4 Years and Still Struggling

Old Feb 4th 2019, 9:54 am
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Default Re: 4 Years and Still Struggling

"Wher do I want to be" That is the question you have to ask yourself. And then take action. Maybe you arein the wrong place !
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Old Feb 4th 2019, 12:50 pm
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Default Re: 4 Years and Still Struggling

I am so loving the support in this thread - I had half expected that there'd be people telling me to just try harder!

Not saying I believe in omens but my cat was sick yesterday and left two big blobs in the shape of the two islands of NZ

I've had another good weekend here. I sucked it up a couple weeks back and arranged a play date for my eldest and her bestie. Her Mum is also an "out of towner" and she waited on whilst they played and our 2 hour play date turned into 3.5. I pulled all my best moves including an epic flat white with latte art (I learned to make decent coffee in Aus thank goodness because it's dishwater in the UK in most cafes). I'm also just back from a nice walk, I've met two people and had actual nice conversations with them. One is a lady I just keep on meeting when I'm out walking, so thats very much a positive. The other is a near neighbour who we sometimes throw a few scallops after hubster has been out diving.

Originally Posted by Still Game
Ah m'dear you are more than welcome I just saw so many echos of my experience I hoped sharing my coping techniques may have helped in some way. Isn't it lovely when you connect with an old friend. No having to make introductions, learn all about me/you and see if the magic x works to become friends. You can just relax and chat and share stories from past experiences. See, the old you is still in there! Just in hibernation for a bit...

Re the festivals - you could just ask if anyone needed help if you felt up to it. You might find some up for it / fun upper generation people - good to have friends of all ages! Maybe it won't lead anywhere but again, you can say you tried.

Brisbane has definitely grown on me. This time last year I just could not see the beauty. Could not find one single thing that I liked about it. But I can now see how great this city is (minus the humidity and summer UV of 15). I really really struggle in the heat. Although it's lovely (and I'm so grateful!) to have aircon who wants to be in it all day every day. I must stay, Brisbane has the best 'winter' I've ever experienced. Sunny clear days and still warm but no humidity (that I could feel anyway) and cool nights. So lovely. The coastal areas of Brisbane are so lovely late on a sunny day, so many amenities for families and South Bank is such a success story. I've found really friendly people also (the few that I've met) and my husband's colleagues are really sweet and fun and kind which is a real bonus. There is a lot to do and see out of Brisbane too and we're enjoying visiting more parts of the Sunshine Coast and rural west regions. Islands are next on the agenda (when I finally get a job to fund all of this!).

Great to go into the NZ trip with open critical eyes (if you understand). Obviously I hope you manage to relax with the family have a great holiday!

Stop beating yourself up about 'not enjoying where you are just now' stop it! You don't feel at home and that is that! The more you try to 'get the feeling' the more elusive it will become. Just keep getting yourself out there as much as you feel comfortable with and see where it goes. You never know, you could find that one day down the track it clicks - maybes aye but maybes naw! Also know that you're not chained to Scotland - you have the ability to move one day if that is what you choose. As I said before, the past does not dictate the future. I feel blessed that we also (once we have the savings up) have the ability to move freely between both the UK and Australia. It is really something millions would love but will never have the chance.

The change on my horizon that I mentioned is that my husband now understands my depths of depression I experienced last year and will consider a move. I know, I understand and can easily see this is a great country, it's just not where I can live out my entire life. He couldn't bring himself to chat about it last year - for many reasons, which just sent me back down the bottom of the well. I'm open about wanting to move onwards to Scotland again (if all is "right" (BREXIT bugger off!!)) however just having the option rather than feeling trapped here feels amazing.

You know what, despite me saying 'will I ever feel at home again' once you become an expat - I'm going to say yes! I'm saying yes for me and my family, so why not yes for you and yours.

Keep talking, keep smiling, keep communicating!
The humidity is a total killer in summer in QLD. I do not miss it, not one little bit. No decent person should ever step out of their airconditioned bedroom and burn their feet on the blooming carpet outside because it's that hot. Brisbane's South Bank is lush though, and winter in QLD is perfect. I miss it so much.

