places, and medicare etc because i know lots of peeps will have told you all about that, i just wanted to let you all know that getting to Australia and making this monumentally huge change was a real long winding road for us. It was seriously not easy but we kept at it, and believe me it has paid off ten fold for us. Now i know not evreyone will feel like us, but if you never try you will never know. If its what you want, just keep at it you will get there eventually, it took us 5 years. If anyone needs advice or has a question please feeel free to pm us, we came here with $10k total and we made it work, Goodluck everyone Kelly x

Hi all, Quick question plz, the folks wanna come out for a year? can anyone tell me which visitor visa i need to look at plz? were perm res many thanks Kelly

Just seen the principal and she was excellent. The Learning support teacher was th ere also. They said it's quite hard to place UK kids as the curriculum doesn't always marry up great. They want Megan to be challenged with work so will assess / test her level tomorrow and see what they think is best for her. If not moving her to yr 2 is best they will advise staying in yr one with extra work so we will see what they say tomorrow....

Thankyou everyone for your advice I'll see what the headteacher recommends today maybe staying in yr one with some extra work maybe th e way forward

Hi guys, she's 6 and IM not just saying this but she's pretty smart even back home she was on the higher levels. She said the other day maths bored her because they are using blocks to count and she's done that and doesn't need them. She's reading books for recommended ages 7/8 . It worries us she will get bored with learning and lose interest. I will give the school a chance today when we first went all they were concerned with was her birth very for age the deputy head who held the interview didn't even look at her work she said give it to the class teacher who then told me when I asked my daughter is at a higher level but she can't teach her any higher as she needs to stay in line with the class. I would like to see what work they are doing in yr 2 and if I get no joy I'll see about private

Hi all, My daughter has been placed into year one here as she missed the cut off point for yr 2 by 5 days. But coming form Scotland where she was in primary 2, the work she is doing here is easy for her. she towers above the other kids in her class, and is finding it a little hard to relate to the other girls in class. She has friends in the street we live in who are yr 2 and yr 3 and relates and communicates far more easily with them. Her teacher has told me she is on the highest reading level shes allowed to be in yr 1 and that she will find this year very easy but will level out next year! this isnt really what we would expect, for us thats not a great answer. I have a meeting with the head today about possibly putting her up to yr 2......

be very careful with the sunshine coast, if your happy to commute usually to the city then great but the job market up there is very tight, its based around tourism, goodluck

yep thats exactly it, very hard to describe but i feel like im in a bubble! im not sad or regretting it at all absolutely not, i love the fact were here, i think im just so exhausted aswell. were off to the zoo on sunday our first tourist thing so im really looking forward to it!

Well were here! After an absolutely epic journey due to a 24 hour delay with Malaysia airlines due to a technical fault we arrived exactly 24 hours late, but on the plus side not much jet lag! Im not really too sure what to say, im all a little overwhelmed if im honest. Luckily Jamie managed to get a job before we came out and he started it yesterday, because we hadnt sold our house so saved some money but trust me it goes very quickly. Weve been lucky that we have fantastic friends to stay with for 3 weeks which has been a godsend. So we hit the ground running basically, on monday went right out and started looking at rentals, and we have been fortunate to secure a 3 bed townhouse 10 min from our friends, walking distance to school and shops as we will only have one car to start. We did not see this on real estate it was one we drove past and thought we would ask about as its a townhouse in a "complex" we knew they always have one or two up for rent, and its worked perfectly as the guy moving out is selling his stuff so were buying some of it to get us started. These are things you cant account for until your here. I have found very quickly theres only so much research you can do. I cant tell you how glad we are jamie had a job lined up, i think he would have got work anyhow but the pressure of not a lot of cash and surviving was awful. Our daughter will start school next week which she desperately needs the routine again. Luckily Jamies boss is sorting us a good car as buying over here we have found a bit of a mare, ill explain later if anyone needs to know. Cost of living were finding ok, shop around dont buy everything from one place, fill your car on a tuesday, and dont eat out too much and you,ll be fine. Weve been to apply for medicare, which wasnt that straight forward and got our aussie driver licences which was very simple! your licence is your gateway to everything, everyone wants it for id, so do that asap you arrive here and it will make things easier. I cant tell you how absolutely exhausted i feel, i have never felt so tired by 10am i just want to sleep but hats due to us being up at 530am. I went to Target yesterday to look at stuff for the house and then realised i was standing with tears in my eyes and very emotional because i couldnt believe a bath towel was $30!!! so i got myself together and checked BigW instead and realised it was much more affordable. Once jamie got home i had a good cry and told him i couldnt explain why i felt so overwhelmed, i just did. So today is a better day so far, im looking after a friends daughter today so my little girl has some company, and i truly think next time i update ina month i will be fine, in a routine, in my own house and getting sorted. A word of warning, no one can prepare you for the first few days here, i feel in a slight trance at the magnitude of it all but on the plus side i dont feel its a mistake what so ever just a little overwhelmed. Will update once were more settled, goodluck fellow migrants!!

