LKC

We had an overpayment, from the time that we became PR to when OH got his first bonus payment, they paid us a small amount of family tax benefit (or whatever it is called), and although I notified them of the bonus as soon as I knew what it was, all they did was adjust the payments from that point. Then, when we filled in our tax returns at the end of the year, we owed them a bit which they took from the tax rebate that we were due. So, I would assume that you will need to fill in a tax return for Aus at some point and it will show up at that point and they will either deduct it from your rebate (if you are due one) or send a bill. We use the online government portal for centrelink etc, and have found it to be easy to use. Here is the link http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/centrelink-online-services, you might be able to register and sort it out that way.

I certainly have! I went to uni to study zoology first of all, I love science and got good results in my degree. However, when I left uni I wasn't able to find a job in that field, and after being pressured to move out by my mum, I took the first interesting-sounding thing that I was offered, which was as a receptionist in an optometrists practice. I worked my way up to dispensing assistant (dispensing glasses), and then decided to take myself back off to uni for a second time to study optometry. I completed my degree and professional exams and worked as an optometrist until I had the girls, because we wanted for me to stay home with them. I did intend to return to work, but when I was pregnant with youngest, we decided that we would up-sticks and move to Australia. I have now been out of optometry for almost eight years, and as I would have to take my Australian professional exams in order to practice (and having not practiced for eight years they would be impossible for me to pass), I have decided that optometry will have to be forgotten as a career. About three years ago, when eldest started school, I did start my own business selling wedding jewellery and accessories, and dyeing shoes to match bridesmaids dresses, but as of next Monday I am closing the business. It did quite well, but I am sorry to say that brides have to be one of the most difficult groups of people to deal with, and I just can't take any more unreasonable, abusive and demanding emails. I am good at what I do, but I have come to realise that you can't please everyone all of the time, no matter how much you try to. What next for me? Who knows! I will be taking a year off. I would like to learn photography, there are a couple of free online courses that I would like to take (a maths one with the University of Adelaide, plus a few Coursera courses - these are definitely worth checking out if you are interested in learning stuff!). I have been thinking of doing some non-award study courses at uni, but won't commit to anything like that until 2015. Then once I have done those I may decide to go back off to uni. My real interest is in science (and it always has been), so I would love to go back and do something like conservation biology or microbiology. Anyway, no rush to decide, although at this point I will be a very mature student!

I am just re-reading East of the Sun by Julia Gregson. I think I enjoyed it last time, so I thought I'd give it another go. I enjoyed The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini too. I am also part way through Stephen Hawkings autobiography which is interesting but a little bit dry. I intend to re-visit some of my childhood favourites over the holidays. I have got our daughters books by Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton and C S Lewis, and I am looking forwards to reading those with the girls over the summer.

Fantastic photo! What a great experience! We haven't seen any in the wild, but they are in the bush around our suburb and people do see them from time to time. We do hear them in the night sometimes, as they can be rather noisy in mating season!

Which is probably why we fit in so well :biggrin:!

That was kind of my point. People have a stereotyped view of different areas (Sutherland Shire = Boganville and race riots; Western Sydney = Drag-racing hooligans and drive-by shootings; North Shore = White picket fences and 4 wheel drives for the school run; Inner West = Hipsters; The Hills = McMansionville etc), but the reality is that people live in these areas perfectly happily. My experience of Sutherland Shire is as much in line with the stereotype of this area as I'm sure yours is of the North Shore stereotype. But my experience of the North Shore was that it wouldn't suit us to live, that isn't me stereotyping the area, just my opinion on what we experienced whilst we were there. As I said, it was a moot point anyway. OH was offered a practice in Hurstville, but I couldn't have lived in Hurstville because of my impressions of that area.

I've heard people say that about Sutherland Shire before, but living here I don't see that at all. I just see a really lovely area, which is affordable, has friendly people, beautiful surroundings and easy transport links to the city. We came from a tiny village in Suffolk, so it isn't even like we were coming from an inner city slum, where anything would have been an improvement. We looked around the north shore area a bit, and over towards the hills district, and to be honest didn't think much of it. Sutherland Shire people seemed far more friendly, although we could have afforded to buy up that way. In the end, it didn't matter anyway because OH was offered a practice in Hurstville, so this was the obvious choice for a place to live.

I work from home, and OH drives to work (he works in Hurstville), but lots of people I know around here commute in to Sydney, and the train is definitely the best way to go. Our nearest station is Engadine, but the southern trains split at Sutherland, with half going to Cronulla and half to the Illawarra, so most people drive to Sutherland and get the train from there (twice as many trains). From what I hear, the trains are pretty reliable. i agree that you need to have an idea of area before you move. Although our girls were not at school when we moved over, we still wanted to move to roughly the right area.

I agree with Rupert re Sutherland Shire. It is a fantastic area, we have been very happy here. It is a bit under an hour to the CBD (depending exactly on where you are), and has pretty much everything you could need, including affordable housing, beautiful beaches and national park, and very good schools. Many people overlook this area because it isn't in the north of Sydney, which seems to be where most aim for, but this area was always our number one choice. ETA: we are in the western part of Sutherland Shire, which is about 30-40 mins drive from the beach at Cronulla, but in our opinion the beaches in the Royal National Park are far nicer and much less crowded. We find we don't go so much these days, because we have a pool which is far more convenient!

I utterly agree with this. I know that most people will be telling you to get out there and make new friends, but sometimes we can put such pressure on ourselves to do so that we come across as being a bit 'desperate', for want of a better word. I felt pressured when we first moved over, mainly by family members who kept telling me that I had to go out and meet people. It actually resulted in a fairly big depressive episode for me, and it was only when I took that pressure off and decided that I would rather just make friends naturally rather than force it, that I started to feel better. Things will improve, but for a while you will feel like a round peg in a square hole. It is normal, and it will pass.

