Lynne shenfine

We returned to the U.K. on Boxing Day 2020 after eight years in Adelaide. It was a difficult decision but we don’t regret one minute of it!! We love being home and it has absolutely 100% been worth the stress and heartache. Good luck xxx

Thank you both. My husband is a Professor of surgery so thankfully the job wasn't a huge issue. I understand in the current climate how difficult things are so do not for one moment take for granted the position we are in. Have a lovely Christmas and super New year too xxx

Hi everyone. Im not sure if anyone will remember me but it was just to let everyone know my husband secured a fantastic job in Jersey in the Channel islands in November. We sold our house, cars, wrapped up life here and despite the Covid situation are flying home tomorrow from Adelaide. I thought we would have some sadness but to be honest we just feel a sense of relief and that we are 'going home' We are flying business class with Qatar. Flights and exemption were very straight forward. Have a safe and wonderful Christmas and New Year and I hope 2021 is a more peaceful and happier year for everyone! I will keep you posted........... Much love XXXX

This is exactly the position we are in! We have in Adelaide for eight years. Live beside the beach, pool, excellent well paid job etc etc but all of our family in the U.K. Travel was our way of staying here. We are now essentially living in a guilded cage and with the draconian border control and no likelihood of international travel for some time we have decided to go home. Slighty different as my husband has landed a job in Jersey where Covid isn't quite so rampant. We have been unsettled for about 18 months but Covid has been the icing on the cake! There will never be a good time and at some point Oz will get hit. Covid is not just going to disappear. We are leaving before Christmas as the housing market is predicted to crash early next year and we are much more likely to sell our house now. Good luck with your decision. Feel free to drop me a message if you want to chat xxx

Just a word of caution. We emigrated to Adelaide seven years ago and paid around 50k. There are so many hidden costs and no we don’t live in the fanciest part of Adelaide! Cars, rental, health insurance, etc etc. The cost of living is VERY expensive. My husband is a professor of surgery with a public appointment and a very busy successful private practice and I’m a nurse. We still find living expensive and joke that everything costs $500 or $5000!! Personally I would let your 16 year old finish their education in the U.K. It’s a very different system out here. Covid is going to take its toll next year. There is little employment and businesses are struggling. We are in the process of making in roads to come home. The Aussie dream has run its course and it’s genuinely not what people think. Wall to wall sunshine and BBQs! We have a pool and as expats couldn’t survive without it. Summers in Adelaide are brutal with constant air con and lots of time spent indoors not to mention sharks, snakes and spiders! Adelaide is also very insular and we feel we will never integrate. Its very much a case of who you know. If your eight year old wants to be a doctor there is a HUGE amount of competition. We miss British culture and family of course. We would actually go so far as to say we regret coming out. Sorry to be so down but it’s a lot of money to spend. We are returning with a renewed appreciation of the U.K.! Good luck with your outcome X

Hi everyone! I hope you are all safe and well. I posted a few weeks ago about the impossible decision. We have decided to go for it and head home. Our heads say its insanity but our hearts are screaming to go! My husband has a job interview on the 7th October for a job in Cardiff. There is a high chance he will get the job. We know very little about the area other than brief visits. We are relying on future work colleagues to help with good areas and schools etc. I was just wondering if any of you good people had any advice or tips? Schools are our main priority. Our children are 4,7 and 8. Private school would not be an option. We've heard north of Cardiff is better but otherwise we are clueless! Any advice or pointers would be so much appreciated. Many many thanks Lynne xxx

So sorry for your loss Quoll. What a fantastic reply though. I think you summed up how I feel about Oz. I also agree that Bath is a beautiful part of the world and we could be very happy there if we are brave enough to make the move! Sending love xxx

Mariasawright its like you read my mind xxxxxxx

Thank you all for your replies and insight. Unfortunately for us we could not do a year in the UK and return back to Oz. It is bad practice and unusual for a consultant surgeon to bounce between jobs. His post would be filled and there would be no job to return too! Its also getting increasingly difficult for overseas medics to get jobs here. They are tending to keep to their own. Thats why we emigrated as the opportunity doesn't come up often and if we didn't take it may never have come up again. For by anything else there is no way my husband would be cruel enough to go back to his teenage daughter then a year down the line leave her again. I also couldn't take my parents grandchildren away again it would destroy them! For us it would be a one way ticket and I guess that's what makes it so difficult!

