bug family

Hi Mark, Bit of moral support, I am in a very similar circumstance, do you have any children with this marriage? if you do not mind me asking...... Where are you looking to return to and will you be starting over again from scratch..i.e. mortgage , job etc... Hope you know that you are not alone and this adventure works out for you

This just goes to show how different we all are...I have found the complete opposite, having been to Melbourne, Sydney and Perth ( where I currently live) I find Australia a soul less place, sadly lacking in the culture you find in London or Manchester, I personally can find more to do in one square mile of London than in the whole city of Perth, as for the supermarkets, in my opinion there is no comparison, in the UK I have the choice of 9 major supermarkets with way more choice ....here I have Cole or Woolworths rinse and repeat Across every suburb Australia wide, it's as boring as toast here ...unless you like sun burn, Aussie rules, burnouts and BBQ's there is not a lot else going on

Yes I have thought about this before, maybe if we had tried another state it may have been a happier ten years here, but I always wanted to go home and nothing has shaken that feeling going to another area of Australia may have made it more bearable but it would not have changed my mind about where my home is, I accepted that Australia isn't my home and never will be within the first few years of being here, that's the funny thing with life sometimes you do roll the dice and take a chance

Hi perthpom1, coming from living in London the culture would be very different here, I to have lived here in Perth for 10 years and am returning home this year (hopefully), I find Perth personally a soulless place and mind numbing, as your children are young it would be the ideal time to move back, it is so much harder when they get older and start to develop a life here, where would you move back to if you do not mind me asking and will you find work easily?

Just wanted to give a bit of moral support @FairyBlue, You are in a really good position, both financially and having the support and backing of your husband and family, I think that you should embrace the new adventure and see what this next chapter of your life in the UK brings you I am also returning to the UK this year (hopefully just got to pass an interview at the end of Feb) I am unfortunately on the other side of the coin to you so to speak, both financially and support wise, I will be going home alone (I have two children) ......long story, I won't bore you, but I am determined to make it work your feet will touch the ground back home you will have the biggest smile on your face...... Good luck

yep not to sure on that one .....according to that logic I should now start hyphenating most words and add the letter 'o', "I am going down the servo then the fisho, with my mate Damo and his friend steveo'....nope I think i will stick to English but thanks Just curious though if I was to move to say the country Jamaica, you would want me (as a European Caucasian) to start using the local Jamaican pronunciations.... that would be interesting especially in today's climate

Not sure i really want to get in on this one I say 'yogurt' and 'data'because that is the correct pronunciation...not yooogurt or darrtaa Tell me if you do a bit of healthy exercise and go for a light run are you 'jogg-ing' or by what you are saying are you 'joe-ging'

I am 100 % British and always will be

I take it you are having a laugh parley.....if your citizenship dictates that you must only support the teams of the country you reside in (i must have missed that bit in the ceremony )then it would be a very boring world, look at the football team Manchester united for example, has more followers around the world who don't live in Britain than that do....I pledged an oath to be a good citizen nothing more, which I have been ....my heart and soul belongs elsewhere, if people don't like or accept that I don't honestly care one bit

Hi steveshe, I am glad you have found your forever home, can I ask what part of the UK you lived in ?... I agree that it is human nature to sometimes see only the good and not the bad, I was slightly different in that before I came to Australia I knew I would come back home to the UK one day, I verbalised this at the time, I returned in 2019 for a holiday and loved it, it confirmed for me where I belong, I think for balance I will definitely say that I would not want to live in some areas back home, but equally there are some areas I wouldn't want to live in Australia......I know as I live in one

Thanks Toots , I can reveal that I have a crucial interview to pass next month, pass that and I am on my way home

I think what this forum does highlight is that there is no 'one size fits all' type of advice, when someone posts a question we attempt to answer and give advice, but that advice will usually be somewhat biased, based upon our own experiences and thoughts on living a life in Australia, but also on what the person asking the question really wants from an answer to their question. Just because someone is told 'yes its great here you will love it ...come on over.....what are you waiting for' does not necessarily mean that that is how it will be for them and also how they may find it for themselves, we are all different...... I hold myself up as an example of this, prior to setting foot in Australia I discovered this very site (PIO) and read peoples stories on here of an amazing life down under, way better than the boring dull and grey UK....I could not wait (even though I knew that I would return home one day) this new adventure in life seemed like a paradise, but for me at least, after I had arrived it lost its sparkle very quickly, once I got into the day to day living and going to work, I think I was looking for what I had been 'promised'...a better life for me and the family........I personally never found it.......I never gave up looking though

