Lisa Anne Pope

Has anyone used a VPN flash router to get access to UK tv or amazon prime/fire stick?

Hi - we are moving to Townsville and arrive on 31st August. Does anyone on here know about any of the rural areas just outside Townsville for living. I have been looking at Alligator Creek and Mount Margaret (Alice River) - we don't want to be too far away and not somewhere that might flood easily. Just something a bit different with more room than suburbia. Thanks.

Yes - came to live in Australia with my family at age 17 in 1988 and it was my dad who persuaded me to take out Australian Citizenship (I was just wanting to go back home) but so glad I did as have been back and forward a few times and much easier with Australian/British passports - returning to Qld within next 8 moths with hubby and 5 children - all have dual nationality but only oldest born in Aus - only downside is the expense of having to get the citizenship by decent certificates and then all the passports (14 in all) but luckily managed to get it all done before they closed the Australian consulate in Edinburgh. Was on holiday last year in Australia and just a breeze walking through with no hold ups through Australian passports only. Also glad I did take it out as we would not have qualified for a visa if we were applying to go live there now so I feel very lucky and grateful to my dad - note to any strong minded 17 year olds out there please listen to what your father says.

Hi was wondering if anyone could help me with name of a good builder/architect that can either design or include adaptions to a new build home suitable for a person with a disability? Thank you.

My daughter is finishing her final year at high school in Scotland this year before we plan to go back to Queensland. She was born in Australia but was just two and a half when we came back to Scotland, so is an Australian Citizen and wants to go to University in Australia. When I looked into it they said she would qualify as a domestic student even though we are not yet residing there but would need a tax file number to put in an application to defer the fees. Has anyone done this before returning to Australia? It looks like it could be the end of the year before we get back now and if she could apply for a TFN before we get there then should could apply for a place so she knows she has something to go to when we arrive. Can you apply for a TFN before arriving for studying? Thanks.

Hi - when we over in Australia on holiday last year I used Express VPN and picked a UK area to log in from (Pay $US12 per month or there is a yearly fee that is cheaper if using it al the time) and was able to log in to our sky go account and watched anything that was available to watch in the UK. It also worked in Dubai but it does depend on how good your broadband connection is.

Cancer has been around for thousands of years and people are living longer nowadays- we haven't had diseases like the Plaque or even Influenza to wipe out large numbers of the population and also there haven't been any world wars for 60 year to wipe out a generation of young people, many of whom had they lived would have went on to develop cancer. My sister passed away in August last year at 42 after battling breast cancer for 14 years - she was very young when diagnosed and we have a zero family history of any females dying of breast or ovarian cancer - all have lived to a very old age (80+ years). She was told that it was just one of those things - bad luck (as a recent study has confirmed is the most common reason for getting cancer).If you are very young treatment can extend your life, but the prognosis is still very poor - if the disease doesn't kill you, the treatment to stop the cancer advancing will.

When we first moved to Australia we lived in Melbourne and stayed there for a few years and my brother got into James Cook University and thought we would prefer Townsville to Melbourne (the size/population is similar to our home town of Dundee). It has a much more relaxed feel about it and yes it is a smaller place so there aren't the job vacancies you would see in a large city so it may take a bit longer to find work. It has always been like this as I remember. If the unemployment rises nationally it will always be higher in smaller towns the same as in the UK. It does get very hot and humid in the summer and it's not everyone's cup of tea, but the local people who live there seem to love the hot weather. It is possible to live there without air-conditioning - my parents did as my dad didn't like it - so I have stayed there with none and I would say it was just a bit too hot and humid in the height of the summer months not to have it.

I moved to Melbourne when I was 17. My advice to you would be to go back to school and do Years 11 and 12. I went straight to a job and found it really difficult to make friends - didn't meet anyone my age at all and ended up going home when I was 19. If you go to school you will meet people your age. My sister was 16 and had already left school and was starting college doing hairdressing but she went back to school in Melbourne and she met friends that way.

Have you tried looking into a College of Further Education to do them - I know you can do the Scottish equivalent in Scotland - even crash Highers.

People go about here wearing onesies and fake ugg boots from Primark

Caboolture is a bit far out - I used to live in Petrie a bit further down the Caboolture line and get the train into work and I did find it a bit of a long a journey and I lived within walking distance to the train station.

I only remember coming home in the dark in winter (both Melbourne and Brisbane) - same as here.

We returned to Scotland from Australia 14 years ago but will be going back later this year. In our case it was going from Brisbane to Dundee. First thing to point out is that Perth is way bigger in population than Aberdeen (approx 1.7 million to 220,000) so makes it difficult to compare like for like. Perth's population is about 3 times that of Glasgow and while Aberdeen is a more relatively affluent area due to the oil rigs than Glasgow which has a much higher level of poverty for example. So as far as other people saying they could never go back, it may be for different reasons and it depends on where you are going back to and what kind of life you can afford when you get there. Although your income is less here it is still possible to have a comfortable life over here if you manage to get a job and look after your money. From what I have researched on line there is not much difference in a 4 bedroom house price here and in Queensland and looking at private rents for same size roughly equivalent taking into account you pay Council Tax here and no rates when renting in Australia. The cost of fuel has doubled since we arrived here and we spend a lot more money on that over here along with electricity prices which I think have doubled also. I would say that supermarket prices are still much more competitive over here and of course flights to Europe are relatively cheap for holidays in a warmer climate and only take a few hours to get there. As far as schooling goes - well it depends again on the area you live in - if you live in an affluent area you will have much better schools than if you live in a deprived area. People send their children to private schools here as well and as in Australia private schools on the whole do perform better than state schools. When I was at school (state) out of 10 classes in our year at high school - only the top 2 (academically) got the attention from the teachers - the rest got left to their own devices and you definitely didn't want it to be known if you were clever if you didn't want your head kicked in so maybe people don't want their children to have to experience that if they did themselves??? I know people (Australians) from the state school system in Qld who said that their experience was similar and had people coming to school drinking alcohol and taking drugs in class and if they could afford it they wouldn't put their children through it.