Thankyou everyone, and your all correct. Im shattered tonite but i know tomorrow will be much more exciting xx

oh absolutely! i cant wait now and il be even more so at the airport. its just taken it out of us today but i know we,ll be fine :yes:

parents coming out in august, our BFs prob not till next year. i suppose people deal with it all differently, but for all three of us we have found it very difficult

evening all, as i type i am in a hotel room with hubby and daughter surrounded by all our worldy belongings whilst my eyes are stinging through tiredness and having been crying generally most of the day! we have had a couple of crap days as does/will everyone who goes thru this. But today was hard, very very hard and i feel totally exhausted now. Last nite we had dinner with my parents which went better than i expected and the plan was to say farewell (my mums choice) but i said to make it a little easier they said goodbye to my daughter last nite then myself and hubby went up this morning. We said we will text asap we land and then will call over the weekend i gave them both a huge hug said i loved them and then came away. It was horrid and i cried and cried in the car. i had to go to the bank right after to close an account and whilst talking to the lady i started crying again!!! on top of that our bestest friends in the world who are taking us to the airport, she has been crying now and then so getting it out but he has said nowt and just kind of got on with it until today, he says he feels like he hit a brick wall and it all became reality so he broke down at work and had to go home!! we had dinner with them tonite and it was tough, very. tomorrow we fly and its just our friends and my son at the airport, not really looking forward to it, at all. knew this would be hard, but im also sooooooo grateful to have good friends meeting us at the other side. so time for bed as now im peering out of one stinging eye and my head is splitting! goodnite all:SLEEP:

Thankyou very much Kate x I will not vanish, i like to talk too much lol! Il be sure to keep you all up to date :-))

Well everyone, the time is finally here for us and i cant quite believe it!:jiggy: I have been a member on here for 5.5 years and the help, advice and support has been immeasurable, i seriously could not find the words to thank certain members. Without a couple of certain members we would not be this position end of. For many we have known on here for a long time they will know the journey we have had, which has been very long, at times virtually over and the most emotional roller coaster we have endured. But as my mum says im like a dog with a bone, if i want something il keep at it till i get it and this has been no different. Tho my perseverance has been tested to its limits in the past few years, but its paid off and we are now ready to go! Im not really sure how i should be feeling this week, im not overly excited and its like im waiting on that feeling hitting me, i honestly dont think it will until im at the airport. Im quite a realistic person, and i know the goodbyes will be difficult, but i also know this opportunity for me and my family is one we must take, we dont know if it will be for a year, 5 years, 10 years or life but for now its right for us. And i cant wait for my parents to visit and be able to give them somewhere to spend their retirement, my chance to thank them for all theyve done. So i will leave it at that, and say THANKYOU everyone i wish you all well, and goodluck. If you have a dream whatever it maybe follow it! I will try and get on and give a little arrival report but until then...... Take it easy ya bunch of flammin gallahs..... Mcleans CHERISH YESTERDAY - DREAM TOMORROW - LIVE TODAY:jiggy:

Hi everyone, Well we fly to Australia in 3 weeks, and to be fair my parents have been pretty fine my dads never really spoke about it, and my mums always said do what you need to do. Until now! My mum and dad dont do a great deal, theyre perfectly fit and healthy and young, 55 and 66 but they just do nothing, my mum is her own worse enemy at times and doesnt bother with anyone to make an effort, we have family close by she says why should she bother phoning when they dont etc etc and never bother to go out and just generally do anything, you get the idea. They hardly take my daughter that often, my dad used to take her to school 3 mornings a week, but if we needed a babysitter my mum would need 3 weeks notice! example, she goes to theirs for dinner every wednesday right from after school club now they could collect her about 3ish but choose to go for her every week not until 430 and have her home by 630, my mum says its long enough! Theyve not gone out their way to spend any extra time given were moving to the other side of the world. Then today she says "ive decided dad and i will meet u all for dinner on the monday night say farewell and then u can call once u arrive", we dont leave till the wednesday. she went on to say "i wasnt going to say but your dads really struggling kelly with all this hes had a terrible 2 weeks and to be fair i dont know how he will cope when yous are gone, but ive told him if were on our own then so be it, we'll just get on with it"!!! so not due to us starting a new life or a great opportunity but because they dont want to be on their own?? My dad has only ever asked how will we financially manage and that hes concerned what will happen to my mum when hes not here. I am an only child so they have out immense pressure on me with that statement. when i replied by telling her they need to help themselves slightly and get up and do things and meet people she told me its not that easy and i should try and understand theyre feelings. I expected this from her at some point and im quite disappointed shes doing this now she knows exactly how to work the situ. I am dreading this meal now which id hoped wouldnt be like this. theyre meant to be booking flights to come out in august and have chatted and chatted about it for ages, but now were nearly going all of a sudden they say theyre going to wait a bit before booking. Its just very hard to deal with as i have so much else to deal with aswell at the mo x

nothing to do with temptation for us purely down to housing market. house was on for a year wouldnt sell and someone we knew asked if we would consider renting to them.