MARYROSE02

I forgot to mention the tea poy. I might pass it on to my nephew. Decluttering? Yes, that's a good idea. I did make a big pile of books I was going to clear out then I couldn't be bothered and put them back - double stacked in my bookcase. Some people just put their books down in the garbage area. They are bloody heavy to take to a charity shop.

I Googled this but I was thinking that it's possible that whichever state or territory you live MAY have different rules: Have you got an International Drivers Licence? I don't know if it's necessary and if you are already here without one it does not matter. How do I transfer my drivers license to Australia? You will need to: Bring your overseas licence. Provide proof of your identity. Provide proof of Australian permanent residency. Complete the Licence application form. Pass an eyesight test. Pass a knowledge test unless you are exempt. Pass a driving test unless you are exempt. Pay the relevant licence fee.

I read the article thanks. Parker Knoll sounds vaguely familiar but I've never heard of Ercol. I don't think I have any "new" furniture. I bought my bed from my nephew, two armchairs from my brother, one coffee table from the other brother, another coffee table from a mate, bookshelf from the garbage area. My parents furnished a home here from gargage sales I think. I very much doubt that I could assemble anything from Ikea though I do have very capable mates. Now that I can afford it I could give my unit a complete makeover but if I moved, say to QLD, and sold it, I don't know if it's worth it.

I may be allergic to dust and/or dust mites as I had an allergy test last year and dust was the only thing that came up. I thought I might be allergic to my cat (presently sitting on my lap.) I hesitate to blame Australia on problems like anxiety because they might have appeared anyway. Leaving the family home to travel 10 000 miles then living in a huge city and a number of stressful jobs - well that might happened if I'd moved to London, something I always fancied doing.

There's no ferry to Neilsen Park - it hasn't got a wharf - but you can get the 325 bus which travels from Millers Point in The Rocks to Watsons Bay passing a number of harbour beaches and bays, Rushcutters Bay, Double Bay, Redleaf aka Murray Rose Baths & Seven Shillings Beach, Rose Bay, Nielsen Park, Parsley Bay (that's nice too. I've not had a swim there for a while) and Watsons Bay. You can get the ferry from Circular Quay to Garden Island (where I used to work - I think there's public access to parts of it), Double Bay, Rose Bay and Watsons Bay. You could combine bus and ferry, in my case as a senior, for a maximum of $2.50, It's nice in the Botanical Gardens too. I used to see office workers having champagne breakfasts there if I walked that way to Garden Island. The Art Gallery might be a possibility for a meal too. Isn't it open in the evenings? The good thing about Nielsen Park is that it's open till 10pm and has decent toilets! Bronte is nice but they close the toilets and changing rooms at 8pm. Actually, I think there's an alchohol ban there too. There are some nice walks at Neilsen Park too - the largest remnant of bush south of the harbour I think. You can access it from two or three places - on the north side with views to the city, thru the park itself or walking around the headland to the south. It's got an historic house but i'm not sure if that's open to the public.

Thanks for that information. I was just looking at Google Maps to see where Landsborough is located - a long way from Noosa if you are relying on public transport? The last time I was in Noosa was a decade ago I think. I was on a road trip, having crossed the border from NSW north of LIghtning Ridge, then I stayed at St George (nice town), Dalby, Gympie before turning south. I think I overnighted at Caloundra then Kirra before heading back into NSW and taking a week to get back to Sydney. I don't actually crave noise and hustle and bustle. It's just the way things have worked out. I live on one busy road - Elizabeth Street - and I'm 100 metres from a busier one - Cleveland Street. That's the trade-off for the convenience of living in the inner city. In some ways it's like living in a village without a green belt around it. I used to like walking around the perimeter of my village in England - Marchwood. I'd never experienced city living until I came to OZ. Surfers is actually relatively quiet once you get away from Cavill Ave and Orchid Ave, quiet during the week too but busy from Thursday nights. I made a request yesterday to drive a car from Sydney to Coolangatta Airport from Thursday with Transfercar. It's just like renting a car except you get it for free. I've never done it before. Last time I went to Surfers I hired a car one-way to Coolangatta Airport which cost me over $500. If you have the time you can make your way around OZ delivering cars, campervans, utes. I guess it's like me with my one way rental; the car hire companies want to get their vehicles back to the home depots. I don't know what kind of vehicle I'll get, if I get one, hatch, sedan or 4wd I think though I've never driven a 4wd.

