Paul1Perth

Interesting times for sure. Considering leaving your job is a lot different than actually doing it. Usually reality kicks in and you realise you still have bills to pay and a life to live. Number of times I felt like a change but then realise how much I had invested in the job I had. Don't know whether cities will ever be the same though, lots working from home now.

One of the things I've stuck with is getting up early. Best part of the day in Perth is early morning, specially in summer. Lots of the surf club training starts at 5:30am in summer, not yet though, it's still 7:00am for most sessions. I have a weird thing called benign positional vertigo at the moment, had it since Monday evening. Just thought I felt a bit dizzy going to bed and would be fine the next morning. Still felt the same next morning and it makes you feel sick. Thought it was getting a bit better Wednesday and took the youngster for a driving lesson. Felt really sick in the car and couldn't wait to get home. My wife took me to St Johns clinic the next morning where you don't need an appointment. Emergency care clinic. Saw an Irish doctor who knew instantly what it was when I told him the symptoms. Had me do a couple of exercises where you sit up, look up, then drop on to your side on the bed. Made me feel instantly sick and dizzy. Got some anti nausea tablets which help. I had a sick bag with me and threw up in the wifes car coming home. Hopefully go off soon I hope, can't do any exercise so it's driving me nuts. Just getting over a broken leg now this, it's crap getting old. Hopefully soon back to the 7:00am swim or ski paddle. Looking forward to the AFL final tonight, Perth is really busy and it should look great on TV. My son has tickets for the game and is going for Melbourne. I'd like to see them win too but as long as it's a good game not really fussed.

How far South are you looking? Have you been to Secret Harbour yet? Nice spot, my sis and family loved it when they were thinking about emigrating. Unfortunately they couldn't get in. We are up near Hillary's, about 10 mins further North. We love it, been here nearly 30 years now.

Boris Johnson should have a good idea of how many people have been hanging out to see families. I hope you're right and it doesn't happen. There's lots of things happening at the moment that make me angry but then I think what good will it do and try and let it slide.

Was the money good then Bob? My son said last week he only works 21 weeks a year and earns a lot more than I ever did. Trouble is he spends it too. I have another friend who I play golf with in his 70's. He used to work for main roads as a surveyor up North and in the Kimberleys, he has some great stories. Months away from home, really tough conditions, middle of nowhere, living in tents, baking hot and dusty. Kids of today don't know how good they have it. And then they blame baby boomers for what they think is a bad world. Apparently we all had it easy and it's all our fault.

I find the free catchup on SBS and ABC has some good series and films sometimes. I've seen adverts for that masked singer thing and it looks dire. Who told that Dave Hughes he was funny? Don't know who the other people are. The new RFDS series has been OK and we record the SAS thing so we can skip through the adverts and padding. That program must have proffesional mental people squirming the way their "motivation" is dished out. They told the Aborigine girl on there to "get out of the pity party". Thought I'll have to remember that one.

My wife said she didn't know how she had time to work a couple of days ago. I guess I do volunteer on patrols at the surf club. Not what I'd call work though, being down the beach looking out for people who might be in difficulty. Nice feeling when you do get to help mind you, happened a few times. Patrols start this weekend.

When he started having driving lessons his instructor told him he could get some help from NDIS. We had to get an instructor who deals with autistic and learning difficulty people, so $90 an hour she charges. We sent in the application along with all his medical records and diagnosis. After a few weeks we get an email back that the diagnosis are all from a few years ago and to get help from them he would have to go and see all the doctors again and be diagnosed again. What do they think, he's suddenly going to get better? They also informed us that if they didn't hear anything from us in 2 weeks they would assume we'd stopped the process. We didn't bother after that. NDIS is not the best.

I honestly don't think you'd get lots of help anywhere without a lot of action from parents. You have to push for everything but keep pushing and the help is there. Several kids had student helpers in his primary school, there was a school psych who was pretty helpful, my wife had a meeting with him and the primary school head, which led to the special desk, chair, tablet. He got a bit of bullying but he whacked a couple of the bullies one day. The teacher knew they had been winding him up so the upshot was they all got suspended for a few days. No more bullying after that. He got sent home a couple of times from senior school too, for sticking up for himself or one of the other "learning difficulty" kids. I went to school camp with him and realised he was the enforcer for all the kids in his crowd. Maybe because of his autism he's not scared of anyone so was quick to put the bullies in their place. Way to sort it I reckon.

Our youngest has autism. My wife spotted he was different very early, wouldn't make eye contact, wouldn't sit still for a second. In trouble at school as soon as he started. We went to a few doctors and got an early diagnosis. The school bought a desk that wrapped around him and a higher chair, also an electronic tablet as he has dyspraxia and can't hold a pen correctly. Later found he suffers from epilepsy too. He got referred to a geneticist who did tests and found he has a missing strand in his dna. We all had to have blood tests to see if hereditary. Me and the wife and his elder brother are all fine. Just an unfortunate one off but he has the risk of passing it on if he has kids. Luckily he's high functioning, got through school OK, has a job in a cafe that he's had for 10 years and is doing fine. He's 26 and just learning to drive. He's never been that bothered, just went everywhere on his bike. We had quite a bit of help and support from school, doctors, agencies. Most of it free. Still hard work, a lot of patience needed, he didn't sleep a night through till he was about 10, used to get anxiety attacks. We ended up leaving a spare mattress under his bed and taking turns sleeping on his floor. It was harder work trying to get him to sleep. As he's got older his epilepsy is under control and he can manage his feelings better. He's still at home with us but a lovely kid. His "regulars" in the cafe love him and he's a really hard worker, so the boss loves him too. He went to a "private" school nearby that had a stream for kids with learning difficulties. Worked well, had the same teacher all the way through senior school who was a touchy feely lady who loved a hug. Just what he needed. Loved his uniform and the school was a lot more strict and disciplined than where his elder brother went. It was better for him though.