I am glad your hubby is more open to the possibility of change. It gives some relief feeling like you have options, doesn't it?

I do hope I can overcome the expat curse. I now realise Australia really was home, but sadly we can't return without too many expensive flaming hoops. However, next year's trip to NZ may throw up that we do have another option to love, with easy access to the winter sun of QLD. Our trip to Spain is also a bit of an interesting side question - could we possibly live there? I don't think I'd want to, but why not be open to it? I'm thinking I'd be able to emigrate there as we have two businesses to take over. So... rule nothing out and try to enjoy meanwhile!

Despite current optimism I do think Scot47 has a good point. Maybe I am in the wrong place. I've got another 18 months or so to decide though.


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Old Mar 6th 2019, 6:13 pm
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Default Re: 4 Years and Still Struggling

Originally Posted by elonii
We've been back in Scotland just over 4 years, and I am still really struggling to settle in. We've bought a dream house where you can scare deer out in the field just by going into the kitchen to put the kettle on, it's cheap to run, the kids are at a great school, the husband is involved in an amazing dive club and goes wreck diving all the time (yes in Scotland!!). He also brings home hand picked scallops and other treasures in his dive bag. Hubster is now just 1 year from starting his citizenship process.

And yet... I still feel unhappy every single day that I wake up here. My mental health is trashed, I've made no friends and don't know what to try to do to meet people any more. I am still trying and looking for ideas though. There's not much on around here that I could go join in with unfortunately. However, I joined the PTA at the back end of last year to see if that at least helps with social contact. I've also started volunteering at a village charity shop, it's open irregularly so this suits me with my young kids as the shifts are always "who can do a week on Saturday then???" type thing. I enjoy a good charity shop! The other thing I'm doing this year to try and help is to book us a cracking 3.5 week break in Spain in the school holidays to get the benefit of our proximity to Europe. We'll also be trying to see more of the UK. Saving for the house previously has been a bit of a dampener on such activites. Oh, and I've booked a mini break to Rotterdam with a dutch friend I met backpacking 15 years ago.

In spite of feeling fine about being here, my husband (who is a Kiwi) can see that I'm not really the person I was in Australia. We are therefore still keeping an open mind, but the aim for us in 2019 is to be ready in terms of finances and business skills to make a move to NZ. In 2020 we plan to take the kids to the motherland to meet their family over there. Whilst there we'll look and see if we feel NZ has more to offer us as a family. Hubster is happier here than me, but there's some things not sitting well with him to do with lifestyle and sporting opportunities. He has issues with the winter weather too as you can imagine.

Positives though: Schooling (totally free - no stationary bills or "voluntary" contributions), god bless the NHS, love the food prices, decent quality house obtained with views to die for, good tax rates for business, HOLIDAY-TASTIC. The UK has so much in it's favour.

I truly wish I loved it. I am still going to keep trying though. Maybe I just need some friends.
sorry to hear you arent settling, isnt it best just to ho home if its not for you?
we are poms miving back from NZ to the UK in August...i have never truely settled in NZ and the longer it got the harder it got and its been 14 years! I do believe that home is where the heart is and thst is normally your birthplace, i always felt like an outsider in NZ and an immigrant.
best of luck, life is too short to ve unhappy hun.
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Old Mar 6th 2019, 6:19 pm
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Default Re: 4 Years and Still Struggling

Originally Posted by elonii
Thanks for your kind words! Re: the NZ move, our thinking there is as a solution to how I've been coping. It's quite a recent "decision" and we are going for a holiday next year with open minds, trying not to get too caught in the headlights of that thought!

It's a rural area as you say, I wouldn't say it's been outright unfriendly but whilst I've met some lovely fellow mums, it's not come to anything. As with everywhere, there are some unfriendly people lol. I think my overtures towards friendship haven't really panned out, and of course the more rebuffals you take the less confidence you have. For example, a new couple bought the house over the road. Old Aussie me would have gone and invited them over for a drink. New improved Scotland me is too scared of rejection. I'll dig a trench or something and see if I can trap them in spring and invite them for coffee in the garden.

