pickletheplacid

Saturday evening
UK
Smoky pub sprawl - sweaty flu nightclub - suspicious chicken curry - cold slumber walk home.

Aus
Sunset beach bbq - midnight ocean swim - drunken fishing spree -dawn bathed walk home.

Sunday
UK
Sleep till 10am - fry up/ watch TV till 2pm - watch the rain pour down till 3pm - visit corner shop, stuff face full of chocolate till 4pm - start on some cheap French table wine till bed.

Aus
Wake up at 8am - tropical fruit/ get organized for the beach till 9am - sunbath, sail, swim, fish till 4pm - bbq till 8pm - finish off fruity Australian Chardonnay till bed.

Anyone on the same wave length as me with this.

pickletheplacid

joebloggs

well everyone's different...but if this is how you spend your days in UK I would seriously suggest you need to get out more!

gedge

There really is no contest as far as we're concerned.
After tasting the life back in 96, can't wait to get back and enjoy those sat and sunday highs.

Even the mondays are better ;-)

pickletheplacid

ok so what do you do when it's pouring down with rain on a sunday.

pickletheplacid

Rudy

UK - Traffic, Traffic, Traffic ...... Rain, Rain, Rain ....... Surf, Surf, Surf ........

I can't see the point ..... but hey that's why we are mad enough to make a huge move ........... again!

(And the surfing is only the www type!)

We did have a fab barbie on Sunday though, what a difference the sunshine makes!

pommiesheila

Not quite. Try this:

UK - Saturday - Get up 8.00 a.m. children cycle round to their friends to play,me doing the housework, hubbie playing with his car. Having a bloody good laugh with friends round for dinner.

Aus - Get up 8.00 a.m. spend most of day acting as taxi service for children whose friends live too far away to walk and the roads are so dangerous here, me doing the housework - all day because of huge areas of tiles to mop etc. etc., hubbie mowing the grass (again), yet another BBQ with burnt food, boring conversation with friends.

UK Sunday - get up 9.30 a.m. get into car, drive to Warwick Castle for the day - fantastic day out.

Aus Sunday - get up at 8.00 a.m. spend next 2 hours assembling all the stuff needed for a day out - sunscreen, hats, swimming tee-shirts, togs, surf boards, frozen drinks, etc. etc. etc. Pile it all into the car, drive for an hour, get to the beach, spend the day getting burnt (despite the sunscreen!) swimming within the 10 metres of beach patrolled by the life-guards along with every other tom-dick and Bruce. Arrive home, spend next 3 hours getting the sand out of every conceivable crevice!!!

Not saying UK is perfect and Aus is terrible, but things aren`t perhaps as cut and dried as some might think!!!

jayr

Oz:

Mon-Fri

Get up early go to work, sit in office looking at nice weather outside, leave work as it starts getting dark and cool

Sat-Sun

Get up, wonder what to do cos it's raining, heavily, very heavily.

Evenings watch crap telly cos it's too dark to go out (kids are in bed anyway) and BBQ not an option cos of mossies etc.

Not too dissimilar to UK only it's really annoying missing good weather during the week when at work and really annoying when there's nothing (really nothing) to do at the weekends unless the weather is good.

Herman

OH PLEASE!

For us, having lived in both the UK and Aus, a typical weekend in both places would be:

Friday Night:
Aus
Drinks/meal with work colleagues
UK
Drinks/meal with work colleagues

Saturday
Aus
One in every three Saturdays I usually have to spend the day at work. (Once in a blue moon in the UK). If not working - go for a long walk, usually lathered up in sun cream, dragging 4 litres of water behind us. Visit the fish market, go to the supermarket. Saturday evening - a party/bbq with superficial and temporary friends, moderate levels of fun.

UK
Go for a long walk in the lovely countryside you lucky people have access to. Go and watch my brother play football. Go to the excellent supermarket. Go out with lifelong friends for a tremendously fun and relaxed night out. Every third weekend we fly to the Czech Republic on the dirt cheap flights you lucky people in the UK have access to where we enjoy the hospitality of my wife's family and friends. Once every 2 months we have a weekend in Nice or Naples or Barcelona or......

Sunday
UK
Go swimming or play badminton in morning. Drive to one of the excellent country pubs you lucky people in the UK have access to for lunch with the family or lunch at mums with everyone there. Afternoon walk in the lovely country you lucky people in the UK have access to, or or go shopping in the outstanding shops you lucky people in the UK enjoy. Evening have friends round or visit friends or more usually relax at either my brothers or my parents with a video and a nice bottle of French red wine that you lucky people in the UK have access to.

Aus
Go swimming in the morning. Visit the beach later if its not too hot/too windy/too overcast - about 4 sundays this entire summer. Otherwise wander around aimlessly trying to find things to do, go to a cafe for lunch, feel homesick for the family and call them in the evening, fill the evening with playing Board (or is it Bored) games and cards because Aussie TV will make you want to take a sledgehammer to your Sony Trinitron.


