paisleylass

Congratulations Karen!

Hmm, we live our lives to the fullest and don't scrimp, whatever's left each month goes into a savings account. One day that will go towards buying a house, and after that happens any leftover money can overpay the mortgage or go into a rainy day fund. No kids to save for, wouldn't do that anyway, I have always been self sufficient, parents lived on credit pretty much, I expected nothing.

 

No planning here, we'll just take each day as it comes, life is too short.

We've been in Brisbane nearly 3 years, definitely no looking back! We came over on a 457 and hope to get our PR visa any day now, then we can feel even more settled. Love it here, so happy, even with our rental though we aspire to buy as soon as we can get shot of our house in Scotland (please leave soon, non-paying tenants!!).

 

At first things were mainly great from day 1 though my own job hunt was rather bumpy - took 3 months to get a job I disliked and a further 3 months to get a great job I'm still at. We have a fab social life, with mainly Aussie friends, in fact a bunch of them are going on the same trip around California as us next month! Family not an issue for me though I miss my brother, my remaining blood rellie, but he stayed with us for a couple of weeks and we've always lived quite far apart anyway. Hubby, well he's a guy heh heh, I was the emotional one when we left his mum's house the night before we flew here!

 

Although temp residents, I felt settled enough to adopt a kitten within our first year here, and that's our little family unit. Happy happy days!

Out of curiosity, what is garage door syndrome?!

All documents finally uploaded!! My original police clearance certificate from ACPO is still missing, last tracked at Heathrow 15 days ago. So with a flash of inspiration I sent another £15 to ACPO and had a copy sent next-day to Mother-In-Law, who has scanned and emailed the certificate to me

 

Those in Aus who want their certificate in a hurry, and have a reliable contact in the UK, may be best doing this, as you can nominate any address for delivery of the certificate. Much quicker!

I'm like a broken record. The only thing about the UK I miss is Manchester. I've been saying this ever since we arrived, getting on for 3 years ago. Watching From There To Here on iplayer certainly made me rather misty-eyed

 

Not bothered about Christmas at all, since most of my family died it's just a few extra days off work to me, and I'm quite happy to spend that time in warmer climes!

Thanks for that. Do you have to pay for the shopping on the credit card to get the frequent flyer points ? And is there an annual charge ?

 

We are trying to avoid any form of credit card at the moment !

The credit card gets us Flybuys which, in spite of the name, earns shopping vouchers rather than frequent flyer points! But while you don't *have* to use a credit card, it does accelerate points earning a lot - especially as we pay for holidays, eating out etc on it. There's an annual charge $60 but we also get free travel insurance.

 

With just the loyalty card on its own, though, you still get bonus points offers - some in the post, some activated online and some at the end of a receipt to be scanned next shop. Last weekend I culled my stash and had 3 bonus points offers scanned (as well as the $20 voucher earned) so that's significant!

very true, which suburb are you in?

Chermside, we shop at Aspley, Lutwyche or (less frequently) Taigum - all have Aldi right by Coles!

It works best if you tie in with something else such as credit card, frequent flyer. For example I get all Woolies points transferred in to Qantas Frequent Flyer, and take advantage of bonus points, have made quite a few thousand miles in the past year which combined with actual flight miles means I am on my way to a free flight soon. Woolies also has special offers only for Everyday Rewards cardholders, like reduced prices on certain items, changes every week.

 

Flybuys (Coles) - we also have a FlyBuys gold visa card that earns a flybuys point for every $1 spent, and again take advantage of offers such as last week spent over $190 so got a $20 voucher to use this week, and always claim bonus points, plus it's tied to Coles home insurance for even more points. We've earned about $600 in FlyBuys rewards in the past year.

 

Most of our shopping is at Coles and Aldi. Round these parts they often seem to be right next to each other which helps!

We visited the reef from Daydream Island on a full day tour, same one as calNgary. It was great, though the sea was choppy and even I felt queasy, normally have a cast-iron stomach! We went to Reefworld where we did the glass bottom boat and some snorkelling, lots of fun

 

A visit to the Whitsundays in itself is wonderful anyway - that gorgeous turquoise water, lots of fun cruises to go on, we really enjoyed both Airlie Beach and Daydream Island - the latter ostensibly has not much to do, but we felt our 5 days there was too short!

