richev

Our old White Company sheets finally need replacing for our UK Super King size mattress. Can anyone recommend a similar brand over here, and/or a White Company supplier, and/or anyone who does sheets that will fit a UK Super King mattress (6' x 6'6")?

On 11/02/2021 at 19:42, EurotoAus said:

Hi guys

I would soon like to apply for citizenship, but I was wondering- I arrived to activate PR visa May 17 (one week), then went back to UK to sell house/arrange animals etc. Came again in August that year for house search, then went back to complete house sale etc.

I moved fully in Jan 18. Have been told 4 years starts from activation? does that count if residential address was in UK from the May to Dec 17? 

Thank you so much.

The clock starts ticking from when you activated your visa, however there is a requirement that you have been in Australia for a certain percentage of the time since that date.

The website states that you must have been:

• away from Australia for no more than 12 months in total in the past 4 years, including no more than 90 days in total in the past 12 months

So it looks like you should be ok to use May 17 as your start date.

Also happy to read/proofread. Have been out in Aus for 4 years now, just about to take citizenship test!

Yesterday I caught this little spider in our house. About 1.5cm long, it wasn't a species I've seen before.

Based on the photo, can anyone identify it?

I was very happy to be able to submit my citizenship application a couple of weeks ago. It now shows up in my ImmiAccount with status Receieved.

From the ImmiAccount documentation, I know that my application now has a few states through which to transition, as per the attached image. Should I expect to wait a few months before seeing any changes in the application status?

On 18/05/2020 at 22:58, paulhand said:

usually pretty quick ... 

Thanks Paul. Yep, it was sorted in a couple of days, and I was then able to complete my application.

12 minutes ago, paulhand said:

I'd fix the passport link first if I were you.

I figured it out... When I tried to update my passport details previously I had not added my (approved, finalised) PR visa application to my ImmiAccount. Did that, and then found the link that allows you to update your passport details.

I don't suppose you know how long it takes for new passport details to be processed?

6 minutes ago, paulhand said:

Which passport does VEVO think your visa is linked to?

Very good point, thanks! I just checked - it has my old passport number. Do you think that it is safe for me to use this passport number in order to try to proceed with the citizenship process?

Regarding residency requirements, I checked using https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/help-support/tools/residence-calculator and it said that I meet the requirements.

7 minutes ago, paulhand said:

Have you linked your new passport to your visa - that’s the first thing? Are you sure you meet the residence requirement?

I wasn't able to do it via my Immi account, so instead emailed in a completed form 929 earlier this year.

I thought that I met the residency requirements, due to having spent sufficient time in Australia since the visa activation trip:

> away from Australia for no more than 12 months in total in the past 4 years, including no more than 90 days in total in the past 12 months

As of last week it is four years(!) since I visited Australia to active my PR visa (subsequently moving here properly in September 2016), so I was hoping to get started with my Australian citizenship application.

However, I get the following error from the ELodgement page on online.immi.gov.au:

Quote

The details provided for the applicant indicate that they are not eligible for this application. The applicant will not be able to continue. Check the applicant's details and amend if necessary. For further information or assistance, use the ImmiAccount Technical Support form to contact the Department.

I've logged a support call, as instructed, so am now waiting.

But, I wanted to ask if anyone else has had this experience, and what they did?

I am also wondering if the issue is my passport details. The UK passport that was associated with my visa application expires later this year, but I applied for and received a replacement 10 year UK passport earlier this year. This new passport is the one I've entered on the citizenship application page.

Any and all suggestions welcomed!

We took everything, and 2/3 filled a shipping container with it all. Once we were paying for movers and our own shipping container, this was a cheaper option than having to re-purchase things in Australia. The only things we really had to buy once we got here were a fridge/freezer and washing machine.

We did this recently with our son who was 4½ months old at the time. Flew Vietnam Airlines in premium economy, with bulkhead seats. Thoroughly recommended, and the cheapest premium economy we could find. Our son just about fit in the bassinet, and slept in it reasonably well.

If you go via Hi Chi Minh they will lay on a free hotel with long layover (ours was 10 hours). This worked well for us as it gave us time to relax and get showered etc. It was however a 30 minute journey from the airport to the hotel, not ideal with a little one sat on your lap! Next time we'd see if we could pay a bit more for a better & closer hotel.

The flights were hard though, and we spent most of the time attending to our son. And changing a nappy in an airplane toilet (it had a fold-down change table) is an interesting experience!

My wife and I are planning a trip back to the UK later this year with our recently born son, who will be 5 months old when we travel. We're both Aussie PR, and he is dual UK/Australian (with both passports).

