jimmyay1

Thanks Rupert. I am generally pretty happy, and looking forward to all there is to come.

A year since i moved down here, time has flown. mostly good stuff has happened. took me 3 months to secure work, partner had already transferred job down here so that helped cushion things financially when we came. everything seemed really pricey at first, i wondered if we would ever be able to afford a meal out or anything. securing employment helped as we had 2 incomes coming in and renting in a relatively cheap rental unit, albeit with irritating noisy neighbours. after a year we have managed to save up enough (just) to put a deposit down to buy a 3 bed place in the bayside area. we are going to auctions at the moment and hopefully will buy a property soon. however we've kept our property in London with tenant as an investment. I feel at home in Melbourne and reasonably settled and enjoy the area i live and the places i go to at the weekends, the scenery is stunning and i am just in awe at how beautiful and unspoilt this country is, it's unbelievable. I've have had a trip up to far north queensland which was stunning. however work has dominated my life for the last 6 months and i generally do very long hours as a manager far longer than i worked in the UK. Like 8am to 730 -830 pm most weekdays. I don't find that hugely enjoyable as i have been tasked with managing and clearing up the huge disorganised mess of a previous employee and it is difficult whist firefighting day to day with little in the way of support and a fairly relentless schedule. However because i have not been in the country too long i feel i can't complain much, i just have to take on what's thrown, and just hope things get a bit calmer on that front as i gain more experience and feel more comfortable with systems and processes, all of which have had to be learned afresh whilst trying to be a manager of people at the same time! sometimes in periods of reflection i feel a little lonely as i have no friends locally or family here, just my partner. my partner works away half the week so i am generally home alone 3 nights in a week. I generally just work into the evenings and then come home and have dinner then go to bed. i have done one or two things with work people socially at weekends including going skiing which has been very nice. however of course it is different to old mates and family and it takes time to bed this in. i am hoping that gradually things will improve on the social front but obviously i need to make time and space for it. i suppose i have to feel like everything is under control at work before i can do that and that is hard. we are financially a lot better off in Australia than we were in the UK and know longer term there are better opportunities for us to get more financial security than if we had stayed in the UK. Overall the migration experience has been good to us in terms of what we have achieved in a year however despite success migration has been stressful at times as you are quite on your own. in some ways i feel like i've had a very up and down year. Sometimes i feel really over the moon and ridiculously happy. Other times i get a feeling of being a bit empty, alone and down for no real reason, although I don't really miss the UK at all very much. it would be nice to see family they are a long way away and perhaps won't visit for another year or 18 months. my partner has lived in various countries and always a long way from family,has few friends and is very self reliant. i guess i am too but i do miss what was a very good and stable network of close friends made over decades which is probably what i miss most of all, to be honest. Overall a good year but migration is a process not an event and that process continues for a long time after you have arrived. i feel i have some way to go to feel like i have fully "made it".

am so glad i didn't sell our flat in London when we moved down under last year. its really gone up in value and if i ever want to move back ( i do like the UK as much as Oz) it would be impossible to buy back in londonat the rate things have gone. London's always been pricy and once you're out of the market there, it's hard to re-enter, hence we kept the flat on . .

Most of these councils just waste public money and provide little in the way of value, other than employment for their staff.

i really didnt know what great coffee was until i moved to Australia. Knocks spots off most other countries in that regard . I will drink a Nescafe but let's get real, it's not coffee, it's a different drink altogether.

sadly in the UK it's cool to dick about in school and not care, you're stuck up or a snob if you want to work hard or show an interest and most want to go with the herd, unless you're at a private school or one of a very small minority of dedicated and motivated state school pupils. it's not the same in many other countries, and the UK educated workforce is falling further behind and missing out on job opportunities which are going to well educated, motivated graduates from all over the world - many of whom take up jobs in the UK and become the bosses of those who thought it "cool" to be an idiot.

there'll never be a vote if they think the british public would vote no. it will never happen in a million years. and if there is to be an in / out vote, it will just be done if they know yes will be the answer. the UK will never leave the EU, far from it. all major political parties, big business and the media elites are wedded to it and will fight tooth and nail to stay in . the UK can't go back to the glory days of empire, they are over and never coming back. you only have to take a look around UK towns and cities these days filled as they are with charity shops, betting shops and pawnbrokers to know that . the UK is in long term, absolute as well as relative decline compared to other nations in terms of living standards but for a few at the very top - not going to alter anytime soon. i really doubt pulling out of the EU would make a lot of difference but could make thesituation worse.

certainly not true where i work. we are not allowed to carry over anything. not all AU businesses are the same.