You could have a healthy discussion with the reporter who wrote the article then. Whatever the reason I was surprised. I think there's an oversupply in Perth City and also thought too many apartments were being built in Scarborough. However the ones in Scarbs are fetching top dollar and selling quickly, mostly off the plan. My son rents there. Rentals are hard to come by and expensive. He's had his 2 bed unit about 18 months and he's hoping they don't put his rent up. He thought it was expensive when he first moved in, it's looking pretty reasonable now.

I read in the weekend paper that Sydney and Melbourne City apartment rents are down 9% this year and there's an oversupply. I was surprised as all I've heard is about property price increases. Seems a lot of people want to move to the suburbs and get a house and working from home has led to a lot doing exactly that.

My friend retired from local government on a defined scheme a couple of years ago. I think it was based on his final years salary, so he's laughing. He was offered redundancy about 5 years ago and knocked it back. When he told me and another friend what he'd done we gave him heaps. Both of us said he was crazy. Lucky for him he got the same opportunity about a year later and took it. Couldn't believe he was still considering not taking it again. We had to give him a good talking to.

The other option is get to the "sweet spot" where you are getting just enough income to be able to claim a full state pension from Aus. There's other benefits that save a lot of money too. Seniors card, Commonwealth seniors health card. The 2nd one has lots of benefits but is assessed on income. I applied for it last year but my wife was still working. Now she's retired we should be able to get it. Cheaper prescriptions, cheaper rates, water bills, gas, electricity. They assess you on your income from abroad though so if you have a good pension from the UK it could take you over the limit. It's not so much a no brainer when you take everything into account.

The exchange rate alone can make what seems like a no brainer into a bad investement. I have a couple of income streams from private retirement funds, NCB and Ferranti, on top of the UK pension and then my super from here. My wife has her NHS one coming in already, her super but will have to wait until she's 67 to get her British one. If you have debts or a mortgage I reckon your money would be better used to pay that off first. We never bothered topping ours up but was pleasantly surprised what I get. On top of that, if you're paying for advice that's a cost too that has to be taken into account. You can do it yourself, lots of information out there.

Personally I'm loving retirement, my wife retired too a few weeks ago, she loves it. I think you need a good group of friends and a routine though. My wife is down the beach this morning for 7:30 yoga, it's really nice weather today so I'll go to the gym then meet her down the beach later. Maybe take the surf ski or paddle board out. Played golf yesterday, after a ski paddle in the morning with friends. Because we're still members of a surf club and live very close there's always someone organising something. Mostly free, my wife pays a little bit for yoga but she goes training and swimming with a group and the coach that organises that doesn't charge anything. They just say they are doing the session anyway, come if you want. A few of the guys I played golf with yesterday are retired. Most ex Woodside FIFO workers, retired early (well a lot earlier than me at 66) and they all have a big group of friends and things to do. It was strange listening to them chat after about FIFO swings. The swings keep changing, my son and the younger ones are on 3 weeks on 3 weeks off. The older guys used to do 2 on 2 off then get the odd 4 week off. They said they preffered that as 3 weeks didn't give you long enough to have a proper holiday. It's a different world to normal workers that have to save up for their one summer family holiday a year. I think if your social life was more involved with work and work colleagues then it would be tougher to retire. You'd lose touch, be out of the loop and possibly wouldn't be able to enjoy the chat when you did catch up. My work mates and social mates were totally different, there is one friend from work I see socially the others were more interested in computers and gaming. Now I've retired I have zero interest in that.

There's plenty of pubs and restaurants that do lunch and dinner specials. Perth food halls sound a lot more up-market than the Sydney equivalent. There's some really good ones in the City. One near BHP's head office where you can get just about any food you want, City and Elizabeth Quay views, proper plates, knives, forks, inside or outside dining. Brilliant on a nice day. Gets packed.

Nah, he'd have to return to the UK for a while to do that. Just sell the UK place, take the tax hit and he should have plenty to give him a lovely lifestyle. Most of what's good is free anyway.

My son sent us a lovely video when he'd not been in Whistler long. They were playing golf and he panned around to show us the brilliant mountain view, then he panned to the other side of the fairway and there'd moma bear with 3 cubs, not 20m away. Brown bears mind you, it's grizzly's you have to be scared of. We went on a long bike ride when we holidayed there and went up a steep hill. Me and the youngest were fine but my wife was struggling a bit. Said to the youngster keep going and we'll wait at the top. It was a bit out in the mountains and surrounded by forest but I thought there's nowhere else to go, she has to make it. When she eventually got to the top she was livid. Me and the youngster were looking at a sign that said caution grizzly bears in the area. Took her a while to calm down but she saw the funny side after a while. Loved Whistler.

It has it's nice parts, nice park, good views, people seemed friendly, good pubs and eating out. Hotels were horrendously expensive and there's a part of the City, just beyond gas town, that is like Dante's inferno. Cops seem to have given up on it, people openly doing drugs, begging, smoking crack pipes. As long as you keep away from that bit, you should be OK.

Lavertons not the best, that's for sure.

They adapted or died BF.

Brilliant. You took the words out of my mouth.

You could follow the weather without leaving WA. A lot of our friends have caravans and boats and disappear up North for the winter.

What's a "progressive outlook"?