Ercol? Never heard of it. Typical. I start a thread and you all talk about something else! I'm joking. I don't mind what anybody talks about it if they go "off topic". Someone says something and it strikes a chord with someone else and they want to talk about it. I should have put a note at the bottom of my post. "All comments welcome, on or off topic." IKEA and Bunnings! "When I was young and single I used to go to Bunnings if I needed something. Now I'm old and married, I just go to Bunnings". (or IKEA) I think there is one item of furniture in my effects - a "teapoy". It's a family heirloom.

I don't drink at home. I go to the pub. If the pubs are closed as they were during lockdown, I don't drink. But if I did drink at home, my local pub, 100 metres away, has a bottle shop whereas the supermarkets are all 10 or 15 minutes walk away. In the shopping malls there are often a bottle shop next to the supermarket and it's only a minor inconvenience to go from one to the other. I went to a bottle shop the other day to buy booze for a friend who was isolating. If I'm eating out and the restaurant is BYO I usually don't drink but go the pub afterwards.

I'm not going to "shoot you down in flames!" I've not been to Noosa for a long time and I don't really remember it. Before I went to Surfers in July, 20, I'd hardly been there either, except for hols. I didn't plan anything when I went other than to escape going thru another lockdown on my own. I stayed for eight months and would have stayed longer had I not had things to do in Sydney. I love Surfers Paradise I know plenty who hate it but I love having everything I need within walking distance. I describe it as "Surry Hills (my home in Sydney) with a beach." It's 7 kilometres to the Eastern Subs beaches from here but Surfers beach was barely 5 minutes walk from the Hilton. Restaurants, bars, cafes, shops, doctors, dentists all five minutes walk, and if I needed to go further - specialist doctors in Southport, Pacific Fair, Broadbeach, Main Beach - the excellent tram line is outside the Hilton. I don't need a car living in Surry Hills but if I do I can rent Go Get for 2 or 3 hours from practically outside my flat, or get an Uber, or the bus outside my door, or 10 min walk to Central for the train and tram. I don't need a car in Surfers either. The few times I went in the car with my brother up or down the GC Highway, into the Hinterland, up to Brisbane - I hated it - as bad as driving in Sydney. The crowds (which I don't usually like) and the touristy atmosphere I don't mind because I don't have to drive or park. I liked the buzz and I liked Xmas Day with everything open. And after 8 months I became a local. I joined the surf clubs - Surfers, Northcliffe, one beginning with "K" in Broadbeach. I was starting to get to know people and I like the warmer weather in winter The sort of questions I'm interested in about Noosa would be the same as Surry Hills or Surfers. Is everything I need within walking distance? Are there seven day doctors? What's the public transport like? Do I NEED a car? What is the traffic like? They are not the same questions that other people might ask. They might want to live out in the burbs, hate the noise and bustle of the town centre, expect to drive to the shopping centre or the mall. Surfers has a smallish mall - Paradise Centre (?) But adequate for my needs and three supermarkets plus a 24 hour IGA. If you don't mind me asking, what made you choose the Sunshine Coast? . How long have you lived there? What made you move there? The reason I ended up in Surry Hills was the slightly sad fact that I could not cope with crowded public transport from Narrabeen on the Northern Beaches to Sydney where I worked. Narrabeen is not unlike some of the beach suburbs on the GC - Miami say? My parents bought a house there and we ask lived there once again as a family for the final time. Living in my own there I was isolated though. I still go there once a year for a nostalgic trip. To be honest, it's possible I won't like Surfers the second time around. My brother is still there but what if he goes? I have a little social network here. One of my friends is isolating with Covid and I took him supplies, the sort of thing he would do for me. I have a spare key for his place and he has one for mine. It takes a while to build those networks.

