My favourite instant coffee
(when the real thing is unavailable)

Nescafe Gold Barista Style
(more expensive than the others, but tastes closest to the real thing)

A very accurate analogy.

I struggle to justify spending up to $4 a pop for coffee. Better to invest in one of these and take each morning's left over filter coffee to work with you. And grab another cup and you have enough to share with a friend.

Hey, I didn't mention it first

Nescafé GOLD and Nescafé Blend 43 are made right here in Gympie. Sometimes the smell of coffee blowing from the factory over the highway as I drive to work forces me into the nearest cafe. That's my story & I'm sticking to it.

Actually read a label recently and I tried to remember who I had heard of in Gympie.... and there you go. I did remember as I read the label.


Well I've made a little promise to myself on this trip to the UK.... I am actually going to look a little bid harder at Queensland as a retirement destination after all. I didn't think I'd be saying that. It'll have to be inland and elevated though

Oh and best coffee here in the UK so far..... Waterstones bookshop Milton Keynes Central. Could have been in Aus as far as the taste went.

I'm about 20k North of Gympie, even further out into the sticks, most mornings I drive through the town to work. The Nestlé factory is to the North of town & it smells gorgeous, like a massive pot of coffee on the go. A lot of the locals don't even notice it anymore.

Why is that? Milton Keynes not doing it for you anymore?

Crowds and the realisation that i wont be able to sustain myself at the level to which ive became accustomed...despite having a very healthy 2 x 35 year super payouts, and a 7 cigure property that i may sell or rent out..... I cant live the way id expected in the uk. Id need a lot more than what ibe got.....79 quid to travel from rhyl to mkeynes first class...on trainline....nope ill live it up in aus instead....seen the hotel prices here ?

Just the rain in December would be depressing enough for most

There are less crowded corners than MK, of course, but a different style of living, and retirees in Britain don't seem that relaxed.

What are super payouts ?

Statutory private pension tax free lump sums.... basically the idea is to spend enough to get yourself back under the means test threshold at government retirement age of 66 for me and 67 for the wife, as the government is moving the age and means test limit for people of our vintage at present.

I think not only does there, from my POV, seem like there is a lot more rushing to deadlines here, There seems to be a lot more living to outside pressures ... Also there is also a lot less space and time spent per individual. I dont think I can or even want to re-adjust to that.

Within the next few mths or next couple of years, we will be done with the UK. I don't like Oz now anymore than I did in the 27 yrs I lived there but i do look at it in slightly different way now I'm a very old Dad with a very young daughter.

Having said that, there are some very quiet places in the UK that replicate the complete and utter boredom of rural Oz ( for me). The happy ground is usually in the middle. I'm ok with Australian cities as I've worked in all of them with the exception of Hobart and Darwin but the thought of living and working in a very large UK city does not appeal and if that were our only option, we wouldn't have come.

My family is from the rural West Country of the UK and I'd feel many times happier there than even semi rural in Oz. The countryside in Oz just shits me to tears but then so does getting about in London, Bristol or any of the UK metropoli. Guildford is as big as we ver got and even then we lived in Godalming.

Right now there could a move on the cards for us from Winchester to Dorchester and with good money. The big issue for us in the UK though, is to get that space and quiet way of life and pull in a decent salary is very draining of you commit to staying out of the big cities and redundancy strikes ( twice for me in the UK).

I find people quite friendly in most reas of the UK where I've lived. They're pretty snobby in Winchester but that's their issue ( or mine haha).

I tend to bend with the wind these days on Oz or the UK but there are definitely places and situations in both places that would make staying intolerable for me.

I think I understand Austarlain city life ( and work) much more than I understand ( or like) UK city life and I think the reverse is true for the Oz/UK countryside. Its feels strange to be able to adjust to one side and not the other.

UK car parking in general though, yeah you can shove that up your arse

I'm typing this in a coffee shop, just to keep on topic. It's shite!

How old is very old Tr1boy, you didn't seem that old in pictures you posted. Totally agree on UK parking, it's criminal. Ditto train fares. The only good deal is flights off the island!

Why thank you!

I will be 51 in April and Flipper was two on Boxing Day. Mrs TB is 43 in Feb.

I very rarely catch the train but did a few mths back. Winchester to Warterloo return was £24.50. I departed about 10am but could return anytime I wanted. I assume the fares are much higher for peak hour trips?

I find the complex disregard people have her for parking, is the complete opposite to the courtesy they have when driving , especially compared to Oz. (it's something I notice a lot on the bike).

We made a trip to oz in 2013 as I wanted to do some races there for my old club. In one morning, we went Mona Vale hospital, then did some shopping, then parked over looking 'Little Narra' at a coffee shop drinking great coffee and not only found parking but didn't pay.

It was a great feeling and very relaxed morning.:thumb up:


But we still came back.