I will keep trying, and meanwhile we're just carrying on like we are here forever. Opening a pension plan on Friday
it was exactly the same for me in NZ, i strughled mentally and lost all my confidence. When we visit home i just feel accepted and i fit in. I never felt like i could fully connect with kiwi women just so different culturally. All our friends here British as we just connect better. We really wish we hadnt moved here.
There is a big cultural difference and u are always classed as an immigrant and probably the dame in the Uk as u have not a lot in common. Is there any kiwi groups online?
i do feel for you as i was exactly the same but in NZ
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Old Mar 7th 2019, 5:12 am
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Default Re: 4 Years and Still Struggling

Hey elonii, we're Kiwis in Oz just going through the arduous process of trying to obtain PR. We have health service nomination so don't need the skills assessment and a few other things are easier but it's still a killer money and hassle wise. We're doing it because we want our daughters to have permanent right to remain here, not so bothered about us. Irony is, they took so long to process the nomination (over a year) that our oldest daughter may now be "too independent" to get PR with us. And the threat of shifting goal posts is always there. However, there is talk of changing HECS entitlement for Kiwi kids who have gone through high school here (currently it's TEN years and there are loads of Kiwis shut out from uni).

Just feeling your pain re Kiwis in Oz. Hugs for the rest.
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Old Apr 1st 2019, 6:00 pm
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Default Re: 4 Years and Still Struggling

Oh how I feel for you!
You are not alone. We all move with the very best intentions, and after a lot of thought and research, but that is no guarantee we will end up in a place we like.
Although my wife and I seem to make a hobby of moving the move we have just made seems a bad one.
We are both Brits, we have little money as I am retired (without the enormous pensions some people seem to have) and my wife is unable to work - so money is not our best friend.
Last year we returned from 5 years living in Austria. We had a house in a wonderful area with really friendly people.
We thought it would be good to return home to the UK. Our house in Austria was just too big and we had no money left at the end of the month to do anything. We decided to move to Lincolnshire, we had lived here for 4 years before we went to Austria and the house prices are cheap.
Our present house is quite good, it needs a lot of updating but that's not a problem. What is a problem is the neighbours seem strange, or perhaps we are strange and expect something else.
The biggest down side of our return is that in the time we lived abroad everything seems to have changed here. Yes the coffee is now rubbish, and the coffee shops are loud and seem to be places for groups to sit and gaze at their phones or scream in laughter all the time and certainly ignore the kids. The supermarkets have reduced their range of food - with the exception of ready meals - so they are now worse than the Austrian ones. We used to enjoy shopping but not now - is it just us or do people seem to wander at a snail pace and fill the isles making shopping into running an obstacle course? Everything is now so expensive - we moved back because we could not afford running our house but running a house here is now far more expensive and costs rise all the time. As for the politics!!!!!
One day, after living here for a month, we were standing in the kitchen and I said "I just don't feel right here" meaning the house - my wife had been thinking the same, and our plans changed from this being our last house to it now being another "do it up and move on". Then we considered why and agree it is not the house - it is being back in the UK.
Joanne1970 said about home being where the heart is, and that this is often one's birthplace - but we now feel Austria is more of a home than here. She also added life is too short to be unhappy - so very true.
Dorothy - what's this about being too old!!! As we get older life is unfortunately getting shorter and so here is even more reason not to be unhappy if it is possible to change things.
But - Brexit has messed up our options. We need good medical care - Austria certainly provided that and it was paid for by the NHS as I am a pensioner. We would need security that my state pension will continue to be "inflation proofed" (or following the pretend index they use). We don't want to move back into the EU and find we have to leave again, and I doubt we could afford any of the non Eu countries that have arrangements for our State pensions to have any annual increases.
We have thought about moving to .... Scotland! I assume, Elonii, that you live in the Borders? Perhaps we will scrub that region from our possible places to go as I assume you have not found a local " mix of funky markets, good second hand shopping (hopefully a tip shop I can rummage in), and at least two good cafes with cracking organic food and coffee to die for. " .
But I have written a gloomy tale - and it seems that you are finding things to do and life might be better for you now. If so, great, if not then don't prolong the agony, move on. Perhaps we might find it becomes better - or we become conditioned to the things that we now find negative.
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Old Apr 2nd 2019, 8:25 am
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Default Re: 4 Years and Still Struggling

Oh wow, I have missed a few replies here - thanks everyone for the kind words. It's great to know we aren't alone!

