Amazulu

I'm cool with that. History is history, Britain gave us the english speaking world. If they hadn't it would have been the French, Spanish or Dutch

Quinkana

All people of heaven.

Go Banana's !!

This one is an emotive subject.

What we all have to remember is that it's very personal, it all depends on what is going on in YOUR life and what YOU hold dear, what YOU could live without and what YOU would gain and when I say YOU I mean the family. No one can inflict their opinion on you about a place because we all view the world through different eyes. It's YOUR dream not anyone elses.

For a start you have to take a trip here. Sell the MIL if you have to. Don't treat it like a holiday, do all the research you can possibly fit in, look at the job market, local house prices, schools etc and try if you can to narrow it down to an area that makes best economic sense first of all and then look at the area. The economics play big part, you have to eat! You can do alot on the net, but you should really get a feel for the place.

This thread was tackled many many moons back and I vaguely remember suggesting to someone else, what we had done. We made a list of what we wanted to achieve, losses, gains, could we do it in the UK and thought very hard about the reasons. God I wish I could get back that thread 'cos I know I made alot more sense then!!!

Basically we are well on the road to achieving our main reasons IF WE SELL THE HOUSE (The Banana Diaries will give you an insight). It's not easy and your reasons have to be a solid as they can be, nothing like "crime rate lower" or "better education for the children" 'cos that simply isn't true, it's just different.

I'm loving it and we still have a little way to go until we really start the ball rolling.

Good luck and stay focused
Jill

ABCDiamond

Jill
A very good post, and the emphasis on "YOU" is very correct.

What I have done and am happy with, can be very different to someone else, and will again be different to another.

It is very important that everyone realise that THEY are different to everyone else.

Don't suppose you fancy looking back through all your 1300+ posts and finding your original ?

Elspeth

personally I prefer it here, i do miss family and friends like hell, but i wont go back to the uk now

MikeStanton

Thank you for providing the data - as you can see, with only ~34% of the UK population, Oz produces a massive ~77% of the UK's level of CO2 . Put another way, (per head) Oz produces more than double the amount of CO2 as UK. Still it takes Oz's mind off the massive salination of its rivers and land....

Go Banana's !!

One huge thing I forgot to mention is that you have to be able to cope with change and I mean really cope and not look back.

I'm currently living here without Hubby , in a house with only one pan and one baking tray, non of my stuff, having to do sausage and mash with a fork!, everything and I mean everything is different, but I'm still loving it. I've probably had about 3 off days and all of them were due to sleep deprivation, caused by a rather cute and fluffy addition to the family.

My little girl ahs a far better time here. She loves school, despite the intial blip and she is a member of every sports club in Perth!!! well not quite - but at least we didin't have to wait for 2 years for swimming lessons and she remarked only yesterday "I love swimming lessons here, it's lovely and warm and the teacher is lovely"

I have thrown myself into all that we have had to do to set our life up here.

Nothing in my life today resembles what it was 5 weeks ago, but I'm embracing that, even bought a dog to add insult to injury

Just thought that was worth a mention

Jill

Go Banana's !!

Mike

I think Cal B would benefit more from an insight into why you came back, YOUR experiences, quoting statistics really doesn't help the discision process, as you can make them say what you want.

"Put another way" compared to it's land mass Oz produces far less CO2 than the UK

I'm not being nasty saying this, but you never know, you may be in a similar line of work, or similar interests or similar family status and one piece of information you could provide could be vital

Jill

Peter

That's 'cos we're still using mainly coal for electricity, rather than nuclear. We should be nuclear. We have uranium to spare and we could flog off the coal that we'd normally burn for domestic energy.

MikeStanton

Fair enough - no more comments about CO2 (for a while...)

I emigrated to Oz in '89 - but, we spent '00-'02 living in Europe and UK: this really opened our eyes to what we had given up in UK and how things had changed over the previous 11 years. We returned to Oz at end of '02 and thought long and hard about the good and bad things about Oz compared with UK - or, to be more exact, UK+Europe. We both work in finance and IT.


Specifically, it is the following aspects of UK+Europe that made us leave Oz:

- choice and stimulation: in all senses of the word - job opportunities, places to holiday (at reasonanable cost), shopping (although I could have survived without that!) We feel much more alive in UK than we ever did in Oz

- salaries vs costs. Housing aside, the cost of living is comparable - but the salaries are not. I now earn 2x what I was earning in Oz - and in Oz I was earning a 'very good' salary

- Brits ability to be self-critical and accept criticism; ie be mature - this is reflected in their media, humour and everyday living. Even though most Aussie services and products are very mediocre (due to lack of competition). In general, Aussies are like teenagers - they can't take any criticism. Just look at the responses on this forum for examples

- friends and family. We wanted our children to spend much more time with family (eg grandparents)

- a broader outlook on life. Oz is very parochial

- education. Although the education system is supposed to be comparable to UK, we were unimpressed

- drugs - although drugs and racism (see next point) exist in UK; they seem far more overt in Oz

- racism - we were in Europe when the Oz government sent their SAS to board a boat of asylum seekers. John Howard claimed the asylum seekers were throwing baby(s) overboard - which was a lie. The rest of the civilized world was disgusted with Oz's behaviour. I even tried to defend Oz, but how can you defend the indefensible?

But I did enjoy having breakfast on Manly beach

We've been back in UK ~5 months and love it.

Quinkana

Like paying triple? Nuclear power is 3 times the cost of Aus coal power - that's why 10% of Aus electric power is used to smelt aluminium - so Poms can have beer in aluminium cans.

LIQUID METAL TURNS TO LIQUID GOLD FOR HIGHLAND COMMUNITY

Quinkana

Now tell me what it's like to drink your neighbours pee?

HeatherandTim

If you are fed up in England why not come over to Oz and see for your self. Get a working visa and come over for 12 months for a start. Work is easy to find in Sydney. If you dont ever try you will never know . The weather is good, the lifesyle is great. The hardest thing is getting a network of friends, but if you get work that makes its easier. The things you will miss are the pubs and your family and friends. Ive met lots of people who come for a year and end up staying but you can always go back and you'll have had a great experience.

MikeStanton

To tell you the truth I've forgotten....I gave up drinking Oz beer 5 months ago...

Quinkana

Let's see now Watson: You lived next to a confiding brewery worker subsequentially sacked. Grief stricken by loss, return to Britain offered your only hope.