Yes I know you are right both about keeping crap and wasting money on a storage unit. My brother rented a storage unit too I think then just got rid of everything. I've thought of just shipping everything to my garage. I've not given the final address to the shipping company yet though the goods won't leave England for a while. I guess I'm thinking, I can afford to pay for the storage, it is more secure, cleaner and free of dust and it will be a more comfortable environment for my brother and me to sift through it. I know there will be boxes of books, football programmes, magazines, possibly some with value. It wasn't feasible for me to go back to England even without covid. I hate flying too. The cost of moving the stuff to Sydney is I think £2,000 plus 500 I paid a guy to clear out the garage. If that was too much on its own he did me a huge favour moving everything down from the loft. I'm not thinking of holding things for years in case I might use them as having the willpower to chuck it out but there is some stuff either valuable or sentimental which I do want to keep. I want to learn to be a "minimalist!" Selling the house was traumatic at first but now I'm glad l did it. It will be the same with the personal effects. My other brother SAYS he is a minimalist but he keeps leaving stuff at my place! Are you living in the UK / living here / going back to the UK to sell the house / selling it from here the way I did it?

That's a good idea too. I can remember coming back to Oz for a holiday, checking on my garage, then surreptitiously peeing , hidden by all the crap I had in there. I was in the garage today. Mate parked his car there for the weekend whilst he's gone to Brisbane. There's stuff at the back I keep meaning to sort and chuck. I went to England for a holiday in late 96, decided to stay so went back to Sydney in early 97, used the garage as storage to clear my flat out so I could rent it out, and there's still stuff from 25 years now.

Yes, Storage King for one, and Kennards, both close to me. I've been meaning to go and check them out. That's a good suggestion about bigger space than I need I could move the crap from my garage to the storage unit and rent it out to offset the cost of the storage unit. Some of the stuff from my loft is crap too but I couldn't sort it from Australia, my TV for instance. I had to clear out my garage too, mostly junk the tenants left. There were two tenants so I don't know who put what in there. More stuff I should have done before I left - emptied the garage and taken photos to prove it was empty. The removals company would not go up in the loft but luckily the guy who cleared the garage for me took all the stuff from the loft down into the bedroom and the removals company took it from there and a general list of it - so many boxes, bags, one painting, one guitar, etc. In a way I'm glad I couldn't be there. It was a horrible job putting the stuff into the loft I made so many stuff ups. For some reason the estate agents never put the rent up and I never challenged them about it. Maybe having a long term tenant who did up the house added value to the sale price. I felt guilty when the agent issued them the 4 month notice after 12 years. I could have extended the notice but I never thought of it, just let the agent handle it. They were getting a 3 bedroom house for the price of a one bedroom flat. Anyway it's done now. My brother and I can sort thru the stuff to see what he wants. A lot of it belonged to all three of us plus my parents. My other brother would not care He'd just hire a skip and dump it all- maybe not a bad idea but there are some valuable items. I might do my flat up here too. If I can get my act together.

I was thinking that renting before you buy would give you the chance to experience "living" there, as opposed to "holidaying" there. I'd say the same thing if you were moving interstate somewhere else in OZ or going back to the UK, "just in case" you decide it is not for you. You might miss Sydney! I'm in the same boat having spent most of my life in Oz in Sydney but now I'm thinking of moving to Surfers Paradise. I went there for eight months in 2020/21 and loved it but then I had to come back to Sydney. I'm planning to rent a holiday apartment in Surfers by the month, see if I settle in again, maybe try staying in a couple of other places, eg Main Beach. Maybe I should try Noosa too. If you rent you have time to look at houses in person without committing yourselves.

Have a picnic at Neilsen Park. It's nice there, safe swimming, wonderful views plenty of trees for shade. Watson's Bay is nice too and you can get the ferry from Circular Quay. Actually all the beaches are nice and all have unique qualities.