Our current plan is to fly Vietnam Airlines premium economy, in a bulkhead row with bassinet, with a few hours hotel layover in Vietnam each way for a bit of relaxation and recuperation. We've flown a similar itinerary with Vietnam Airlines before, albeit when it was just the two of us!

At the moment our son is exclusively breast fed, but we may have added a few formula feeds to his daily routine by the time we travel. To date he's been a pretty good sleeper. The longest journey we've taken him on so far was a night away in the Blue Mountains (we're in Sydney) which was a lot harder than we expected.

I'm really interested to hear anyone else's stories of traveling back to the UK with young babies, along with any recommendations or cautions you might have from your experiences!

Specific questions like this may be best answered by an initial free consultation with a migration consultant. I can recommend Go Matilda (http://gomatilda.com) who we used.

My wife and I moved out to Australia in 2016 as Permanent Residents, and last week our son was born here in Sydney!

As we both have PR and he was born in Australia we understand that this means he is entitled to (or automatically has?) Australian citizenship.

We hope to take him on a trip back to the UK later this year, so would like to get him all set up with UK and Australian passports. For expediency, we're planning to do the applications in parallel, so have applied for two birth certificates for him (as the UK authorities require a original certificate).

Our rationale behind getting both passports before we go is that travel to the UK will be simpler if we're all holding UK passports, and that he will need his Australian passport in order to re-enter Australia without a visa of some sort (friends here got caught out by this last year, and their son got admitted with a 90 day visitor visa while they urgently sorted out his Aussie passport!)

The UK passport application process seems relatively simple, but for the Australian one we need to apply for and obtain an Australian citizenship certificate for him first, as a birth certificate doesn't confirm citizenship.

So I think we have it all figured out, but I'd really welcome any hints or tips, or information about gotchas or any parts of the process that are easy to make a slip-up on.

Many thanks!

Thanks all for the replies really informative and useful!

We've been in Aus a couple of years now, and are looking to buy (Sydney area - gulp!). One of the things we're learning about is Strata, which we understand exists for basically all properties that aren't a standalone house. Our take on it is that it's similar to how the share of freehold arrangement works in the UK, which we had before in a flat that was one of three in an old house that was converted in the 1980s.

We're looking at buying a townhouse, in a block of 10, that has a shared entrance pathway between the properties and a shared underground car park.

If we go ahead with a purchase, we're keen to ask as many relevant questions as possible, in order to avoid any "nasty surprises" further down the line about any potential restrictions the Strata arrangement might present.

So this is sort of an open question - what experiences (good and bad) have you had with Strata? What do you know now that you wish you'd known sooner?

(Aside: yep, we're concerned that the Sydney property market may be in freefall, so we may just renting for the time being!)

How about renting a PO Box at your nearest Post Office? We were able to do this, and having the PO Box was handy for general post before we were in a long-term rental.

It's gambling, so the usual rule applies: don't gamble what you can't afford to lose.

Thanks all - looks like we'll be paying K Mart and/or Big W a visit next weekend!

So it's winter, and the heating in our rented apartment is not working (don't ask!) so it looks like it's time to buy a hot water bottle for my wife.

Options we've found seem to be Amazon (2-4 week delivery!) or eBay. But, ideally we'd like to buy on in a shop where we can inspect it for quality etc beforehand.

Can anyone recommend a shop (we're in Sydney) that sells decent quality hot water bottles?

Thanks!

As an alternative to leather, Tilley make a great range of hats in a variety of fabrics. I've had one of their hemp hats for about eight years and it's still going strong, and has weathered pretty well.

I have a OnePlus 5, which I'd thoroughly recommend. Looks like these have now been superceded by the OnePlus 5T.

Note that I the 5T is likely (as did the 5) to come with a UK charger (!) which supports a super fast charge time.

My wife and I have been over here in Sydney for about 18 months, so it's time for our first trip back to the UK to see old friends & family. We're planning to go for two weeks around the start of June and will need to fly into Heathrow or Gatwick.

We're wondering if it's worth paying the extra to fly premium economy, and if so with which airline. Does anyone have any recommendations? (or warnings!)

On the times we've flown from the UK to Australia before we've always flown economy with Emirates via Dubai. Fine, but a bit cramped, and neither of us particularly like the bright lights and noisy retail experience that is Dubai airport.

On 12/28/2017 at 11:53, Peach said:

Marvel at the knowledge that The Rocks was named when someone important said "Have the prisoners set up camp over there by those rocks".

Fascinating - do you have a source for this?