I think I am coming round Oz.

[Guest Ptp113]

I think what it comes down to is to stop trying to compare everything between the two and appreciating that both are great countries and both have different pluses and negatives. But, this is home now. Every country has pluses and negatives. Heck, even Tanzania has some pluses - beer is actually pretty good and the somasas are excellent. But, it won't be home.

 

To be honest though, the pluses and negatives interest me less now. It is all about accepting where home is and appreciating what home has. Inhale just been stood in the front yard and watched a flock of galahs fly over. I could not have seen that in the UK. Some might say, but, but I could see xyz fly over instead in the UK. And yes, but you know what. I liked watching the galahs.

 

The one that will shock some on here the most!!!

I went to e freo beer festival and enjoyed a fair number of the beers!

 

Your username has been hacked!!

[flag of convenience]

You made me think about my holidays (and perhaps just how staid I have been!) I have only had one holdiday out of Australia, where I did not go to England. I went to Club Med in Noumea (New Caledonia) in 1980, paid for with my first Aussie tax refund. And I had one 'business trip' - a weekend in Auckland', involving making a delivery to an RAN ship at Devonport. I had some extended trips, mostly to the USA, Hong Kong, Bali, but everyone of them was coming to or from England. There's not even anywhere I particularly want to go to now, either. Tasmania and the NT, Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands, proper trip to NZ.

 

As far as those Aussie expats go, I probably put 'leaving Australia permanently' on my passport. I think many of those people who retire to cheaper places in S.E. Asia, still call Australia home, and if they get sick, they come back. Not unlike Brits who retire to Spain, then lose a partner, or get sick.

 

I was looking at the first post again, and it's about the feeling the person had of finally feeling settled in Australia? I will always be English, of course, and I can't get enough of the English newspapers online, English football, SKY News UK overnight, but I LIVE here. I'm not here on 'holiday'. I'm not here on a temporary basis. If I get sick, I won't be returning to the UK. I think that letting my UK passport expire, although partly due to laxness, is also symbolic of my fully embracing Australia. I always used to renew my Pommie passport as soon as it expired.

 

Actually I'd have thought the same with sickness a few years ago as well. A case point my friend was knocked down by a girl on a motor cycle, while riding and speaking on her mobile, and went straight into my friend(one in Cambodia) causing numerous injuries. The Cambodian hospital stabilised her and flew her to Bangkok. Spent several weeks there in a first class hospital fully paid for by insurance, and come discharge they wanted to fly her to Adelaide. She declined saying Cambodia is her home now and at the risk of having to pay out of pocket any complications returned to her house there.

It will take a number of months to recover and then never fully so, but has found a great English doctor living there, who keeps an eye on her.

This woman is as Aussie as you can get never a bad word against Australia, just doesn't want to live here.

Met another Aussie with either Aids or HIP, don't recall which but he had not long been discovered and he wasn't going back either. The hospital there had the full treatment for a small fee and said he'd nothing to go back for. Believe me there are an ever increasing number. If you have an income either from a pension or house rental you can live very well in a number of those countries. It doesn't mean they dislike or hate Australia just found somewhere else they feel they age better at a low cost.

 

Like everything situations change. Those settled can become less settled as time goes on and vice versa. A relative of mine returned to UK after more than thirty very settled years in Australia. Back there several years now and never once expressed a wish to return for a holiday. Never a complaint being here over the years though.

I feel it's a question of connection with the place and as the OP once said having a mate to go out for a beer with. Coming across someone from the old town may have been enough to change perceptions. I'm sure there's other factors as well.

I guess it depends on previous life also. If only came from England to OZ the decision to stay may be more straight forward. I only renewed my UK passport some two and a half years after expiry needing it to enter Europe. I still intend to live in different places but for six month stints and maintain a base in Australia.