My work life balance is poor at the moment and has been since i started work 6 months ago. i work 60+ hours a week , every week, full on exhausting work with a lot of responsibility for turning a previously disorganised and badly run department around (am making some progress but it is painful). i leave for work at just after 7am and am rarely home much before 8pm - fortunately it's only a 20 minute commute either way. so for me, the Aussie so-called laid back lifestyle is a complete myth, as i think it is for the other people who all seem to work very long hours in my firm. i get paid oretty ok i suppose although i guess many will get the same for less work . io am glad i got a good job when i arrived here but i really have no time to enjoy what i earn or much spare time before it's Monday again and all weekday evenings consist of is a couple of hours max for dinner and quick slump in front of telly / read before bedtime.

they do celebrate November the 5th with bonfires and fireworks in New Zealand, but in Oz in the 70's they banned public sale of fireworks and that effectively killed the commemorations of Guy Fawkes day / bonfire night.

Have had the opposite - 2-3 colds per year in the UK in the 5 years before i moved to Australia, since we moved neither me or partner have had a single cold. or hayfever. and my asthma has virtually disappeared since moving from London to Melbourne, the air is so much cleaner here.

As well as being a property Landlord i also work in the industry full time in Oz, and did in the UK for many years. People become Landlords for many reasons and lots have different perspectives. There are professionals, amateurs, and some for who it's in the blood. Some Landlords are rapacious, greedy individuals devoid of feeling, some are decent human beings with class and respect towards their tenants and run professional investment and lettings businesses. The problem with the many amateur Landlords down under is that they are not well capitalised but they think they are property wheeler and dealers, running their investments at a cashflow loss and subsidising the mortgage from their primary income then claiming tax back, whilst hoping the capital value escalator continues. It's just wide-boy style speculation. Many will get a shock when markets turn, as like all markets property markets are cyclical. In fact more so than in the UK i often come across properties on the market which are repossessions by order of the bank, it happens all the time. People take risks and gamble here on property more than in the UK and many get burnt, although they keep it quiet. Bad quality rentals and badly treated tenants are just the collateral damage in this greedy game of pass the parcel. I wouldnt want to be holding some of these grotty, hard to let properties that have had no investment for decades when the music stops!

I've been hear nearly a year and am loving living in Melbourne. I kind of miss family but we Skype. Most of the time that's fine. However i am planning a trip back to Europe next summer to see friends. but i have no desire to "pop in" and visit the UK at all! i may meet some family elsewhere in Europe instead so it's a break for everyone. Does everyone go and visit the UK regularly? At work i know people who go back every 6 months or a year or two. How many have never been back since they emigrated, or only very rarely? Am i alone in feeling little desire to visit Britain?

There are a lot of amateur cash poor speculator type Landlords in Melbourne, who look on rent as minimising a loss in the hope of future capital growth as the OP points out its a strategy that works, sometimes, but i wouldnt invest personally like this . i own a property in London and it is let out to tenants. it's a great quality asset, warm and comfortable with double glazing, great central heating and lovely decor, bathroom and applicances. it has been a great investment and cash flow positive, the tenant's just renewed for another year and loves the place. lots of average property in Melbourne stays vacant for ages, and tenants move in and out all the time. because Landlords are too poor / cash flow negative / short sighted and greedy to provide decent quality accommodation to long term tenants. the quality of rentals here is generally crap . so they get a huge amount of churn , voids, stress all resulting from operating in a fly by night piss poor quality rental market, whilst pretending they are Donald Trump. They are a bunch of amateurs, playing at property investment. as i say it works for some but i think short sighted. the private block i live in currently has 3 voids (out of 8 apartments which were only "refurbished" in 2010). Superficially they look nice on the interior but in reality they are extremely noisy with no sound insulation whatsoever, doors that don't fit and crap heating and dreadful quality BIR's etc . As a consequence we'll be moving out next month, adding to the Landlord's voids. a little bit more money spent by the Landlord and he'd have had repeat business from us and i suspect others.

yes, flat brown and boring -that's Victoria. Great skiing at the weekend , by the way.

