Celt Down Under

I live on a small acreage lot, all lawn, and I tried for some years to get a decent lawn, with losing it each Summer. Then, 2 patches of Kikuyu appeared, and now they have spread to cover most of the acreage, and it is great. It does not burn away in the heat, does not need watering, and best of all, it is thick enough to choke any weeds that try to grow. It looks great. As mentioned, rather than seed, if you can get some runners to put down, it will grow and spread quite fast. At the expense of an extra set of mower blades each year, it is well worth having it down.

Have a safe flight Beaty. Are you all coming, or are the "Chislers" staying at home with relos?

So, you base your view on a place simply by the shopping precinct and Art Centre? What a shallow, narrow view that is. You need to open your eyes and mind a lot more PC.

Not at all PC. I thought that your comment may have been based on experience from many years ago, like the 70's, when Frankston earned it's bad rep. That has long changed, so perhaps you are better commenting on places that you have lived in, or lived very close to, as some of us have done.

Have you lived in Frankston, or were you just a day tripper passing through?

I get the feeling that you ask that question with some experience behind it J.D. :-)

No different to many other places. We lived there for 11 years before moving out to the country. Some places not as good as others, like any other suburb. Preferred location is South Frankston, and the property prices reflect that. We often go into Frankston shopping, and never see any problems, though we do read of occasional problems in the CBD, but mainly around the station. Like many suburbs in many places in the World, I would be wary of walking the streets at night. Nice enough beach at Frankston, and good transport links to the city. Decent shopping around Frankston.

As K&L state, great value with what you get for your money. We did 7 long ones last year. If you go again, get the Mrs to drink ginger ale. Helps to settle a sea tummy. :jiggy:

Long way off a zimmer frame, though we do see many around my age (66) having to use them, or walking sticks. Some of them need quick getaway wheels on them though, especially when between me and the food or drink. :wink:

A bit off track from the OP, but we have been to Aruba on Royal Caribbean. They pretty much cover the Caribbean out of Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Tampa. We have stuck with them, and are now at the level we get a 3 1/2 hour free drinks session every day, plus some free internet and a few other goodies. How long until retirement? I was lucky enough to retire early, at 61, so we can go whenever we please if the destination and price align with what we are willing to pay.

Not for this Old Fella. Always a balaclava to me. Leave the "hoodies" bit to the youngsters of today. :wink:

Whatever the reason, it must have worked for you as well as for us. We did 2 Caribbean cruises in October last year. They were a follow on from the Snowbird cruise from Quebec to Fort Lauderdale. Which company will you be cruising with? Way too cold for me in the U.K. in December. We were there in March, and it was freezing.

Got one of those from my motorcycling days, but I only wear that when I go out to get some cash to pay for another cruise. :wink:

:biglaugh:

Well, I must admit, that though I hated her policies with a deep passion, they certainly did encourage us to "get out of town as fast as we could", therefore I am thankful to her in that regards. I have looked back many times, and thanked my lucky stars, and Maggie of course, for the wonderful life we have been able to lead, compared to what could have been if we had stayed.

OK, OK, no fedora. I was trying to appear suave. I am a Baseball Cap Bogan at heart. :biglaugh:

Laughing away here Bibbs. All the points I mentioned were bad ones......for us and the many other families who emigrated from our hometown around the same time. Every family that did so, is still living in Australia as far as I know. :biglaugh:

Lordy no. That was taken on a cruise ship, and an American friend had just bought it in Cobh in Eire, and was passing it around for people to try on. Val snapped that photo before I had a chance to take it off. These days, I tend to wear baseball type caps, or a fedora, depending on where we are going and the company we are in. :jiggy:

One of the triggers that went towards us emigrating from Wales back in 81. Walking into work in the middle of Summer 1980, coat on, pouring with rain, leaning into a howling wind, and to crown it off, Maggie Thatcher in power. Running through my mind was the thought, "There has to be a better lifestyle than this". There was, and we found it in this great big beautiful country.

www.bpia.org.au This gives info on the ongoing fight for indexed pensions from the UK when living in Australia.

Nothing wrong with CS. My daughter has lived there for 10 years, and loves it there. Not sure what the comment is re infrastructure, because I cannot see anything wrong with it. It has shops including supermarkets, schools, bus services, parks, a beautiful large lake, fast food outlets, petrol stations, and a couple of large shopping malls not too far away, and yes, a new train station under construction. OK, so you have to drive to it, but unless you live very close to a train station, you would have to do that anyway. Try driving to Frankston station and getting parking at 8am, and it would be packed. Not sure about internet connections, but my daughter has had one ever since moving there, and if you buy an existing home, it will probably have a connection anyway. The problem may be with getting a connection to a new build. Like most areas, the roads will be busy as people head to work and around school times, but that would not be enough to put me off buying in the area if the right house in the right position, at the right price came up..

We were one of six families emigrating on the same flight out here in 1981. Of those, one family went back after 3 months. One family started ping ponging after a few years, because a son they had that was about 15 when they came, returned to the UK when he was 18. They have now returned to Australia, and are settled here. The rest of us settled fine, and are still here.

I retired early at 61. Now just turned 66, and for the last 5 years Val and I have been enjoying life to the maximum. I got fed up of selling my life to the company. Now cruising through life, doing whatever takes our fancy, whenever we want to. Great for booking last minute cruises at huge discounts, where we can just go without having to worry about work. As I say, every day is a weekend day for us.

We arrived yesterday. It is flipping freezing. LOL.

I worked in industry in the 30 years that I worked out here. I always got paid overtime. I got 5 weeks holiday a year. I got unlimited sick leave...with provisions of course that it was not abused. And I got long service leave. And of course, if required to work on public holidays, we got overtime rates for doing so.