going to be a ping pong pom?

[Black Country lad]

Real shame!! I pretty much saw all the industry go from around there the steelworks in Bilston and I remember them dismantling the crane big lizzie, my grandfather was the maintenance man on that one.. still they call it progress?

[Guest The Nicholls]

I saw this thread and thought I would put up my experience.

Well I emigrated to oz in 2009 with my family and my boyfriend ( who was on a whv). For me I had just finished university (therefore lived at home no cares in the world). Aftera few months on the gold coast me and my boyfriend moved in to amazing apartment however I felt I was missing out wiv my friends back home, paying rent and just staying in lots and started to get home sick.

 

After a year my family went home and that’s when I started to really wanted to go home as I was sponsoring my boyfriend he did not want to return to the uk however at the time I thought the grass was greener .

Therefore I return in oct 2010 and my boyfriend follwed in the dec . We stayed together until recently however it came down to he cudnt forgive me for coming back and didnt want to go back to try again.

 

I would say after being back home after three months I wanted to go back as I knew I made a mistake but it was too late. My friends and myself had grown up, we didn’t go out all the time and we all work lots. So now im single and job not going so well I am really thinking if to return as I need to do my full two years to get a rrv therefore I need to return before may and I am thinking can I really do this on my own as its so far from home if things go bad and I don’t want to be lonely.

 

Friends think I shd as I do have some friends out there already, I also think I shd go as this is my last chance, I shouldn’t give myself a time line and just go out there and enjoyit if things don’t work out I've lose nothing but my plane fare and I can return home anytime. It’s hard to know what to do for the best and I am worried I am going to become a ping pong pom!

[MARYROSE02]

I'm not quite sure of your circumstances but if you still have the opportunity to return to OZ, take it. You sound like you were already half liking it here, but it took going back to the UK to confirm it, a not uncommon experience. As you also said, your friends had moved on, as they were bound to, and you too. After all, you have moved to a strange country whilst they have stayed where it's safe!

 

There's nothing wrong with being a 'Ping Pong Pom' anyway, provided that you can afford it. I made heaps of trips back to the UK when my parents were alive, culminating in a twelve-year 'holiday' there, but I know that Sydney is my home. Just give yourself some time to make some friends here, put down some roots, and start to think of Australia as 'home' not 'away!'

[soul]

hi there thought I would add my 2pence worth.

I met my boyfriend in 1972 here in scotland,he was born here but his family moved to melbourne in the sixties.he came back for a holiday to scotland and when he returned to oz I decided to go to .I was a 10 pound pom [as they say].I moved there in 1973,we married in 1975 and my husband decided he did not wont to live in australia any more ,he wanted to go back to scotland,I on the other hand loved melbourne and I did not want to go back to scotland, but because I felt at the time I had no choice,I returned to scotland with him.I knew right away I had done the wrong thing coming back here.

but I tried to settle and make a go of things here. we had two beautiful children,but I still wanted to go back to melbourne.

to cut a very long story short, I am now divorced and my children are now 35 and 32 years old. they have a life of their own now and oz is not what they want. I went back to melbourne in 2005 for a holiday with my daughter as I have friends there, I was hoping my daughter would fall in love with oz just as I did but it did not appeal to her ,I cried all the way back in the plane, I just want to live there, I have had this longing for 37 years ,and this is my dream,I am now 60 years old and I think of oz every second of the day,I watch all the tv channels about oz,I am still looking for a way to get myself back to oz but not for a holiday ,I want to spend my life there as that is where I belong. so my advice to you is go to oz and have a wonderful life .they say I am too old and oz does not want people my age,I am fit and work full time I have a house to sell but still I dont have enough money to live there,my friends cant sponsor me so I will have to look for an ozzie husband lol oh well if it ment to be it will happen for me again. good luck for the future. from val [soul].

[MARYROSE02]

Perhaps you could make a sort of compromise and plan to retire to Australia just for a few months over the summer each year. Could you afford to buy a place in Melbourne? If you are still working you could possibly get a mortgage, treat it as an investment and rent it out. Or downsize from your present home to release some equity? Retiring permanently to Australia would mean you taking a hit on your UK State pension as it's 'frozen' at the rate payable when you arrive in OZ.

 

I haven't investigated the rules on 'foreigners' buying property here but my parents bought a house here in 1981 when they were non-resident in Australia.

 

I don't know what your financial circumstances are but it might be feasible for you. There must be a few people in the UK who maintain properties around the Med and spend the winters there?

 

It's a shame you were not able to stay here long enough to get permanent residence/citizenship and I know you did not want to go back to the UK. Some people are absolutely adamant that they have had enough of OZ, yet after returning 'home', they change their minds. If they are citizens it is OK of course.