I have just had 4 of my 5 children who were born outside Australia their citizenship by descent done here in UK and as long as you have all the correct documentation and information (like your father's Australian passport number) it is very quick and you can apply to get an Australian passport as soon as the certificate comes through and that came around a week after we submitted the applications. There was no ceremony to attend you will just a Certificate of Australian Citizenship through the post.

"Mr Cruel" let them go and they wandered back home too except the oldest one who was murdered (1990's)

I agree that it is probably a bit too early for making a big decision like returning. We migrated in February 1988 - my dad is a plumber and he had to take work fixing gutterings on roofs for a couple of months before a better job came along. He ended up working for Gas & Fuel in Victoria and then moving on to Boral Gas when we moved to Queensland. I do remember that in the beginning he too felt he had gave up a much better job and thought he had made the wrong decision - he worked on the oil rigs as an instrument pipe fitter - but just a few months after we arrived the oil rig he left to come to Australia blew up (Piper Alpha) so it turned out he did make the right decision.:biggrin:

The NHS is good if you don't work and/or have drug and alcohol problems - you'll get lots of attention to your wants and needs (or so it seems), otherwise it can be a fairly frustrating system for everyone else. Not everything is free on the NHS - my GP tried to refer me to Podiatry and I got a letter back saying I didn't qualify under the NHS as the waiting list was too long and they were only seeing people who were completely immobile and since I could still walk I would have to go privately so I have spent £180 so far. I think there probably isn't enough money going in to the NHS to be able to offer the same service as private and I can't see any political party winning an election on telling everyone they will have to quadruple (or more) their NI contributions.

It is 20 in Scotland but will increase to 25 now that the HPV vaccine is in place

There's the prospective spouse visa if you are thinking of getting married in the near future but I think you have to be 18 to apply. I met my husband when I was 17 and after going back to UK for a year the only way he could get out was on this visa and we were married 3 months after he arrived - didn't have any problem with visa application just my parents thinking I was too young - but anyway that was 23 years ago and we are still together. Anyway might be something to consider if you think you have a long term future together.

My parents and sister are still over in Australia - so miss them and the fact that my children don't really know them well. I miss Kellog's Nutrigrain cereal (Iron man food) - not the bars you get over here. I miss not getting out as much due to weather. I miss my mailbox at the end of the drive way. I miss the big open plan houses. I miss being told I have a beautiful accent. The last thing I saw when we left was an Australia Post sign and feeling sad that I would never see it again (never felt like that about Royal Mail)??

I moved from Melbourne to Brisbane and it was great. I always felt quite depressed in Melbourne in the winter that seemed to last from about April/May to Oct/November. At least in the winter in UK you have things to look forward to - Guy Fawkes, Halloween, Christmas - to break the winter months up - there is nothing in Australia during the winter months and I found them to be long but not anywhere near as cold as UK. Brisbane in winter is like our summer (a good one I mean). I don't like Christmas in the hot weather though - the novelty of having it outside/on the beach etc wore off pretty quickly for me.

You might like to look at St Lucia in Brisbane - near University of Queensland. I loved the weather in Brisbane (compared with Melbourne) but you don't get the cool change there. We managed without an air conditioner. My brother went to Perth after graduating from James Cook University in Townsville and he never settled and now lives in Texas which he loves.

Thought this would be the case. I know my parents did not get any kind of a grant though, it was just to get a mortgage due to the daily increasing interest rates -I was just a teenager and had to do what I was told. They had signed for a house without subject to finance and were going to lose their 10% deposit if I didn't do it - a downside of being a child of the impulsive babyboomer (spend, spend, spend) generation.

Just asking if anyone know anything about the Great Start Grant eligibility? I have read the Qld Government Website about this and one of the eligibility criteria was that you or your spouse have not owned property in Australia before. I am not sure whether this means as long as one of you hasn't or if it means you both can not have owned property in Australia before. I originally moved out to Australia (Melbourne) with my parents and in 1989 interest rates were sitting at 18% and they could only get a mortgage if I was on as a third owner so my income could be counted to allow them to get a mortgage. I actually left Australia to return to the UK a few months later and returned a year later after to get married and moved into a rented accommodation with my husband. They sold the house in 1994 ( I did have to sign some paperwork but never made any money out of it). I am returning with my family to Queensland later this year (after living in UK for 14 years) and wondered if this would mean I was illegible - and do they check back that far and for all states? I never owned a property in my married name.