Bourbon Biscuit - thankyou, we wish we hadn't left Australia. We feel like we've robbed our kids of the citizenship as they were born there.

Joanne1970 - I'm Scottish, my husband is a Kiwi. But I've been away that long I don't know these people. I don't feel I fit in any more. Not unusual though.

Notxn85 - I live in D&G, I would strongly advise you to see for yourselves. There's a lot of cool little spots here that are less practical for us to move to. Many people move here and totally adore it. Particularly if they are arty or into Yoga / mystic type stuff. My home county, Ayrshire has a lot of small villages with *amazing* community spirit and inclusion. There are also some great artisan food makers here, and decent farmers markets and local town markets. They just don't have that vibrancy we were used to. This is why we are pretty sure we won't be happy anywhere in the UK. We can see that really this area has most of what we want. What's missing is that outdoor coffee scene (and a coffee scene), and a bit more of an outdoor lifestyle. We don't want baking hot. Anything above 10 is fine with us.

I hope you guys find a solution. Austria is a great country with wonderful people. My father has some friends there in the Tyrol. We went to visit them for a week just after we got married and near died of schnapps poisoning. Every time they took us to a local cafe or bar, someone would turn up with free schapps. 10am coffee and cake? Y'all will need a free shot with that. Agggh lol.
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Old Apr 2nd 2019, 4:43 pm
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Default Re: 4 Years and Still Struggling

Notxn85
I’ve liked every place I’ve lived in with one exception. I lived in Lincolnshire for 7 years in the 1980s/1990s and disliked it intensely. I’ve never met such inward-looking people. My husband is from Volgograd and had a strong foreign accent (this was in the days before large-scale immigration from eastern Europe) and yet nobody once asked him where he came from. At the time I put it down to a total lack of curiosity about the outside world but in retrospect, most of them had barely been out of Lincolnshire so they probably thought he was from Cornwall or somewhere.

Young people are glued to devices everywhere. My only conversations with strangers these days are with people over the age of 50 so maybe you should approach this search slightly differently and look for an area with a large older population?
That’s my plan anyway!
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Old Apr 2nd 2019, 4:55 pm
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Hi Helen1964,
Yes, Lincolnshire does seem a strange corner of England - perhaps that's why the houses are cheap! We found the last village we lived near seemed to be more friendly. We are 5 minutes drive from Skegness - you will find it hard to find more old codgers than there, but that is also a bui of an issue. I am 70 but just can not stand hanging about while similarly aged people are plodding along aimlessly. Sometimes I feel like I am behind a load of Zombies! Yes, I am impatient, I am rather critical, and I am trying to keep mind and body active. I think I just do not fit in to today's society, which might be why I like Austria.
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Old Apr 2nd 2019, 5:16 pm
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Try Northern Ireland. Lots of old codgers in their mid-70s sporting lycra and whizzing around on their road bikes.
And at least people will chat to you. Although not so much the young ones.
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Old Apr 16th 2019, 10:59 pm
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Hi elonii

Just wondering how you are going, are your plans for NZ still on the cards?
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Old Apr 26th 2019, 9:13 am
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Default Re: 4 Years and Still Struggling

Originally Posted by jimtrish
Hi elonii

Just wondering how you are going, are your plans for NZ still on the cards?
Hello!! Sorry for the slow reply, was distracted by Easter holidays and missed the notification. The plans are still on the cards, yes. I am trying not to think too much about it at the moment however as we've my husband's citizenship to sort here first and I'm trying to focus on just enjoying being here. I must confess another international move fills me with a bit of dread. That said, if it was a move back to the Sunshine Coast I'd not hesitate to get going and do it. So we'll be planning a long trip to NZ next year to really have a good look at it and weigh things up. This summer we are spending 3.5 weeks in Spain, this is with a view to a possible move there if Scotland doesn't really work out for us. I'm not sure that would be for us, but hey if we are considering NZ we should consider every possible option.

