Jacqui

Well we're on our way back to the UK for a brief visit - just me and the kids. Hubby is too busy at work to take time off and anyway went over last year so he's not bothered about going again. Only 8 weeks to go though, and I'm having to plan the trip at short notice, we only decided on this a few days ago. The kids have been walking around with fixed grins ever since, they are so excited about seeing their old friends. I think they will be surprised to see how much people have changed since we left 3 years ago, and I'm sure there are a few things playing on my hubby's mind - apart from the sheer cost of it all that is Will they start getting feelings about wanting to go back? Will they be disappointed to find their friends aren't quite how they expected because of course they will have moved on in their own lives? Will the rellies try the old emotional blackmail stuff on them (again)?

I'm looking forward to the trip, but it will be the first time I have flown with the kids without hubby - although at ages 10, 12 and 14 it won't be so bad. As long as we can find the right gate at the airport and there are no bomb scares, I'll be all right. It will be great to see everyone again, but awful to go through all the goodbyes at the end too. I'm sure it's going to be a weird feeling stepping onto British soil again - seeing places that we'd forgotten about, discovering things that have changed in our old hometown. Hopefully it will be a reminder though that we made the right decision, and I will look forward to getting on that plane to "come home" to Mandurah. No doubt it will stir up old feelings of homesickness and I suspect this is troubling hubby. Is other main worry of course is who's going to do his washing and ironing while I'm gone?

ozzieeagle

Hopefully he wont find someone to do the washing and ironing . 3 years is a long while away for kids, but not long for you. It will be very interesting to see what you feel about the Changes in 3 years, apparently food prices have hardly gone up at all, in england.

Looking forwards to seeing any posts you may make on the differences now.

mand8002

I can understand your worries. We too are going back to the UK for Christmas and I am already thinking about it and hoping it won't unsettle me. I don't think the kids will have a problem as they are so settled in their new life in Australia.........and so am I, but it still worries me. I think the difficult thing is that when you haven't seen people for a long time then they will make a fuss but what you have to remember is that if you moved back then that would die down and everyone would be in the same old rut that you were in before you made the move.
Fingers crossed everyone will be desperate to get back to Australia, and you could always preworn the kids about the emotional blackmail from family.
Amanda

jad n rich

Facing the same thing myslef in November, no way even on our good wage can we afford all of us to go and time off work :scared: it cost us best part of $15,000 for a month in 2004, majority of that airfares. But lots of english women get faced with the same choice and go it alone with the kids and they survive, frankly I am terrified now as all the aussie relatives keep asking us if we are scared of being blown apart by bombs

Saying goodbye again is the worst part, but I just keep focusing on the time we will have with everyone, think thats all you can do really is just keep on thinking of the positives and play down the flight bit My kids were very unsettled last time when we came back but time got them back into OZ again, have a really busy time lined up for them when they get back, fun stuff to take the mind off things a bit. As for actually being there, we had a brilliant time, enjoyed every second you appreciate it all so much more after being away for so long.

ranbysue

Was just reading your thread and so nice to know that you are looking forward to coming home for a little while.

My husband has just been offered a job as a prison officer in Hamilton New Zealand. We have paid for and submitted our expression of interest to the Nz immgration and are awaiting the outcome. However, I am so unsure now partly because we are going into the unknown and also comparing salaries here to NZ then we are worse off in that respect but we wanted the move (or rather I did) to give our children a better life.

When we went for the interview in London on 27th May it really gave me a wake up call. I looked around us at the breathtaking buildings and sights and everything British whilst in London and it made me feel very sad and also ashamed that I wanted to abandon my beautiful Country to live elsewhere. We earn a good wage, and after 15 years of marriage have a nice house and are genererally in a good position. We live in a lovely English Town in Nottinghamshire and I really like our life. We can go on holidays now and not struggle to afford it.

Why then I hear you ask do you want to leave? Well two things mainly...we're now a target for bombings and also the crime rate and justice system has completely gone mad.

The bombings will escalate I feel to many parts of western civilisations around the world but here in England committers of crime generally go unpunished in many cases and get off with a telling off. I want my children to grow up in a safe place where they are allowed to be children, you will know what I mean.

Anyway I would welcome your own experiences of life down under and whether you feel you made a right move.

Best of wishes to all of you when you come home over the coming year. What a pity that most (not all) feel we have to leave the place we love most mainly because of poloitics within.

Suze

jad n rich

Every country has its problems, UK at the moment is terrorism, but will that be OZ next year with the games in Melbourne? Who knows, howard seems to be pretty worried about it.