Hey stevio

 

We live in Chermside on the northside, love living that side of the city and transport is great. However Chermside itself is becoming a concrete jungle with high rise apartments going up all over the place, houses being knocked down to build multi-occupancy homes on tiny plots - quite congested. Surrounding areas like Aspley and Kedron are a bit quieter, and we are considering a different suburb for buying which is finally on the horizon! I worked in South Brisbane for a time, and although I disliked the job, transport was easy, changing buses at Cultural Centre.

 

Good that you want to integrate! Although we knew a handful of British people when we first moved here we didn't go out much. These days most of our friends are Australian, we know people in every state except NT (!), and we go out every weekend whether into town or a friend's place

Just a quick update.

 

Daughters police check arrived Monday - so went to JP and uploaded last night

Daughters form 80 uploaded for 3rd time (just in case)

Immi account still shows australian quailifcation required and character for 7 and 8 year old still showing required.

Still no reply to email sent 20.06.14 and 24.06.14 so guess the email replying backlog is long.

waiting!

Tina

Hoorah! Glad daughter's police check arrived! I have lost any trust in Royal Mail at this time (my certificate now 12 days stuck at Heathrow!), but I guess they use DHL or similar as courier?

 

We haven't had any documents endorsed by JPs - just uploaded colour scans. Am nervous now... But the CO hasn't remarked on this and I've assumed the 'received' status for each required document means all is good?

 

The police check thing is now driving me utterly crazy. I have emailed twice asking if a copy of the certificate can be posted to a UK rellie (so she can scan and email it to me), 15 quid all up for admin fee and next day delivery, but no reply. After replying to all my other messages within half an hour, this one seems to have them stumped. I am now just in limbo, hubby will be emailing CO to explain what's going on, not that we'll get a reply

Fantastic swimming, you must be so pleased! Very happy for you!

 

We are a bit closer - hubby's police UK clearance finally showed up yesterday. I got concerned about mine so rang ACPO, who quickly sent my tracking number. Guess what? It's not even left the UK - been stuck at Heathrow for 11 days. I know it's Royal Mail's fault but I've whinged to ACPO about it anyway, see if I can get a replacement sent, sounds to me like it's been lost!! So that'll be a further 2 week wait *sigh*

So, I won't quite believe this until I have the grant email in my hand, but we got an email from the MA last night saying our PR has been granted!

 

So timeline was:

 

27 March - Nomination and Application uploaded with all documents (medicals, police checks etc). ENS 186 Transition Stream.

late June - Nomination approved and CO assigned.

4 July - Visa granted.

 

Over the moon!

Woop! After all this time with no news, that's fantastic, made up for you!

So my hubby emailed ACRO/ACPO whatever to see what was going on. They replied with a tracking number! Our certificates are in Brisbane! Have been since Wednesday!!! Just held no doubt in Australia Post's customs facility, so that's the hold-up now. Will be tracking it next week to see where it's at, no doubt I'll get home from work Monday or Tuesday to find a bloody card in the mail box grrr, will happily go to work late the next day in order to collect from PO.

Oh no, I am so sorry to hear that! I don't understand the delay. Had you paid extra for secure delivery of your passport? Cos it should have been processed and DHL'd by now, UKPA was supposed to have had extra staff drafted in. Useless!!

 

My hubby's passport was processed at the height of all the backlog nonsense and we thought he'd been unlucky but perhaps was really one of the luckier ones. It was about 12 days from sending his old passport by courier to receiving the new one - I took the morning off work to ensure I was here to sign for it.

Wow good info Tina! I suppose there's nothing to do but wait, indeed. Wish we'd applied before we got the CO but just never got round to it, it seemed such a hassle getting stuff countersigned and all, so we just jumped into action when the CO requested everything.

 

So close, but not close enough!!

Somebody posted on another forum that the automated email states

"Please note that we are currently allocating ENS applications that were lodged in April 2014 and RSMS applications that were lodged in May."

 

I have sent an email to my MA to see if she has heard anything as we were March, medicals, police checks and everything submitted and from a low risk country.

Has your nomination been approved? I wonder if that's the hold-up? Otherwise definitely worth following up as it has been a while, you were literally a week behind us.

 

Still waiting for the $&@?!£^ UK police checks, everything else is in and we've gone a week over our 28 days, emailed case officer the day before the deadline and never heard back but our immi account still says 'in progress' so seems all good!

 

Did anyone get an email from ACRO saying the checks were done and in the post? We got an email on 24 June saying the applications were received on 16 June and would be processed according to guidelines. Then.... nothing. We didn't pay for the premium service as the basic one was pricy enough, but would have expected something back by now?!

