Addy

We came on a 475 to South Australia nearly 7 years ago. While we were applying we suffered several delays due to both Federal and State rule changes. During this time there were also people badly affected by the sudden closure of the financial deposit route which was a disgrace. We followed the rules of the visa to the letter and stayed in SA for the required 2 years. During this time my husband could not find work despite being the visa holder and being on the skills in demand list. There simply weren't the jobs in SA for him to apply for. The heartbreaking thing was as he had registered with several agencies to try and get work, he would get calls asking him to apply for roles in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane which he couldn't do. We had decided that as soon as our PR was granted that we would move to another state but just before then my husband finally found work. I swear he is in the only job in SA for which he is qualified as no other roles like it have been advertised in the last 5 years to our knowledge! We are happy and settled in SA and will stay here for the forseeable future but I wish we had not taken the moral highground and had moved early on to another state where there is more work as we will never recover from the financial hit we took. I don't blame people who do it, it is morally wrong to condemn people to struggle to live without any support and not allow them to move to where the work is. We were lucky that we had enough equity from our house sale to cover us but a lot of people aren't as lucky.

When we emigrated we both deliberately took a year off to move, get a house, sort out schools etc. Plus we deserved a break after 25 years work! I got the first job I applied for with no questions asked about the gap on my CV. Chill out and enjoy the break, you won't get another opportunity for a long time! Good luck with the job hunt.

Thanks Andy, what a nightmare.

Hello. I have been told that there has been a change in UK QROPS regulations which means that only on QLD super fund is currently eligible to receive funds from UK pensions. I can't seem to find anything about this and as i was just about to transfer my UK pension fund to my Australian Super fund which was QROPS approved this is a bit of a blow. Can any one tell me if this is true?

Makes you wonder what the hell is in it!

That explains it then! I tend to freeze my bread and only thaw what I need as a result of natural bread going mouldy when I was a kid.

Maybe there are more preservatives in Aussie bread? Maybe Tesco's freeze their bread which makes it more likely to go mouldy when thawed? What happens to bread from other shops does that do the same? When I was a kid in the UK I remember bread going mouldy very quickly so I am inclined to think that nowadays bread is full of all sorts of stuff to keep it 'fresh'.

We flew business 7 years ago with Emirtaes - Birmingham :Dubai: Melboure and return. We found the business lounge in Dubai to be far too small for the number of people using it - in fact we couldn't get a seat which was horrible as our body clocks thought it was the middle of the night. Plus my husband's seat would not recline on one flight which meant he didn't get much sleep. The rest of the journey was good however and the food was lovely. I would recommend flying the leg on which you are intending to get most sleep in business.

That's good news that the GP has found something. It's possible that the flight affected your ears and caused this or it may have been a coincidence. Whatever the cause, fingers crossed that the treatment works and you stop feeling nauseous.

You are factually inaccurate here. It is very common to develop lactose intolerance in later life as you stop making the lactese enzyme which digests lactose. In fact it is also common to develop gluten intolerance in later life as the damage which gluten does to your intestines can be silent for many years until you develop symptoms which alert you. I know both of these things as I became lactose intolerant at 44 and discovered I had coeliac disease (gluten intolerance) at 46. In reply to the OP, have you had your ears checked? It strikes me that the flight might have casued problems with your ears which is leading to nausea. There is a condition where the liquid in the ear moves and has to be rebalanced. Sorry I don't know what it is called.

We have just bought one. The capacity is smaller than a regular deep fat frier but for a family of three it is fine. As Paulanddeb said they are very good for pastry items and for chips. We make lovely roast potatoes in ours too. We have never used our deep fat frier and it sat in the cupboard for years until we gave it away but we do use the air frier every couple of days.

We have private insurance which has come in handy to get seen quickly when needed, however we are more than happy with the care Medicare has provided. For example, a few years ago a lump was found on my thyroid gland by a Medicare Dr who sent me for a scan covered by Medicare. The dr was anxious to rule out cancer and sent me to a private endo surgeon for further investigation. He asked if we had insurance as this would mean I could be seen immediately which he thought was imperitative and on medicare the wait would have been longer than he was happy with. I saw the surgeon privately, thankfully he ruled out cancer and I now see him through Medicare for regular scheduled check ups as I can wait for those. It doesn't seem fair that someone without insurance or who couldn't pay would have to wait but for me personally it was invaluable to be seen quickly in this case. I find it wonderful that on medicare you can choose your Dr. We moved house recently and have visited a few local GPs when we needed to, before we chose which practice to go to. Feeling confident in your GP is essential in my book. I also see a different GP for one issue in which she specialises and travel to the other side of the city for this as there is no one in our area. She gives me her test results to give to my normal GP to keep her in the loop too. It all works very well for me and I have several ongoing health issues.

Sorry that you are having no luck getting a job. The same thing happened to my husband a highly qualified and experienced IT manager. He finally succeeded by taking off some of his work experience from his CV and going for less senior roles than he had been applying for. Once he got the job he slowly revealed his experience which has now been acknowledged by promotion. It's a tough road but an income is better than no income. The other thing you can do is to remove early work experience and any reference to your age on your CV. Your age is none of the employer's business. With regard to an RP accent, don't try to change it. It doesn't matter what UK accent you have, people will notice it and possibly discriminate against it. In fact, have an RP accent and have received both criticism and compliments for it in equal measure. Most Aussies can understand it and you will feel more comfortable speaking naturally and not having to think about your accent all the time. Good luck with it all, it's tough but there are jobs out there.

We get far fewer bugs here in Australia than we did in the UK. However our daughter was 9 when we came and perhaps had just built up enough immunity to stop bringing the viruses home to us!

My feelings are similar to Maryrose's. We emigrated because we loved Australia when we came on holiday and kept coming back for more holidays. We also realised that it was now or never on the visa front as we were getting older. We initially said we would come for two years to try it out but after a few months we realised we were staying. Same here. Some things are better and some things are worse. For now we are here but it doesn't mean that in the future we won't change our minds. As I said above I think we are the sort of people who see the good in situations and could be happy in any first world country.