NZ certainly has problems, lots of social problems from poverty, any new zealander in OZ will tell you that. Oz has similar crime rates to UK is you look at the per head figures. I personally would not move to escape anything, what happens when the situation changes, do you move again?

Research where your moving to carefully, do not go to NZ without a visit and in depth reseacrch into the social, economic side of things, if your happy with it then go for it.

Jacqui

We too left in a similar position to you, 16 years married, nice house, nice town, not rich but not struggling either, kids happy, most of our friends and relatives thought we were bonkers leaving, they wondered what we could find that would make us happier - like weren't we happy enough already? Now that the initial excitement of emigrating has long past, and we are in a normal routine of work/school/housework/etc I would have to admit that on the "happiness scale" things are probably no different. On a daily basis, life isn't much different.

I'd like to tell you Suze that as far as crime and justice is concerned, it's so much safer over here - but that would be a terrible lie. Everyone here whinges about politicians/soaring crime rates/lack of justice/drunk drivers/education/health system/overpaid directors........ I could go on, but it's exactly the same here, just different names i.e. instead of Tony Blair, read John Howard. My mum came for 3 months last year, and after reading our newspapers, was saddened to find things are no better than the UK. We even have our own versions of fly-on-the-wall type documentaries, watching how others commit crimes or get hurt in "Borderline Security" (customs at airports), "Motorway Patrol" (in New Zealand), "Emergency" (a&e dept Melbourne) to mention a few, and all these true tales are just the same.

Shortly before the Bali bombings which affected many Australian families, some Al-Queda terrorists were found to be camping out in a remote part of bush down near Bunbury - it just happened to be a short walk from the remote house that we were temporarily living in upon our arrival here. So much for escaping terrorism!

As for the children being safer - can't afford to let your guard down here on that either. Many people drive their children to school rather than let them walk, because of the real possibility of abductions - plenty of paedophiles here too. I know of a girl recently bullied at the local high school because she reported the drug taking going on. My kids are allowed to play on the street, but aren't allowed to go further than shouting distance, and need to be constantly aware of lunatic drivers and stray dogs, I can't relax when they're outside.

Sorry to sound so negative, but it's good to hear about the bad points not just the good all the time. I think too many people emigrate out here with very high expectations, thinking this is some kind of crime-free paradise. I'm half-expecting our friends and relatives to ask us lots of daft questions when we visit, like "is there any crime where you live?"

They say you don't know what you've got til it's gone, and we realise now that we did in fact have quite a cushy life back in the UK. There are some things from our hometown we are looking forward to seeing again, especially the children, because the park and playground facilities here are hopeless. But we have a really good life here in Mandurah too and have a pretty good network of friends now. Even if I felt just a twinge of wanting to head back to the UK permanently, it would be a wrench leaving behind everything good here and worse, taking the children away from the new friends and schools, where they have been settled now for over 3 years. The whole emigration process certainly opens up many emotional feelings you would never begin to imagine without actually experiencing them.

Sandra

Excellent summing up, I feel much the same after three years here.

I have actually managed to get back twice in the last three years so far and head out again in three weeks for a flying visit with my sister (justme no kids). I have the same fears about getting over the goodbyes again even though I know on the previous trips I actually looked forward to getting home again, lots of that was to do with the living at relatives!

My children are 13 and 15 and the 15 yr old was back for a month at easter and he also was glad to come back this time. I agree with the advice about having some stuff planned for when you get back - my kids went through a pretty flat time and dwelt a bit on the missing people even though they are both settled and happy here. I also made sure we did a couple of really cool things before we went back to the UK - just so they had something fresh to chat about to counter the emotional rellies, we went on a dolphin watch and a duck dive and made sure we made our regular trips to the beach. We took lots of photos and a video of where we lived and the beaches, parks and shopping centre? by the time the kids talked people through an hour of this most of the worried relatives would actually offer me comments about how happy and settled they sounded. I took the report cards from school and some of the school photos and year books. I think I must have bored some people to death they are happy to see the back of the kids for another year or so.

Have a wonderful time

Sandra

ranbysue

Thank you so much for replying to my litle bit upon this thread. I am definitely in two minds about the whole thing but my husband is desperate to leave the UK and give NZ a go. We have until March before the job starts and we have also applied and paid for Expression of Interest to NZ immgration. We'll just have to await the outcome and then do some serious thinking. My husband doesn't read these sites and so closes his eyes to the negatives as well as the positives. It was actually me who prompted him to apply in the first place, but as I said when I went for a few days to London it gave me a jolt and made me realise what we had got here in the UK (apart from the weather that is - it still rains in fact this week has been cold and wet).

Anywya thanks again and hope you all have a lovely time when you return home at some stage.

Suzanne