Does not mean that your views are wrong either I am open minded on this.... some will think that Australia is the best thing ever and insist this and cannot understand how someone else cannot see and feel the same.....but if they had to live in someone else's shoes and feel what they feel then they may have a different point of view. I personally accept that for some Australia is home and always will be....good for them, enjoy and have a lovely time Equally I accept that for some Australia is a nightmare and they cannot wait to leave (that is if they can)

virtually the same length of time as me Faastwalker, would you consider going home? .....missing your boys would be very hard, that is the bit that I am going to struggle with when I leave, (my two are 13 and 9) but I have told them (and keep doing so) that I am not leaving them I am setting back up so they have another place to live in the world when they are older etc, I also miss the culture, the Pubs, the old buildings, green fields and countryside ....I am also a bit controversial when it comes to the beaches here as I have mentioned a few times that the beaches are boring, dull and all look the same (just my opinion ).... to which I normally get some looks of utter disbelief... when I went back home to the UK for a holiday with my son (Daniel) in 2019 just prior to the pandemic I took him to a couple of beaches, he could not believe how far the sea went out and also how much variety there was in the beaches, with some having caves and cliffs, rock pools, sand dunes, harbours, arcades, pubs, shops, bike paths etc, etc each one was different to the next....... 'wandering through a boring dream'...sums it up really well

wishing you all a safe and happy 2022 For me this year will be the start of another adventure in life and the year I finally get to go home Good luck to you all this year and watch this space

'happy' / 'merry'.....'tom-A-toe' / 'tom-ar-toe' ....which ever way makes you happy...............or merry

Wishing you all a happy Christmas where ever you maybe in the world, take care and have fun

Thanks @tea4too, and that really is the question, if you look at some there is an instant belonging and that question is very easy to answer, they are never in doubt, Australia is their forever home, and can work that out very quickly........as for others as @Marisawright points out that belonging is not felt here and never ever will be, which unfortunately tends to take a bit longer to work out, there is always that push to give it a bit longer to see if you can learn to love your life here, however if to much time and circumstance has gone by when realising this, then that can be very difficult and damaging to live with, I have sadly met some who are now in their late retirement years and they would give anything to go home, but realise that this will never happen...they realised to late that this was not home. I do find it interesting that there is possibly a third 'type of person' if you look at @Amber snowball for example from her posts, she seemed to love it in Australia for the first few years, was by all accounts not fussed either way for the following few years and for her final few years in Australia could not wait to leave, this shows that it is not such a clear love or hate response about this decision....maybe some can grow to love it just like some grow to hate it ....

I loved the fact that when I went back home in 2019 for a holiday, that not much had changed and any changes that I did come across where an improvement, take my home town for example when I left in 2011 there was a run down area of the town and a patch of old car park etc, when I went back this has been redeveloped into a nice shopping area, with new cafes and a pub and a new car parking area, as you rightly point out some only have a view of the UK, possibly from negative memories from years ago

Paul Its due to be 42 degrees on Christmas day!...are you really going to spend the day sitting outside and at the beach?.... i would melt

you could though swap the word 'UK' for 'Australia' as it is exactly the same, blazing heat for months on end and if you are lucky enough to find a pub (suburbs) they are guaranteed to be empty, as for saving for the foreign holiday you have the choice of 'bali' or 'bali' lol

yep I totally agree Marisa, some of the worst things I have seen are related to being alone and having no one , Christmas is a really tough time for some and the best time of the year for others....

I love the seasons you know where you are and what to expect....when I went back at Christmas time in 2019 I loved the cold and wrapping up warm, all the high streets where lit up and the pubs that I went in where all decorated in holly, tinsel lights etc...yep a real Christmas should be cold in my opinion

Thanks @MacGyver , I am sure and expect that people and some places will have changed, but the parts that I have always loved will definitely have not, old buildings, castles, churches, beaches, mountains, countryside etc, i suppose I am lucky that I got to have a few weeks back home in 2019 just before the COVID pandemic hit, this trip back with my son Daniel gave me a brief view at life back home (pre pandemic) and I felt instantly that I belonged and that it was time to go home and possibly back to happiness, who knows fast forward two years from now I may even find a person to share that happiness with lol

I think that is why I possibly set a period of time on living here, in my case I told myself 10 years and then I would return, I realise a naive thing to do as a lot can happen in 10 years, i am willing to accept that a lot will have changed when I go back.....including me and my total outlook on life as compared to when I came to Australia, the person that started that journey from a small welsh railway station some 10 years ago is not the same person that is returning.....