Wendy Robinson

I put the racks to soak overnight in hot water and Napisan, works a treat. For the oven I use Mr Muscle foam spray, the one with no odour.

We did our visa ourselves, it was pretty straightforward. Off topic, but Wow it's been a while since I heard 'round the Wrekin' I used to live about 15 minutes from it and used to spend a lot of time there. As you were.....

I recently done Gatwick to Perth with a 1.5 hr layover in Dubai. Basically when you get off the first flight there are sign posts directing you to go through passport control/baggage check, go through to departures, check the board for your next departure gate, make your way over and you will usually have 20-30 minutes to spare depending on how far away the gate is. Luggage gets transferred on to your connecting flight, so no lugging heavy bags around. I prefer short layovers but they can be a bit rushed as you feel like you step off one plane straight on to another, but at least you get to Oz quicker lol.. Hope this helps, if not I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will be along shortly. :unsure:

We went to a chemist at Garden city, cost $14.95, and got 6 copies of the picture and we picked them up 10 minutes later. They were good quality pictures and we have had no problems with getting passports using them.

Not sure about applying and get it sent to someone in the UK, can't imagine their would be a problem. I applied for my daughter's passport as an overseas citizen online 4 and half weeks ago, I rung them yesterday to get an update on the status on the application, and it is still waiting to be looked at:mad:. I'm due to fly to the UK in 4 weeks, and hoping they pull their finger out and get them back to me ASAP but I'm not holding out much hope :skeptical:. I wish I had sent them to family and had them posted to me, Fortunately we have our citizenship ceremony on 6th March so they will still be able to travel on our Aussie passports if need be.... So basically if your not planning on traveling in the near future go the proper route, if you plan to travel soonish, I'd get them sent to family!

So sorry to hear your terrible news. No practical advice just wanted to pass on my sincere condolences and hope everything is sorted as soon as possible. I don't usually give hugs but here's one for you, MrsT and kids:hug:..

*WARNING LONG AND DEPRESSINGLY BORING* We (being myself, hubby and 3 kids) sold everything we had in the UK. Arrived in Oz on 9th June 2009 with 5 suitcases and 14k GBP We stayed in a motel for the first few nights, and then told we had to leave by the following Monday as the room had been double booked and the other people needed the room more than us:err:. Anyway it gave us a kick up the bum to find a rental. We wanted to be NOR so started at REAs in Joondalup. Everywhere we went was the same story "sorry you'll have to wait until open house, submit application and wait'. By this stage I was ready to go back to airport and get the next available flight home, but as luck would have it, Hubby insisted we try one more REA, So off we go, we get there ask the usual questions, basically said we need somewhere ASAP, didn't care where it was as long as it is liveable. Poor woman must have felt so sorry for us, she said she had a place available in Quinns Rocks, not even advertised yet, and it was ours if we wanted it. So on the Friday after we landed we signed a 12 month lease on our first Aussie home. Moved in the following Monday. So basically we managed to open bank accounts, medicare, enrol kids into school and refurnish a whole house in less than a week of arriving. Then it seems our luck ran out. Hubby was a maintenance electrician in England, and obviously no electrical licence meant no electrical job in Oz. He applied for literally 100s of jobs, from Trade assistant to Hungry Jacks and everything in between, never heard back from ANY of them. I was also applying for jobs, as in England I was an elderly care assistant, fortunately I was offered a job, which came at the right time as we were running out of money fast. 3 months later out of the blue an ex work mate of hubbys contacted him on F/B and said he'd heard we were in Perth and was he interested in job at his place. Hell Yeah he was. The job was perfect for him, and best of all no licence needed as it was a electrical design programming job (I think). Any how things started looking up both had jobs we enjoyed, although I had to give mine up as DH job involved a lot of FIFO at a moments notice. Everything was plodding along nicely, kids were settled, PIL had been out to visit, we had really started to settle. Then in August 2010 we found out I was pregnant, yay life was great. Then BAM things went to ****.... scans showed possible problems with the baby, first they though DS, then perhaps CF, as it turns out baby was perfectly healthy, I just had a **** sonographer. So back to happy,happy,happy. Or so I thought..... Dh went into go into a major depressive episode, it started of with a day off work here a day off there nothing to concerning, then days turned into weeks. He said it was the stress of his job and he can't do it anymore, he was sometimes spending 3 weeks at a time away from home, coming home for a few days then being sent away again. So unbeknown to him I started applying for jobs for him, (by this point he had his fitters licence). He recieved a call a week or so later from a company, offering him a job interview, and a few weeks later started a new job. Problem was because he was so down and depressed he wouldn't/couldn himself to drag, and point blank refused to see a gp. Fortunately his new boss was very understanding and allowed him to work from home . Anyway around jan/feb 2011 I finally lost my **** with him and told him straight. I was 2 months away from having baby #4 tired, fed up emotional, hormonal and needed some support and told if he didn't sort his crap out I'm packing up mine and the kids stuff and going back to England, withOUT him. (Admittedly not my finest moment). Anyhow obviously something clicked and he finally got some help, got him self back to work and motivated again. By the time the baby was born things were all good again. NOW....... Things are great, Hubby is still in his job that he loves, we've moved SOR now and things are actually really great at the moment. We have had some really crap times but we have also had some amazing times and for now I love living here. We are about to start looking to buy our own home, planning some amazing adventures and have no desire to go back to the UK not even for holiday as yet. Sorry for all the depressing bits but I think it has made me more determined to make it work here, becasue if we can handle all that crap on our own in a foreign country, come out the other side and still love it here then Australia is doing something right for us.