Thanks for asking
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Old Aug 7th 2019, 11:44 am
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I hope you have a lovely holiday in Spain.
My husband and I are trying to decide what to do. We'll be in Wales until retirement at least so will then decide for sure, but I do need somwhere friendlier and warmer.
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Old Aug 7th 2019, 11:59 am
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Eloni, How was your holiday in Spain? We lived in Spain, north in Gallicia for a year, mid spain, near Avilla for Approx 8 months and then in South Spain, Luque for about 6 months. The thing that makes it a good place to retire is that even the smaller towns have grocery stores available, usually within walking distance. The down side for us was that the town houses and apartments have thin building bricks, spain is known to be second only in the world for bad sound insulation of buildings, but if that is not a concern, then its a nice place to live. Paper work wasn't too difficult there either. Spanish isn't too difficult to learn but dialects exist and pronunciation varies from area to area.

Please let us know how you're getting on.
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Old Aug 23rd 2019, 9:43 am
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Default Re: 4 Years and Still Struggling

Originally Posted by Mummy in the foothills
I hope you have a lovely holiday in Spain.
My husband and I are trying to decide what to do. We'll be in Wales until retirement at least so will then decide for sure, but I do need somwhere friendlier and warmer.
Originally Posted by tumbleweedly
Eloni, How was your holiday in Spain? We lived in Spain, north in Gallicia for a year, mid spain, near Avilla for Approx 8 months and then in South Spain, Luque for about 6 months. The thing that makes it a good place to retire is that even the smaller towns have grocery stores available, usually within walking distance. The down side for us was that the town houses and apartments have thin building bricks, spain is known to be second only in the world for bad sound insulation of buildings, but if that is not a concern, then its a nice place to live. Paper work wasn't too difficult there either. Spanish isn't too difficult to learn but dialects exist and pronunciation varies from area to area.

Please let us know how you're getting on.
Hello!! Took me a while to recover from the heat and the journey with the two kidlets!

Well, what a useful exercise it was to visit Spain. We stayed in 4 very different and distinct areas. Whilst we enjoyed our visit, we can't see it becoming home. Comparitively speaking between NZ / AUS / Europe - the latter is "too peopley" for us. Oh man it was busy!! I know that's just summer season, but my goodness it was difficult getting around. Car parks like hens teeth, absolutely heaving roads in the resorts, supermarkets, and nice places to visit. Aus did suffer a little from this, but Spain was next level. We'll probably still go back for another look, but with kids who would need an international school we would need to base ourselves in an area with relatively high population and our impression on this visit was that we would not want to live day to day like that. We went up into a village in the mountains and absolutely loved it up there, but being realistic we couldn't be there with kids until their Spanish was excellent.

The language barrier manifested itself rather brutally when we had to rush to A&E after my daughter had a good try at damaging herself by jumping into a swimming pool backwards. She didn't clear the edge with her face. We were staying in an apartment with no lifeguard. There was a fair bit of blood. Was not fun. Other than that, I could see I would be able to learn the language and communicate in the longer term. I found myself quite enjoying the other times where nobody could speak English, the challenge was fun without the pressure of a distressed kid. When we got up into an area closer to the border with France, my schoolgirl French just exploded back out of my brain after 25 years which was awesome.

Our gut for now is a move to NZ will be happening. It's a complete and utter thought though, we know it won't be easy and that we'll have some difficult times during the process and settling in. Fortunately, we can move without selling the house in Scotland. So lets face it, no bridges will be burned in the making of this attempt to improve our happiness!

Tumbleweedy - We stayed in one apartment with lots of locals in a more residental area. I couldn't live with the level of noise transfer. You are quite right about that.

Mummy in the foothills - thank you! Anywhere sticking out for you??





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