Originally Posted by Nic938

Well, I am not even sure if I am going to post this as not even sure what to say to be honest so I will speak from the heart, and please, everyone this is just my opinion so nobody be offended.....

Got here as the above says on the 7th Jan and had a great trip with a stopover in Singapore which was wonderful. We were one of the mad ones that had never been to Australia before nor had any family or friends out here and it was a case of one day sitting at the computer and saying to the hubby "let's just get out of this place" ie. England and hubby asking where to and I said Australia and that was it. It snowballed from there......

The day we arrived we were met at the airport by Ohippychick and her girls and was surrounded by flies!!!! Was not prepared for that at all and after picking up the hire car and arriving at our rental in Mandurah which was lovely I have to say, that the first thing I did was ask hubby for a cigarette (I had stopped 12 months before) and there it started this feeling of "holy crap what have we done" nothing started it off I really have no idea what happened and the feeling hasn't really left me!

We struggled to find a rental and when we did find one the agent called us up on the day we were supposed to move at 4.40pm and told us we could not move in for 7/10 days as the previous tenant had left his car in the garage and under Health & Safety laws (which do not exist anyway) we could not live in the property. I was gobsmacked, as of the Sunday morning we had nowhere to live and with 3 kids in tow I really felt like I had let them down. Off we went to a caravan site which was a joke, as this caravan did not even have wheels along with trying to fit 5 people, 10 suitcases and bits & bobs we had started to buy for the rental it was a tight squeeze and there we stayed for 10 nights until I could find another rental (told the other rental agency to take a flying jump, speak about cutting off your nose to spite your face, but it was the principal of the thing ) Anyway, someone was looking down on us from above as on the Monday we found a really nice rental with a pool in Halls Head and we could move in the following week so that was that.

Now, I think this may be where I am getting a bit down, as hubby is a brickie. We came out on the 134 permanent visa sponsored by WA Govt as shortage of brickies. Ohippychick had already warned us that work was a bit slow but hubby was not prepared for their being no work at all. Hubby phoned about 30 companies/people and they all said the same that work was a bit dry at the moment and there really wasn't much going on but that it would pick up (never said when) and so eventually through a friend of a friend hubby got a start with a brickie that took pity on him and hubby worked with him for 3 weeks to learn the ropes so to speak.

On Monday he was told that they had now run out of work and they had to let him go on Friday! On Thursday we looked through all the papers and on the internet and found 1 job for a brickie. Hubby phoned and got a start for Friday just gone, but when he came home he was so despondent. Money was crap and there was about 8 brickies there and two foremen who barked orders, he got a 15 minute break for lunch after he had started at 7.00am and finished at 4.30pm and the foremen said he would phone him on Tuesday if there was a job on Wednesday (no idea what happened to Monday!).

Since we have been here we have had two pay cheques! We unfortunately, were one of those that did not come with much money so every penny counts but the other 8 brickies on this job said that even though the wages were crap (half of what he wold earn in the UK) and that they treated you like shite that basically you had to put up with it as there was not any work going about.

Hubby is now thinking that maybe he should be a brickies labourer and try and get a foot in the door that way or to come home to the UK for 3 months and earn a bit of money again and come back out, not sure what to do but I totally understand that when you have 20 years experience and have a good reputation back home that it is pretty disheartening to go back to being a labourer, but money is money.

Two out of the three kids are loving it but my 4 year old HATES kindy and every day is asking if he can go back to live in the UK to live with his granny & granpa and this is getting me down too. I know in time he will probably settle but boy is it wearing, him going on and on at me all the time. He even told me tonight that it is all my fault as I made him come here!

We have made plenty of friends, Ohippychick has been great but the people that have been here before you already have made their lives, quite rightly, and can't drop everything just because I am unhappy but I am at my wits end. I am not at the stage of coming home and I was, and still am determined to give this 100% but with Marc not getting a start of work and everybody he speaks too saying that there is just a slow down in building houses and too many brickies out here I just can't see a light at the end of the tunnel and please believe me when I say I am usually a positive person and always try to look on the bright side of life so I am probably moaning away to all you people out there hoping that if I put it all down I will feel better as when I phone the UK or people phone here I don't want to tell them how I am feeling just incase my mum says just come home then as we all really want this to work.

Anyway, I will go now as I know this sounds like a negative post but I just needed to get this all out.

Good luck to everyone out there who are waiting to live the dream and to the ones who are already here living it.

Nic

Originally Posted by yanchep

mand-jim,

Are you bored today as well then

Originally Posted by yanchep

I know we would all be on beach or having b,b,q now, instead of sitting indoors stalking everyone on expats, Im going to go over to Poms in Perth now and have a nose there to see what everyones up to

Originally Posted by yanchep

wow we are all over the board today aint we, haven't had this much exercise in years How far are you with ya visa

Originally Posted by yanchep

Weve got ours got it about 5 weeks ago, still excited about it, which is why I get so frustrated because once the house is sold, we are gone, gone, gone

Originally Posted by yanchep

We got the 175 visa, started process in October last year, had medicals done in November last year and got police checks down in January this year, pretty quick going really

Originally Posted by yanchep

We were really lucky in a way ,because we applied after September when skilled workers rules changed, apparently they employed more case officers to deal with the big load of September/October 'ozzie wannabees' so ours didnt take too long, What agents you with, we went with Visa-Go

Originally Posted by yanchep

We had Alana too, no real problems with them but I did have to sometimes keep ringing up and pestering her to find out whats going on. Apparently thats true that they have had a real big demand in March for wanting visas, as far as I know they have kept all the case workers on. Are you going on ya other halfs visa, what does he do