 

And hubby's Aus police check finally arrived Tuesday, postmarked 24 June. Really, 8 days to arrive from Canberra? At least it's done.

I hope he wears a loud bell!

Sadly not, he always manages to remove the collar and/or bell so had to give up on that. But you have reminded me to get back on the hunt for a collar/bell that is safe for him, and Chester-proof. He's a very determined cat and absolutely hates having anything attached to him but yes, I acknowledge this needs fixed.

When we moved in there were no dogs in the adjacent houses, Chester was there first! So he must have felt quite put out when the doggies started moving in. But he used to crawl under or jump over the fence and play in the garden behind which was a pain as we had trouble getting him out of there! He's calmer now anyway and much better at staying in our yard and garage, which is like an awesome kitty adventure playground with the shelves and rafters

Definitely more of a dog nation.

While I know plenty of 'cat people' here, this is often evident to me given the balance of availability of cat and dog stuff in pet shops - only the RSPCA shop and Pet Barn have a decent range of kitty stuff in my opinion, I gave up on City Farmers long ago. Also our house is surrounded by homes with dogs in the yards which often stops Chester straying into their yards (good) but then he might go out on the street (very bad). The dog-lady next door hates Chester and accused him of pooping under her house, though his name was cleared when she said he was waking the dogs at night while under the house - impossible as Chester has never once stayed out overnight! Turns out it was another ginger cat who appears to be locked out 24/7.

 

If you are really attached to these kitties, do think about investing in an outdoor enclosure or at least really high cat trees for indoors, some landlords accept pets if they are exclusively kept outside though I see plenty these days happy with indoor pets. Although not cheap, it's minor compared to the cost of your visa and transporting yourself, your kitties and your worldly goods to Australia

We adopted our cat here in Brisbane so he's never had the flight stress, and he is a semi-outdoor cat - we just let him out for half an hour in the morning and for a while in the evening, longer at weekends. Basically, when we are home. He does stray outside our yard, but the laws are less strict in Brisbane, in fact I just found out registration is no longer required. The way we get him back in is establishing that he won't be fed til he's safely inside, so he tends to come in pestering for food anyway!

 

I've been watching My Cat From Hell (!) on youtube and there are some great tips for keeping indoor cats happy, like strategic placement of furniture and shelves, use of bird-like cat toys and laser pointers etc.

Hang in there, once passport office received hubby's old passport it was pretty soon after that he received a text with DHL tracking number and date of delivery. The fact photos were requested means your application's front of the queue. Do try ringing again - the time difference is a pain meaning we tend to ring first thing in the morning when it may be at its busiest but you might be in luck?

Hi ellis, good luck! Nope, I haven't seen any form 80 asking for such a long history. As we completed the form linked by the CO I assume we are fine.

 

Everything uploaded except for the UK police checks and hubby's Aus police check. I can't understand for the life of me why his Aus check has taken long - he applied a couple of days after me and whereas mine was done same day, his took 2 weeks. It's a week since he got an email saying it was done and in the post and it hasn't arrived yet! Ridiculous.

 

UK police check applications were posted 6 June, and apparently didn't reach ACRO until 16 June. I also don't understand how this can be, I sent them express international. I suppose that is 3-7 business days but still seems like a long time considering I have received standard airmail from the UK in less time!

 

We have asked for more time, just these flaming police checks holding things up grrrr.

We rented ours out purely beacuse the selling market was very grim and only got worse a year or so into our time here - when we re-mortgaged the valuation was 30% less than we paid! We don't want to make a profit, just want to get back somewhere close to what we paid.

 

it is risky, and it's been expensive for us to rent the house out, with all the repairs, cleaning and long gaps with no rent coming in it has been a nightmare, and very stressful. One set of tenants badly abused the house then disappeared with the keys, so had to get locks changed, that was awful. But we haven't involved family, we pay the agency to look after the house which has worked well, it's not their fault if tenants misbehave.

 

had the selling market been stronger at the time we'd have had no hesitation selling, and we're on a 457 visa. Even if we went back ( hopefully we are about to get PR), we couldn't face returning to that house.

So girlfriend isn't worried about your health? Charming.

 

i had a similar issue with my medical, all fine now, was cleared just a couple of days after my husband's 'perfect' medical

 

worst case you may have to take some medication, but this would only delay not stop you getting the visa altogether.