I was just thinking about Simple Radio. At home I use my phone as my radio, usually on 2GB via their app, or via Simple Radio for, say, ABC Grandstand if I want to listen to the cricket, BBC Radio Solent if I'm thinking about "Home", Curtin FM on Perth which is my fave oldies station. If I'm in a Go Get car I either listen to JJJ or sometimes to whatever station the previous driver was listening to - RN, 702, Smooth FM. I watch every single Spurs game live (can you do that in England? Is every PL and European Cup game plus most of the FA Cup and League Cup shown live?) I read all the match reports either on the Daily Mail site or "News Now - Spurs" site. I can't go to the ground of course but there's a pub where fellow Spurs fans go, subject to Covid. Foxtel has both SKY Australia and SKY UK news plus BBC World News, CNN and Fox News. There's plenty of UK TV shows on the various channels I have. I can't buy booze in the supermarket but so what? Pubs have bottle shops and there are stand alone bottle shops too, drive thru ones too. Do they have them in the UK?! And I like Aussie pubs and Aussie beer / wine. I like Aussie "Indian" food too and don't find it substandard compared to Pommie "Indian" food. As long as the staff are fair dinkum Bangladeshi then their cuisine is fair dinkum too. And there's an A to Z of the rest of the world's cuisine here for me to do into. I like Australia's colonial history and its indigenous culture, both being the equal of pre-1788 history. History is history regardless of which century. It would be nice to ride a cycle in the New Forest again. I hate urban cycling but that would be the same in London as it is in Sydney. My mum and dad are gone and I've sold my house in England and there nothing else that I'm desperate to physically appreciate in England now.

THUS not THIS in the title! How I HATE predictive text.

That took me six or seven months. I wish I'd documented the process better although it's all in various emails so I could collate all of them. I did 99 percent of it by email too, only resorting to a phone call to my solicitor in tandem with a muted Zoom call (I could not unmute it - my first ever Zoom session). I used Zoom to show my solicitor I'd signed the contract whilst we spoke on the phone. I don't look back on it as a particularly stressful time even with Covid-19 and a three and a half month lockdown when I actually quit drinking. The only real stress came when "the other side" started whingeing about the length of time it took for the contract to arrive. "When did you send it?" (15 December) "Why is it taking so long?" (Covid-19) "Can you send another copy?" I sent it Express International mail but it took till 2 January just to get on a plane and 8 Jan to get to the point when it was handed to Royal Mail. It's not quite all over. My personal effects which I'd stored in the loft won't arrive for a while. As with everything else I did it via email. I think I picked John Mason after a recommendation by someone on PIO. I didn't bother with three different quotes. I'm toying with renting a storage unit for a few months rather than having them delivered to my lock up garage beneath my unit. I've still got stuff in there from 1997 when I decided to move to England and rent my unit out in Sydney. My garage is reasonably secure although there have been break-ins. I lost a bike with two flat tyres a mate gave me and a Beatles poster with broken glass that I found in the garbo area. It's also very dusty and besides, I can afford to rent a storage unit now. All my financial worries have vanished at a stroke. I've still got all my other worries of course but now now I'm a RICH hypochondriac. I paid my credit card debt and my ATO debt and when I go to Surfers soon I can stay where I want. I've been a big spender at least where "things" are concerned - cars, holidays, things for the house. Maybe I inherited some of my parents' Wartime induced frugality. My brothers did not do so. There's also Captal Gains Tax to pay which terrified me the first time I used the HMRC template. However, the second time, using the difference in value since 2015 rather than 2007 when I bought it the amount came down by two thirds. If I've read it right HMRC gives two or three amounts one reflecting the difference since 2007 and the other since 2015 and I can pay the lower one. Funny but I was thinking of going to Surfers over Xmas and New Year when the prices double or triple but I didn't think I could afford it. No matter, the school holidays are over next week when it's probably better to go anyway, like going to Spain in September when it is still hot but the crowds have gone. I was sad when I put the house up for sale thinking I was selling my parents. I can practically see their headstone from the bedroom window. But I'm glad now. I'm moving my assets to Australia and no more worries about the house and the tenants and repairs. I should have sold it beside I came back to OZ at the end of 2008 but I wasn't completely sure if I was coming back for good. I doubt if I'll ever move back to England now. I could do it and if my two brothers were still there I probably would do it but they are both in OZ. The weather looks especially foul when in watching Spurs on TV. I don't want any of that! But if I do ever go back I'm flying First Class!

"Surrey Hills" and "Surry Hills" are different places in different states, one on Sydney, one in Melbourne? I've not been to the one in Melbourne. Is it nice? I must Google it. I felt that guilt too, splitting the family up, leading my brothers off to OZ , leaving my parents, but they did get up see OZ and meet up with long lost relatives in NZ.

