Thats what I'm wondering. Do people settle better after going back and realising its actually the UK that they have been seeing through rose-tinted specs?

I think you have made a very valid point, dearest Pollyanna. A visit may well quench those old stirrings. For some people.

BM

Yep, that was spot on the mark for me.

Aussiepeter said : "Most of what you remember is nostalgia."
That sounds about right too.

Unfortunately for me it always made it worse, mainly because we had to do all the goodbyes again, and that for my mum & Dad and my kids was devastating. Plus it made me very unsettled because I could see what I was missing. It would take me a good 3 months to settle down again.

The worst times were when the exchange rate was like 32p or something, a trip back was crippling financially and we would feel trapped here, very scary.

In the end we just became trip addicts:eek: :eek: spending the equivalent of the average house in airfares and costs to the UK/Canada, but that was my condition of living here, business does well, so we stay so I go home each year, like someone in the mines they get out every so often.

I am sure going home tho is not such a problem for people without kids, one airfare is a lot different to 5, just plan for it every few years, perhaps tack it onto living costs like you would say health insurance.

sounds like good advice. That's what we are going to do. ie. the money we save on NOT having a car payment bill will go on it.

I am quite looking forward to going back to the UK so that I can see how stressed people look at Heathrow, and get shouted at by newsreader commentators doing their bit to camera outside the Commons. "WELL MICHAEL WE DON'T KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW, BUT THIS IS HIGH BROW TV AND SO I HAVE TO SHOUT AND LOOK IN CONTROL AND SOUND DECISIVE". (I'm like, "Calm done - the Sun will still set!") And then visit mates in flats and shudder(!) Nice to see 6N as well. And buy lime shaving gel in to the bargain. But I always get a sense of delight when I return to what has become my spirutual home - Australia.

BM

An annual trip to the UK was my condition of coming, we've built it into our budget accordingly. I think the fact that we'll be there for a holiday in June is keeping any homesickness at bay so far. We're lucky that we'll be able to do this and also that most of our close friends are in a position to come to us too.

Of course, as has been said, the other thing that will keep homesickness at bay is the fact that many relatives will want to come and visit anyhow.

BM

Re: Question for the Longtermers in OZ.
 

Been here for 14+ years now.

Both my parents and sister live in Oz. However, my dad lives in NSW, mum and sis live in SA. I'm in Melbourne and I see them a few times a year. I don't really miss family in the UK really.

Never felt that.

You bet it feels like christmas. It's brilliant.

I chat with my relatives in the UK quite regularly on the net. They don't say stuff like "why don't you move back here" like I've heard some families do to friends. It's good to talk to them. They talk about the stuff that's going on day to day and it's mostly sweating the small stuff with them, which I learn't to not do many years ago. Sometimes you get conversations along the lines of:

Auntie: Went to the post office today to pay [insert generic bill here] and the queue went for an hour.
Me: Cool. Anyways, I was down the beach today...

I never think about the UK as 'over there'. It's like calling the UK the 'homeland'/'motherland'. I can't be arsed with the UK anymore, there's nothing there for me except friends that have moved on and family who are used to you being in another country. I get on with my own life and enjoy the remote contact.

Hi Pollyanna

Having just made the (forced) trip back to the UK, I can honestly say that I really felt like I was 'Coming Home' when I got back here.

The UK is just as bad as I remember & worse - I hated it.

Obviously I was glad to catch up with mates etc... but going back has not changed my mind at all about being here.

Best wishes
Dawn

Yeah, you are so right, well IME anyway.

Every time I've lived abroad, I've been homesick for certain things about the UK (you know the kind of stuff: snowy Xmasses, warm Cornish beaches, steam trains, sing-alongs round the pub piano, Morecambe & Wise on TV, roast chestnut sellers on Oxford St etc). But in latter years, I realised that what I was homesick for was actually the UK *at that point in the past*. It's all moved on now...... and so have I.

It may sound odd, but I've been homesick for London for years (including while I was working in the City, and even now, when I go down to London most weeks) - but it's London in the 1970s, when it was all so cool, that I'm longing to go back to, not the one we have now....

I don't just need emigration - I need time travel!

Anya.

Too right, Dotty. I think having a 'stash of cash' probably makes all the difference when you emigrate. If you can afford to go back to the UK whenever you want, it probably prevents that 'trapped' feeling that must be so tough on many people.

Probably the most important thing to budget into your 'Moving to Oz' spreadsheet (if you can) is some 'ringfenced' cash to fly the family back to the UK if there's an unforeseen emergency.

Anya.

Hi Dawn,

Glad you got back OK, and hope you're feeling alright. Its interesting to see that your trip is sort-of proving my theory that we will only realise Australia is home when we are reminded why we left the UK.

If you still fancy letting your hair down next friday night, let us know, but if not - for obvious reasons - then we'll understand.

Keep cheerful:)

Pollyana

Reply to Dotty

I don't think that we have been here long enough to miss things maybe as much as you do as yet.
We still enjoy everything that is different about the Australia to the UK.
Christmas was good for us this year as we spent it with my Brother who I hadn't had much contact with for over 36 years. Yes I found it different eating outside with crayfish and prawns instead of the turkey and trimmings, and then going for a swim in the pool. My only thought was that I hadn't been cooking a meal for hours and hours and then loads of meat trays and saucepans to wash up and them sleeping it all off in the afternoon in front of a film that had been on 20 times before. But thats not saying that I won't miss it in the future.
I very rarely miss things as yet, but must admit that i had to buy some Mcvities Digestive biscuits last week, and took great pleasure at dunking them in my cup of coffee, and not sharing them with anyone.
My parents don't live in the Uk anyway, so for the past 20 years there hasn't been that closeness.
My daughter has already been out to see us for 8 weeks and is talking of a return in November, and a cousin has been out for 3 weeks and just returned, and I have an aunt and uncle that are moving out here in August.
Life isn't the same here as it was in the Uk, and I do miss having my horses, but I knew that I would be giving those up anyway and have tried to accept it and get on with our new life.
I am sure that I will miss things in time to come, and if I do, I will take a visit back.
I really don't think that the UK can offer us anything anymore.
Tony was made redundant 3 times in 3 years and life was getting harder with trying to recover each time.
Coming to Australia has given us the chance to pick ourselves up and out of all that, and so far it is working very well.
Only time will tell as to whether we would ever miss it enough to want to go back.

Whisky (Sue)

Last November we did a bit of a flying trip to the UK. I had a great trip and loved seeing friends and family. Going through Waterloo at rush hour and paying a fortune for mediocre food were the down points.

I was not sad getting on the plane to Barcelona.

The day I got back to Bondi was a beautiful Sydney sunny day and we went straight to Le Paris Go for a Bondi Burger (after a week of Japanese food it was heaven). Whilst it still doesn't feel like home it did feel good to be back.

My problem with Xmas here is not due to the weather but just because I miss the family tradition in the UK. The MIL's cooking and insistence on sitting in the dark do not help.

Badge it was great to see quality news in the UK not some crap going on about battlers on diets and lebo bludger rapists. Channel 7,9 and 10 are appalling, parochial and seem to forget there is a world outside their own state.

why are you talking to me for? I don't care.

Try listening to the radio, or buy the Australian. ABC always has world headlines. I listen to it in the ute. I say "eh. You're not allowed to!"

TV is tabloid journalism at the end of the day. I recall TV in London showing stories of pensioner battlers. Never watched it either.

BM
:)