Baron_Badger

I think it depends on what home means to you.

To me Home is where I come from, where my roots are and where I grew up. Even if I stay in australia for the rest of my life (or settle somewhere else) it will never be home in that sense. However if home is where you live, where your life is then in that respect Australia is my home.

Personally i call both the UK and Aus my home depending on context. Maybe one day that will change but i doubt it.

cranni

Thankyou for your kind words Tracey. You are right, i am grieving, i cant bear the thought of mum and dad ging back now. And it has unsettled me.
I also have a son back in UK , so i still have very strong emotional ties.
But i dont go around moaning, i have to make the most of the situation, and i really do lke it here. And i do really want to make it work, i just wish i could bring my family here, that would be perfect.
And i do love my country [UK]it just has lots of problems which are getting worse.
Anyway off out for the day to the lovely Busselton, life goes on.
Denise xx

Shellfish

I can relate to this completely. I still feel unsettled and get 'the wobblies' as we call them but it's not anything to do with Melbourne, it's a great place. I know that if I went back 'home', I would definitely miss it. Perhaps I am just one of those people is never really happy

cranni

you can join my club if you like

Shellfish

thanks. I agree with you, if I didn't have all my loved ones in S.Africa (where I am from) it would probably make all the difference in the world. I really envy people who have come over with their whole family, I wonder if they realise how lucky they are. Still, I do have an amazing husband and my sister is here, for which I am grateful.

cranni

And i have a lovely family here, 5 kids out of my 6 are here now. 1 to go, he may come over to live in a couple of years.
But if my sister came then that would be even better.
My mum and dad i will miss when they go back on Monday. But i have to just get on with it.
When the kids start getting married and the grandchildren come along, maybe then it will feel like home. I dont know.
I too envy people who have all their family here, and when i see get togethers in the park it makes me cry.
Im just lost at the moment.
Good luck to you anyway. Take care.
Denise

jad n rich

Sometimes, def not on occasions like grandparents day at the school, I dread stuff like that now

Or when you go go camping or something with aussies who have known each other since preschool, everyone got a nickname from grade 2 and you feel like a right intruder TBO. Bit hard to get into 5 hours of talk about the cruise they went on in 1982, or its someones 40th and the photos they find splittingly funny mean absolutely nothing to you.

BadgeIsBack

I find that memories are fantastic - I have so many - but they were acquired in so many different places, it is meaningless where they were. Just the memory is enough. That is why I never get homesick. I just like having the 'collection'.

I haven't lived long term in the UK for over 8 years - it's funny, might be a time of life thing, but I feel I have put more roots down in Australia in 4 years than I ever did in 20 in the UK. I think it is because I came to Australia to buy a decent home, to get married, to have kids. Before that I had a different life where I was always a stranger in my own country - I was always on the move, never put down roots. I'm glad I don't have to know what people did when they were 2, I'd have to put up with it for another 30 years..

I find being a migrant is great, people don't expect you to know everything or fit in, and it often allows you to fit in better as people don't attach any of *their* baggage to you. You won't remember the time they sh*t their pants in assembly etc. They find you interesting, and if you are quite personable and make friends with anyone anyway its dowhill all the way. I don't have to justify myself and where I live or where I came from. It's funny you meet an English person and discuss or find common ground or experiences and it feels weird - I don't like it in a way. I like the Aussie way, I'm 'bored' with the UK!

hawk2005

A lot of Aussies I come in to contact with at work seem to have moved around Melbourne or the whole of Oz a fair bit, whether with parents or through choice themselves

They also seem to try quite hard to be upwardly mobile and don't seem content to stay in the same street/area they may have been brought up in.

teach

Hi
We have only been here since 10th October 05 and I can honestly say that when we were living in Brisbane we hated it but now we have moved to Bundaberg we are totally settled. The Uk is not home anymore, Bundaberg is.
Sarah

thebears

Yes, now frequenting my local cafe for morning coffee fix. Local gym is 7 mins walk. Supermarket (24 hours, 7 days) 3 mins (at the end of the street).
Offlicense 2 mins. Doctors/Dentist 2 mins 10 sec. Train to CBD 12 mins walk. Tram 7 mins. Yes we are conveniently located.

Melbourne is home

iPom

My husband is the Australian, I am the one on the spouse visa, but it was me who suggested and drove the move to it's final completion. My hub had left as a disgruntled 19 year old who didn't like Australia and preferred the UK due to work being better for him.
We met in the UK at a party in london, and we married a year later. We've had three children in our 12 yr marriage, and he has built up an excellent reputation within his industry in the UK.
What he never really thought of was how Australia would be better for his children until I started to mention it.
Our business collapsed after the 9/11 tragedy and we lost many US friends who worked at the WTC. Our clients went bust owing us thousands, and the bottom dropped out of the market. I found I was pregnant and with an undiagnosed thyroid problem, I nearly lost the baby twice, then I nearly died having our son and three weeks later, he developed viral meningitis and we were back in hospital.

Through all this, our stress levels were huge, my husband was trying to work and look after us all, I had no family who even turned up when our lives were so close to the line, and some days we went without food so that the children could eat .... It was a nightmare of extreme insanity and I never ever want to be there again.

Eventually my hub got a job and got his confidence back. The industry started to recover, we remortgaged to pay off our debts we'd accumulated whilst trying to survive... and then it hit me.....

What the heck were we doing in the UK, struggling with a mortgage, a family who didn't want to know and the weather?
So we came here to Australia... and when people ask where I think of as home, I think of how 'home' really is the love of a good family and keeping those family members nurtured enough so that they grow into great human beings ... and if it means moving your home to another country to get that, then so be it.
Home for me isn't about 'stuff' or possessions, it's about life, and living and quality of that life.
So yes, Australia is home and I'm proud to call it so. It's fabulous and I don't regret one single moment of my decision to bring us here... apart from the cockroaches.

2foot

To me - my home village is home, I left a family farm to come here, its the land you can`t replace for some reason, the fact that you grow up seeing the seasons I suppose.

I have land here now but its just a plot of sand (WA) it doesn`t have the same meaning to me.

I can leave the rest of UK though, there are pockets I love but the majority makes me cringe at times.

So the home farm is HOME but i feel safer in the area I live now - and that goes along way

geordie mandy

What a great post that is how i feel home is where you are loved no matter where you were born .
Mandy

iPom

Hope it works out for you Fraser.