MicheleW

My WLB is probably worse here at the moment only because I have gone back to consulting whilst in London I was in the Public Sector. However I get TOIL so while I may be required to work nights and weekends, I can extend my holiday time so it isn't all bad. The change is my choice though and in a few years time I will drop back to part-time hours so get more time to myself.

Happening in Brisbane at the moment, a "choose your own adventure" bit of fun. http://streetreads.com/

Spent many a year camping in that area when I was growing up. Absolutely beautiful part if the world.

I seriously don't understand the comments about Australian education being rubbish at all levels and the advise to send your kids to a private school. Where do people think that the majority of teachers in private schools were educated - the Australian school system.

Zero hours contracts carry with them the rights of paid holidays and redundancy and all other rights of the 'Employment Rights Act', so not quite the same as having 'no rights'. It is certainly better for workers than casual work and the equivalent has been around for many, many years worldwide, it is the term that is uniquely British.

So with you on that, cannot stand that man. So many better presenters out there, why use him?

Later than I hoped, but on my way :-)

You have a calculation error in the 2nd from bottom row in addition to the error mentioned previously

You are both just too funny :-)

No car, no health insurance, just the standard salary with 3 bonuses a year for me.

Confirmed for Riverside, TBH I always thought that was where we were meeting. Whoops :-)

Who knows, I personally doubt very many - though I could be totally wrong.

It will be interesting to see how it all works out. One of the big issues that they have is that a percentage of asylum seekers will be seeking asylum due to being persecuted for being gay in their home country. Turns out, it is gay to be illegal in PNG and you can end up in gaol for 14 years just for being yourself. :arghh:

Just over 10km by bus in Brisbane. On a good day 25 minutes and on a bad day about 50, though it is generally around the 30 minute mark. That is including the walk at either end of the bus journey.

Very easy to clean and ideal for joints of meat. At Christmas we cooked a turkey big enough for 8 people on ours so it is bigger than it looks, however, there was no room for the vegetables at the same time. If you need to regularly cook for 4 or more you might want to consider the next size up, but for 2-3 the smallest is ideal.

We have one and it is fab, would never have anything else. It is used for general bbq'ing, roasts (meat and vegetables), pizzas, and anything else we think of at the time. Also as ours is only the smallest one it is thrown in the car and used for camping as well.

We are seeing both sides of future planning at the moment where I am working, we have a recruitment downturn in 1 part of the business, but we have crazy high levels of recruitment in other aspects. In some jobs there must be still a reasonably high demand out there as I do see a fair number of people rejecting job offers as they have received another offer elsewhere. It isn't easy out there at the moment though and I certainly wouldn't be encouraging people to make the move to Queensland on the chance of getting a job, especially if moving to areas such as the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. If you are prepared to move to a regional area, there is likely to be more of a chance of a job in some fields (definitely not IT), but regional Australia is not everyone's cup of tea. In my experience, with IT in Brisbane, there are not huge numbers of jobs going but if you have the right skill set then you should be ok, my BIL was headhunted for a role from interstate and started alongside 4 others in an expanded IT department in a reasonably large business in the city. I have also seen a number of people move into more permanent roles in the consultancy business, showing that it is tougher for independent contractors out there, but the established consultancies are still getting the jobs in.

I think he was referring to you being out of the country for the week :-/

Yep, house prices definitely cheaper in Texas. Thing is, my OH can earn a starting salary of $85,000 here in Aus. In the US she was on less than $48,000 with massive medical costs on top of that, and that is for the same job. I am not at all adverse of moving to the US, and now thanks to the striking down of DOMA we can, however my OH will not consider it with the costs of healthcare. Given she has had a transplant, our healthcare cost would be stupidly expensive. In this context, living in Australia is very cheap for us.

Security screen doors - searched high and low in the UK for a security screen door for my house in England. Eventually found somewhere in Scotland that would do it for me but I just couldn't afford what they were charging. All I wanted to do was to be able to sit in my house on a nice summer's day and have the door open and still feel reasonably safe, I would have thought that it would be a booming business in the UK.

Actually I don't find the male form repulsive at all, just everything about Abbott repulses me, including the bile that comes out of his mouth.

I am feeling very ill now, utterly repulsive.

Scary, scary man. We will have to seriously consider our options if he becomes the prime minister. Dodgy healthcare and no gun control in the US will probably be a better bet for us.

It does go down to actual address level, but still isn't particularly accurate. Our score came up as 63, yet we are are 10-15 min walk max to Chermside shopping centre, close to schools, really good public transport and some massive parks. As mentioned previously, I have tried to update by adding details, but given the walk score is only updated every 6 months (very strange), then in this day and age I wouldn't call it a particularly great tool. Added to this is the fact that they are using Google Maps, which in Brisbane are way out of date with the last updates being approx 4 years ago. Since the images were taken, a new busway has gone in changing so much of the landscape and the facilities that you can't even add in details as the maps are just plain wrong.

It is unfortunate that the program uses driving directions for working out distances. My nearest park is less than .3km away by foot, but according to the website is over 1.5km away. Same with access to shops, bus stops etc, it adds extra distance onto the walk because it is following the road and not available footpaths. I also tried adding details and because there weren't street addresses available for some locations it wouldn't accept the entry.