I recall that, of the one and a half million Ten Pound Poms, 250 000 went back but half of them came back to Oz and stayed second time around. Half of the Brits who emigrate to Oz return permanently to the UK? That's hard to believe. If true, it's probably been replicated here on PIO and half of us are now living back in the UK? Of the Brits, the Irish and other nationalities that I know very few have returned permanently.

I suppose if you don't mind where you live and your partner is homesick(?), you could live in the UK? I guess the kids are still young enough not to have to worry about changing schools? But although you like London, you would not be living there? Would it be Yorkshire or somewhere else? I wished I'd experienced living in London and it might have prepared me for the "shock" of moving from a village in The New Forest to Sydney. I like Sydney but long commutes and crowds stuffed me up. Now I live in an inner city suburb - Surry Hills - which I treat as if I'm living in a village again as I rarely stray more than a kilometres away, and that's usually to go to the beach. I left England for the second time 13 years ago and I've not been back. I used to go back and forth when my parents were alive and I went back for 12 years. Perhaps a sense of where you should live will just "emerge?"

I can't remember how long I've had Woodside - 25 years maybe, before I went back to England in 1996, the same with ANZ. I bought all my shares in the 90s and sold most of them in 2005 or 2006 when I bought my parents' house. I could sell them I suppose. I guess my TA fills in all the right boxes. I've just about sold the house in England and intending to use the money to supplement my various pensions, maybe do my flat up, maybe buy a new car, something "fancy" although living in the inner city I don't need a car, and when I do I use Go Get. Had one last night to go to Clovelly in fact but the first time I'd driven in four days. A car will just sit in my garage. I have some super I've not accessed yet, just being slack. My only debt is when I use my credit card to supplement my income, not good housekeeping I know but not a huge debt - $1200 I think. I must take some money from super, got some tax debts too, two thousand I think. I was sad when I put the house up for sale but, 7 months later, I'm glad, no more assets in UK though I get two pensions. I probably need about $1,000 more a month to live happily.

I'm open-minded. If someone can interpret the stats from either the Aussie or UK govts which prove there's a huge increase in people going back then I'll accept that. You could probably use PIO stats for that matter. I suspect the prospective "New Chums" are put off by a minority of PIO members who have not settled in Oz. It might be easier to travel back now but it's also easier to keep in contact with family members at "Home". When I came I had the phone, from a call box or in the Main PO at Martin Place, or "snail mail." Now, there's mobile phones, the Internet, video phone calls.

You mention "the return rate" implying it is high. If you have the statistics to prove it then fine but I doubt the proportion of people who return to the UK from Australia is any higher today than it was during the "Ten Pound Poms" years, I.e. 1.5 million went to Oz, 250, 000 returned to the UK, then half of those 250, 000 went to Oz for a second time, and most stayed.

I have two nurse mates (both male) here in Sydney. One is working on the Covid wards this weekend whilst the other is in aged care. They both seem upbeat about the present situation with Covid. I don't know how to compare the health system in Australia - Sydney in my case - and the UK. I do know that, unless things have changed, GPs are only open in England Monday to Friday whereas in Sydney many open seven days a week. I lived in a small village in England where Southampton was the "Big Smoke." Sydney had 5 million people. I half wish I'd lived in London before I came here to "acclimatise" myself to city life. Moving to another country probably means a period of "acclimatising" although not all people experience it in the same way. I went back to England to "live" as opposed to holidays, and it was like emigrating again, and when I came back to Sydney I "emigrated" a third time. Now, after 13 years I just "live" here.

"Plenty leave?" Show me some statistics which prove that a large proportion of migrants, from whichever country they are from, return to their homelands - permanently. I've no idea what "Australia is most certainly nothing like the country it was when I arrived". I've no idea if traffic, crime, or whatever other factor you want to use is better or worse. I'd probably say it's about the same. I had a good life in England before I came here. I sometimes wonder if it was a mistake to come but I've mostly had a good life in Sydney. If I've had a problem it's because I lived in a little village and I moved to Gotham. I would argue that most successful migrants succeed because they were successful in their home countries. But who knows. Provide me with some firm statistics that show that migrants are all returning to their home countries in greater numbers than in the past. I have an open mind.