Re: WHY?
 

To be honest, only the ignorant or the depressed really believe this. Possibly people who consider themselves to be 'sunshine' people (raised on a diet of mediocrity, Med holidays and 80s Aussie soaps)? Can we implicate the producers and the media for those awful migration programmes? Are they as much to blame? Why do people watch them in the first place..

For me, it was the chance to have a bit of an adventure and last hurrah before I settled down. I had a year off from the buzz and work of Europe - I was too old for a visa the next year. It would be fair to say I got sucked in....returned with a new wife and found a niche. Not the niche many find. It helped that we've lived a particular life compatible with the way we now live.

For many it's a move from one, perhaps rather dull existence to another..a move out of a comfort zone they should never have departed..and which is then craved for after all...'you don't miss it until it's gone'..for others - the best thing they ever did...for now - or for the long term.

Re: WHY?
 

I think it is possible to like Australia and recognise a different, and good life in the UK.

Interesting your comments on the city..and working life in London. To be honest I knew a lot of people in the City who were doing very well - in work and socially - infact people on this board would probably find them somewhat elitist in that very reverse snobbery fashon we find in here from time to time. For some, a lot changed in about 98-00 and whilst they were doing very well, house prices rocketed so that there were people with very good jobs who had missed the boat perhaps even through laziness, through being absent overseas (my excuse). Circa 2000-1, some of my privileged public school friends - or rather those who went to the better schools - were moving to areas of South London which they didn't really want to live in because that is all they could afford on their high city salaries - some sectors pay good salaries but not high bonuses...not everyone works for Goldman..or JB Morgan or is a player. Nor does everyone have wealthy parents - the school fees put paid to that.

There is a part of me that loved those old bachelor days, but I can't compare as I have a wife and three children now. Some of the people I know moved away from London and aspire to live how we live out here so it's not so different. (This is the biggest laugh for me- how Australia seems to whip out the horse from under some people, yet in someways, it's business as usual for me. In fact it was always my plan (made 14 years or so ago now) - to move to Gloscestershire after London in any case). So, infact after 6 years, I feel in some ways I'm fairly established here and wouldn't really want to go back to the City and the M4 as I've short-circuited the hard work and have the equivalent over here.

Funny how things work out! I find more parallels here than I ever expected to find, as it turns out. Makes me giggle.