Many of these McMansions are so try -hard, cheaply built and tacky. More room than a family ever needs. There's loads around Northern suburbs of Melbourne, relatively cheap and big , crammed onto plots, some with no external space whatsoever. Banged right next to the next property. It looks ridiculous and horrible and i do wonder whether some will end up heavily subdivided into flats and become slums / rental ghettos in the future just like many ostentatious Victorian mansions in London did in the mid 20th century when fortunes declined and the upkeep was too much. god knows what it costs to run some of these places, any repairs required you're looking at large bills too. time will tell.

It will be spring in Melbourne so one day may be hot, the next day much cooler. The temp can move from 30 one day to 13 the next! Its often sunny though and settles down beautifully as you get into November December. No wet season here as such, just 4 seasons (in one day).

I;m fairly sure there was something very murky going on behind the scenes and that she was probably murdered. However i doubt very much whether the truth behind it all will ever come out.

people who say Melbourne weather is like the UK have either been here too long or forgotten what UK weather is like . Its mid August (equivalent of mid Feb in UK, really still the depths of winter ), its been around 17 degrees the last day or two, i i just had a lovely bike ride down the bay in a t shirt and shorts and the sun is now gaining strength to the extent that in a fortnight or so i reckon i'll be back into the suncream routine.... I haven't worn a coat all winter and can count on the fingers of both hands the amount of days in the last 9 months which i would class as write-offs as in stay indoors all day type days. And several of those were due to it being too hot. Melbourne weather is nothing like the UK. We have 4 seasons i suppose you could say but that's about it. The winter is really nothing to get bothered about, though the Aussies moan about how cold and awful it is , it really isn't. The temperature fluctuates a huge amount in spring/ early summer but this doesn't mean it changes from cloudy/wet to dry/sunny. We get "changes" but often it's just a temperature change. Rainfall events / fronts are i would say more intense than in the UK, sometimes scarily so, but they don't hang around for long and usually clear through much more quickly than they do in the UK, and then it's back to sun. Winter has been beautiful. We've had weeks at a time of cloudless skies and balmy days. And believe it or not, i know it's hard to believe being in the UK but cloudless skies for weeks on end does get a bit boring after a while - yes , that was a revelation to me too! Very good point made upthread about Sydney weather - it's horrid and really wet for at least half the summer - and i mean drench you in a second wet. It's so wet and sticky cockroaches crawl out of everywhere. The climate in Syd really comes into its own in autumn / winter as they have tropical influences and more of a wet/dry season thing going on rather than proper seasons. Whereas Melbourne generally has dry, sunny summers and what i would describe as a very extended autumn (but much of it is like the UK summer) and the winter is like you would get in say the mediterranean, perhaps a little warmer. Bear in mind if you went to Brisbane or the tropics it's dark at 6pm all year around and always dark when you get home from work - no sunny evenings. Its light till 9pm in Melb in summer.

I don't think it is so bad to be honest, depends on your visa and what contacts you had/have here as always in leaner times these things become more important. Your personal situation makes you think everyone is having the same experience but i doubt that's the case, although the job market is undoubtedly tougher now. It's sad for you but Project management when there are fewer projects is always going to be thinner on the ground and HR jobs which fall under office support services are always cut first unfortunately. Hang on in there and keep trying.

you say you worked in middle management etc in the UK and wanted to do that in Oz but you also worked for the last 6 years doing bar work in the UK? i am not surprised bar work is what you are being offered, at least to begin with.

l Love our local bay beaches and try and get there as often as possible for walks. The water temp is pretty good in summer too. The great thing is, they are never crowded either.

20 mins for me driving 12k.

Something i never appreciated before i moved down here was how there is actually a reasonable variety of Australian accents. Where your parents/ grand parentswere from (so many are only 2nd or 3rd gen) seems to have a bearing on how you take up the ozzie accent.

If anything, the Gulf stream has weakened allowing low pressure systems to track further south over the last 5-10 years in the UK, leading to more unsettled and cooler summers. Still, i guess a week's warm weather and everyone in the UK is fantasising about growing olives and lemon trees in their back gardens again just like they were in the 90s. Dreamers... Some of us are actually living that dream for real,down under! :-)