Thank you very stormy!! Thats so reassuring and I would be inclined to agree. I almost feel that as an ex pat we will always feel like outsiders despite the lifestyle that Oz can offer. Maybe you have to leave the UK to fully appreciate it again? Seriously there have been times when if we could have got on a plane the next day there is no way we would still be sitting in Oz! Unfortunately it would realistically take us at least three months to extradite ourselves and as my husbands job is very specialised we have to wait for the right one to come up then hope that he gets its! This is the main reason we keep flitting between the decision. Too much time to think..........

Hi everyone. This is my first post on this forum, however, I have been reading for a few weeks and have found it to be extremely interesting and helpful. This could be a very, very long post but i will give a little bit of background and cut to the chase! I am Scottish and we are known for waffling on! My husband and i emigrated to Adelaide from Newcastle upon Tyne in March 2013. His family all live in the north of England and my family in the highlands of Scotland. My husband had spent time in Oz during his training in both Melbourne and Brisbane for a year at a time (we are going back around 25 years!) He said Australia got under his skin and despite landing an excellent job in the U.K he never quite settled and dreamed of going back. He was previously married with a daughter when we met. A fantastic opportunity arose in Adelaide so we decided to go for it knowing we could travel and visit family and we could go home if it didn't work out. We had to give it a go or spend the rest of our lives wondering what if? We left with our nine month old daughter and our second daughter was born three months after we landed. Our children are now 8,7 and we have a 3 year old too. Our families supported us but were equally heartbroken which we never really talk about! My husband had been travelling twice a year to see his now teenage daughter and she had come to visit us too as she was getting older. I have never been back since we emigrated as my mum and dad were coming out at least twice a year and I wanted to wait until our children were a bit older before we made the trip. That was meant to be this year! Obviously Covid has pretty much put paid to all of that in the near future and we are left wondering what now???? My husband id devastated at the thought of not seeing his daughter. Despite the distance they are very close (we all are!) and we have . done an amazing job of maintaining the relationship via visits and weekly FaceTime video chats and phone calls. My mum and I are also very close and I phone her every day but its just not the same. Life is good here. My husband is a consultant surgeon due to come a professor very soon, loves his public job and his colleagues and has a thriving private practice. We live in a beautiful house with a pool close to the beach and our older girls go to the local school where they are happy. I am a nurse but don't work so I am home with the kids. We have friends but haven't really found our tribe. We also have two dogs and a cat which we adore! We are permanent residents but haven't gone for citizenship yet.....stupid we know! But............ It all looks great on paper, however, we spent most of 2019 VERY unsettled. We talked constantly about family and going home. At this point our parents were ageing and becoming less able to travel. My husbands family, including his beautiful 80 year old mum, and the majority of my family have never met our two youngest children. Hubbys trips back to the UK were beginning to take its toll as all his holidays were spent travelling home while i stayed here with the kids and no support network just praying there wouldn't be a disaster while he was away! We do love Adelaide, however, have issues. the summer is brutal and I often find the kids and I are confined to a fairly indoor lifestyle during the summer school holidays. My husband earns well but despite gruelling hours between tax and cost of living we aren't much better off than when he worked in the NHS! His private work also buys him body and soul but it is very much something you are expected to do here. We feel extremely isolated from the rest of the world and are beginning to regret coming here. My husband applied for a few jobs last year but we pulled out thinking that equally we would be insane to leave. I should probably add that my husband is 50 and Im 41 so the thought of starting again is daunting. We pulled out of the jobs thinking as long as we can travel we can probably cope. Then covid happened. We are genuinely now torn every single day as to what to do. Every time we say we will stay literally within 24 hours one of us has changed their mind! Its become all consuming and we feel we can't move on with life. We are also acutely aware that time is not on our side with regards to our childrens education, and friendships and our ages. We just can't shake the feeling that our Aussie dream has run its course. We miss our families and feel we are denying our children contact with them and in particular their big sister. My husband has applied for a job in Bath which he is discussing with his ex UK colleague this weekend to see if it would be suitable. However we are also worried that going back won't be what we think it. That we are rose tinting it and we won't see as much of our families as we think or that UK winters are far more miserable than we remember! It would be a one way trip for us. If we went back we wouldn't come back to Oz again for by the financial implications we couldn't put our families through the heartbreak again. We haven't even discussed this with our families as we don't want to get their hopes up! It really is an impossible decision with no right or wrong answer. ANY words of understanding or wisdom would be so appreciated. Thank you if you have read this far and i hope you and your families are safe and well wherever in the world you are. P.S told you i could talk!!