Sounds just like our eldest! There are no grey areas with her either, and I wouldn't swap her for the world either! If I tell her I'll be there in a minute (meaning some indeterminable time between now-ish and a bit later), she will time me and make sure I am exactly a minute! Literal thinking!

Absolutely agree.

What about western Sutherland Shire, such as Illawong, Alfords Point, Bangor, Menai or Barden Ridge? Short commute and lovely areas. We have been very happy in sutherland Shire.

You forgot the hail and the sleet!

I do hope that the tiger is not destroyed. It is simply doing what comes naturally to it. Unfortunately, the big cat handlers are taking a risk by getting in to the same area as the cats. The way I look at it, is that the tiger (or lion or whatever) is a bigger and more wild version of a domestic cat. If you had a dog which was bigger and more wild than a domestic dog, would you get in to a small arena with it and make it do tricks? Probably not, so why is it acceptable with big cats? I hope that makes sense...!

This is what we did when we went back for a holiday in September. Youngest's passport had expired, so we just took that plus her Aussie passport and had no trouble at all.

We didn't really leave the UK because we wanted to leave, we just moved because we had the opportunity and the kids were small and portable, and because we felt like the challenge. Worked out well in the end.

I recently read a paper on magnesium and depression, which made for an interesting read. I wonder if these days our earth is so over farmed that the things that we eat don't contain the vitamins/minerals that they should? Also Vitamin D. I was found to be deficient in Vitamin D, because I slathered myself with sunscreen. Incidentally, UVA which passes more deeply in to the skin, passes through glass, water and ozone, and which is implicated in melanoma, is highest in the early morning and late afternoon. It doesn't even burn you, so you have no idea as to whether you have had too much. UVB is less penetrating, but causes vitamin D production in the skin. It also burns, so warns the skin when it has had enough. It is present when the sun is at its highest at around noon. Of course I was told to obtain sunshine for my vitamin D needs in the early morning and late afternoon, and told to avoid the midday sun. Possibly why I had to have a pre-cancerous lesion removed from my chest last month. Anecdotally, I have been taking magnesium citrate and chelate for about eight weeks, and I can honestly say that I have slept better than I have ever slept in my life, and the depression is gone. I have also been taking vitamin D, which I have found to be hugely beneficial. It absolutely makes perfect sense that what we put in to (and do to) our bodies affects how it works. We have been evolving for millions of years, yet only recently have we been using chemicals, eating foods that we weren't supposed to eat, and spoiling the earth.

Maybe most people who are overweight don't want to be, but due to the bad advice they are given re what they should and shouldn't eat, they have become so, and as a result they are too tired, depressed and malnourished to exercise and take care of themselves properly. Maybe it is a vicious cycle of bad advice, poor food choices, malnutrition, tiredness and depression, lack of exercise or outdoor activity, not losing weight and bad advice, ad infinitum. I am overweight. I had anorexia/bulimia in my late teens/early twenties, followed by binge drinking/eating, and consequently became overweight. I have followed low calorie, low fat, high exercise diets to the extreme, and not lost any weight at all. However, having switched to a HIGH fat, LOW carb primal/paleo diet with no grains, no sugar and lots of healthy natural fats from meat, butter, avocados and fish, I have lost weight, have more energy, and the depression that I have suffered with for 20+ years has gone. Maybe we are just being given the wrong advice.

We've done it both ways. When the girls were tiny, we preferred to leave UK at night, get to Singapore and have a 12 hour stop (for a sleep in the transit hotel, something to eat and so on) and then fly to Sydney to land at about 8pm which meant that by the time we got to the hotel it was dinner and then bed time which meant that the jet-lag was kept to a minimum. This last time we went to the UK, the kids were a bit older (5 and 7), and we found that doing it in one leg was fine. We got the night flight from the UK and the afternoon flight from Sydney, and they both slept well and were beautifully behaved. It meant that we arrived back in the UK/Sydney first thing in the morning, but actually it was fine. We all managed to stay awake all day, and went to bed as normal. Would probably do it this way next time, unless there was somewhere that we fancied visiting on the way/way back for a few days.

We were going to use them due to the fact that they are very highly thought of on here. However, OH's employer wanted to use a different company, so we didn't. Had we been able to choose our own agent, this is who we would have chosen.

All of our local schools are different too. Our girls school has a green/white checked shorts & top or dress for the girls in summer, and bottle green trousers with a lemon shirt or a bottle green plaid dress with lemon shirt for the winter, and the boys wear grey trousers/shorts and a polo shirt. Sports uniform is bottle green bottoms (skort or jogging bottoms) and then a T-shirt in the colour of the house they are in. Other schools in the area have blue bottoms, black bottoms, and there is even one school in the suburb which has a brown uniform. You would probably be better off just buying it second hand when you get here. To be honest, although the uniforms are expensive, they do get lots of wear, so to my mind they are worth it.

Also bear in mind that gifts over 36GBP entering the UK from a non-EU country will attract duties and taxes as outlined here http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/customs-travel/customs/postal/. You are probably better off ordering them from UK companies.

There are only four weeks of term left. You are effectively on holiday until you settle, so I doubt that anyone would bat an eyelid.

If you are from the uk or one of the other countries with reciprocal arrangements with Australia, you can apply for a temporary Medicare card whilst on a temporary visa, even without a pr application in. We came over on a 457, and we had them for the three years before we applied for pr. you just have to renew it every year. Once we became pr (and subsequently citizens), I think the card is valid for five years. I am sure that if I am wrong, someone will be along soon with the correct information.