Lisa&Martin

Hi Spenner. I must confess i didn't come across anything that mentioned not being able to send personal items so I was honest about what was in there. I put 'clothes (used) - no shoes' and also 'craft items', 'pram accessories' 'children's books and toys - used'. The reason I put no shoes is that I know this is something quarantine like to look at in case there is mud or plant material on them. As far as I am aware you can bring items of a value up to $1000 without incurring customs charges, but I put the items as used and a total value of £350. There were no charges incurred this end at all, and the service was door to door.

Not necessarily cheaper than using a courier. I just returned from the UK with 60.6kg of excess luggage. I booked it through www.transglobal.org.uk and then selected the option to use TNT as the courier. It was picked up last Tuesday at 5pm UK time and delivered to me in Sydney last Friday at 10.30am AUS time and I could track it all the way online. Cost was £213.

Hi there, I had a baby in Sydney a year ago. Must say I felt completely out of my depth to start with but as time has gone on I have been so impressed with the services and resources available to new Mums here. In terms of buying things second hand, I did get a lot on Gumtree and Ebay, there is also something called the Baby & Kids market that is on in various Sydney locations every month or so. The hospital / obstetrician / doctor generally put you in touch with pre-birth info and resources, and post-birth there was a Early Childhood Centre at the local shopping centre where you went for a once-weekly meet-up for the first 12 weeks (the post-birth visit midwife gave me the details). I got to know a great group of Mums through that, we all still meet weekly, and different groups have formed swim groups for the babies, dog-walking groups etc, we do 'babes in arms' cinema trips (check out the local cinema listings, most cinemas do them). Other people go to a library service called 'Baby Bounce' which is free, involves songs and rhymes, there are also quite a few churches in the area that also host meet-ups which are not religious in content. I have also been so impressed by the parents' facilities in the shopping centres. Other friends who've had baby care & sleeping issues have called the Tresillian helpline or even been for a residential visit, I believe St John of God and Karitane also offer a similar service. There's a good link here: http://www.bubhub.com.au/directory/find/early-childhood-health-centres-sydney I think basically when you are pregnant you feel like you are pretty much on your own, especially as a new migrant, as time goes on and especially after you give birth you start to find out about all the various resources, it's been great, if your friends are sociable types they will have no problem at all. Lisa x

We also used James Wellbeloved for our black lab in the UK, he has always had a sensitive stomach and would get the runs if we fed him anything else. the only exception was Burns, which is also only available in the UK. Here we use Nutro Natural Choice with no problems, available in local pet store, and he has still kept his ridiculously shiny coat, always a good sign :-) They do lamb, chicken & fish versions.

I assure you your experience is entirely normal. Despite the fact that they speak English here, it is still a foreign language. You will be missing all the background knowledge as to how to do things, where to find things etc that you had in the UK, so doing some things will feel like an adventure, other things may feel like hitting a roadblock. And get used to using Satnav to drive everywhere, that way you will know the day you turn it off you have really become a local :-)

I am on a bit of a learning curve on car seats here at the moment as i am due to have my first child in Sydney in August. The fittings appear to be different, safety standards different, they have never heard of ISOFIX and the tether thing seems to be a legal requirement for insurance purposes. That's what gets you in the end, that whatever you judge to be best is not necessarily covered by your car insurance here. Some hospitals even require a certificate of fitting from an authorised fitter before they let you take your baby home....!!!! The previous poster was right in that you can pre-order child seats for a hire car as part of the package, and then when you get your own car if you haven't found anything locally to buy there are lots of hire companies for child seats, you either go to them or they can come and fit at your home. If I were you I would leave the UK ones behind, these are big items to try to bring with you if you are talking about bringing them on the plane, then go to one of the baby shops here and quiz them about all the fittings and options. You can then either buy new here, buy second-hand or rent, whatever suits you.