HONESTLY, I dont want to put people off from coming here, but if you come here with the kind of drivel I read here in your mind, boy oh boy you will be bitter and twisted about the whole experience!. Our life here NOT some kind of paradise. Yes its nice to visit the beach, no you cant do it every weekend and the novelty soon wears off anyway. Yes the weather is warmer, no this does not automatically mean you are able to 'do more' - try going for a long country walk here, its an absolute KILLER. Yes we have made friends here, many of them, NO none of them can replace 25 year old friendships or family. Yes there is nice countryside in Australia, NO its not as accessible as in the UK. Yes there are nice places to visit in Australia, NO there are not enough hours in the weekend or dollars in the bank to get to these picture postcard places.

Ah well, three weeks to go until we get back to our wonderful fantastic lives in the UK.

pommie bastard

Great bollocks ever thought about a career in the media you would do well in Australia all bull no content.
If your life is indeed a mirror of your post what makes you think all will change here you sound like an idle near do well , and will have loads in common with a lot of Poms who find their way down to OZ.
A lot live your life here too just add singlet , mullet , ill fitting shorts , flip flops with a massive beer gut and a beard finishes off the in look.
You will fit in with the lost tribe and I hope that more of your kind are coming to the dumping ground that is Australia.

Megalania

Well said Herman.

If people want to get out of the rain, have some sun and enjoy tropical fare, GREAT, come for a long holiday in Aus, we'll try to make you feel welcome.

If you need a working holiday, we'll try to oblige.

If you want to EMIGRATE to Aus, remember you are coming to the world's driest inhabitable continent.

The only way it can provide a life with the comforts you enjoy in the UK is in the overcrowded big Aus cities, the area of which are about 1/1000th of the Aus landmass.

If you are the very unusual UK immigrant who can live outside the Aus cities, expect to have some hard graft.

Should add: if you do emigrate and don't like it, tough shit, INFORM others but don't WHINE about it while I'm around.

pommie bastard

Yet another blunt reply you are getting a bit too near the truth for most , as Big Jack said in some Yank flim "You want the truth you cant take the truth" was it ''A Few Good Men''?


http://www.ifilm.com/filmdetail?ifilmid=2345535

Mandy Bale

In UK....

Typical school day with 5 and 6 year old kids. Walk to school took 10 mins in cold, sometimes raining (spring was better though). 5 year old son screams his head off all the way as he doesn't want to go to school. Lunch time, have to go to school as 5 year old son has a nose bleed again and he tells me another kid hit him, visit headmistress again who tells me not to worry these things happen (what 4 times in one week!!), 3pm pick up kids, 6year old is fine but 5 year old's teacher calls me in yet again and gives me the run down on how disruptive and uncooperative my son is, whilst my son is standing there with head hung low crying! Then teacher tells me that she doesn't have 'time' to deal with him so consequently he is passed off all over the school to different classes. We are talking a 5 year old boy who had only just started full time school!

In Aus......

Typical school day.... walk the kids to school, 20 min walk but sun is shining and its not too hot. Walk through a lovely park and stop to look at the ducks. both kids are skipping along happily to school. 3pm pick kids up, both are happy and smiling and begin to tell me all about their exciting day! Visit son's teacher just to make sure everything is going ok and she says he is very good and doing well in school and has many friends. Turns out he is very bright and is way ahead in his reading and writing! Funny since he hadn't even started to read in the UK!!

Anyway, you can see why life is slightly better for us here and it was worth the move. by the way we are living near Sydney and have been here a year. We don't do anything particularly different here than we did in the UK, in the UK at the weekends would see my husband working so me taking the kids to the park no matter what the weather. Here husband doesn't have to work the weekends so we all go to the park on nice sunny days, with picnic and bikes. The parks around here are far better than the parks around where we used to live in the UK so thats another bonus and we definately do more here during the school holidays without spending a fortune. We could have moved to a better part of the UK but we couldn't have afforded it, at the time it was better to move here. And I think we made the right decision for us.

Mandy

pommie bastard

You are not the first new immigrant to praise Aussie schools most kids who come from the UK are a couple of years ahead of the local kids .
They love a 60s approach here personal development is the by word , having seen the product of this great idea I understand why given high unemployment here they need skilled immigration.
If you think a 5 year old skipping to school is what education is all about good luck .

PS A friend went to a local school here asking why his child was failing in maths and most other subjects and was told by the head master who needs Maths.
His lad had also bullied other kids and was sent home often which he greatly enjoyed.

Florida_03

PB isn't that the start of a mullet on your little yellow head ... ... by the way I can't understand how he... ...can drink so much without a violent vomit...

pommie bastard

Most Aussies drink to excess its a major part of their lifestyle and does not sit on greasy food that well though so Beer + BBQ = vomit , great day out for an Aussie is scull a beer followed by a shooter 30 minutes later throw up , repeat until money runs out.