As a super-king size bed user I would recommend you bring some over, you will probably have found there aren't many outlets for this size in the UK anyway. Debenhams and John Lewis are good, I would imagine M&S do that size as well. Debenhams alraady ship to Aus for a reasonable fee, but you will find a lot of bed linen on their website says this size not available, when you can get it off the shelf in their shops. John Lewis has plans to ship to Aus later this year. So stock up a few year's worth in the meantime. I would also consider putting in a couple of good quality mattress protectors from John Lewis.

Having read the various advice on vacuum packing I decided to use common sense and use the bags for all our bedding & clothes. Silica sachets just thrown in a box will saturate quickly and won't make a lot of difference over the 2 to 3 months your container is on the water. I put a few inside each vacuum bag and had no problems. Putting stuff into a vacuum bag is not really seen as 'packing' by the shipping companies, and anyway the sales rep will often give you completely different information to the blokes that come to box it all up. I found the packing blokes were focussed on getting the job done as fast as possible, and wrapping stuff up according to their training. It really doesn't make any difference to them if you don't fit everything in the container, that is between you and the sales rep, and when they have your wordly possesions and are asking for a few extra hundred quid to take the bits that didn't fit in, you are over a barrell. Don't be surprised if they don't busy themselves making sure all that empty drawer space in a chest of drawers is filled up, take the initiative and do it yourself. Just make sure it is obvious what is in the space so they can list it correctly on the inventory.

I realise that the finances are only a part of the bigger picture right now, but I would have thought that both assets and debts whilst you were married were joint? Seems very generous of you to own all the equipment debt, and take it off 'your half' of the house equity when it was the use of the equipment that provided an income to you both, and the funds that paid for the house renovations to be completed.

Can you PM me to let me know if you've still got the 5 small coffee tables. thanks, lisa

Magnesium supplements are supposed to be better absorbed and used by the body when they are rubbed on the skin in an oil form. Google magesium oil for info and here's a couple of sites that sell it: Nutri-Tech - MagSorb transdermal magnesium oil 250ml http://www.alternetdetox.com.au/shop/index.php?cPath=129&osCsid=8e57d46821e3b36a20155813ac7d9710 I researched it for a friend of mine who has ME (chronic fatugue syndrome) and she now swears by it for a quick fix.

Hi Niki Just wanted to add our congratulations. It is a long, arduous road just to get a temp visa on a 163, but that makes it so worthwhile. We arrived in Sydney in Dec 2009 on a 163 and you couldn't drag us back to the UK now. Martin has nightmares in which the State Sponsorship people deny him a permanent visa.... Well done and enjoy the rest of the journey. Lisa :cute:

You could try the Rocks market and a ride on a Harley bike / trike from there.

There are two thoughts I have after reading your post. Firstly, it sounds like your husband really tried to make things work in London. It can't have been easy for him searching for a job for 10 months with no success, all the rejections. It may have made him feel that what he had to offer to the job market wasn't worth anything, and he may have felt like less of a man as he was living off you. I can understand that when he was offered a job back in Oz (especially dream job in dream company) it would have boosted his self-esteem no end. He did give it a go to stay in London, but in the end you could both see that financially there was no future in it. I think it would be gracious of you to understand what he went through and at least give it as much of a go here in Sydney as he did in London. Perhaps his purchase of a house here was to try to offer you a home to come to and to be a provider again. Secondly I think you need to put a line under the past. It has gone, time has moved on. You went to London and found a fabulous job and an interesting life, but you are not defined by your work. If you went back now without him, having given up on marriage, child and moved away from family I doubt it would all look as rosy in London as it did 6 months ago. I don't want to sound like I'm taking soundbites from a self-help book, but your future in Sydney is really what you make it. It won't help you at all in your marriage or pregnancy if you are looking backwards and wanting to be anywhere but here. Try to see this as a fresh start, an opportunity to do many things well that you have never done before, don't do them half-heartedly or with regrets. Best of luck.