MartynK

Thank you. The irony is that I was born and grew up in the UK, but fell in love with Africa and it has become home. Its been a long time, and I don't think I can ever settle here again.

My mother in law and the rest of her coven keep telling me how "lucky" I am to be "back home". I've managed to keep my feelings to myself, so far (apart from my wife), but I don't think I can keep this up for much longer. It will probably be better to go back, before there's some sort of disagreement that will embarass my wife.

betsyboob

WE are back in Worthing 10miles from Brighton, not where i thought we would be but it is the best place for OH's work....there are worse places though Where does your mum live?

Patzy

Mum lives in Sutton......but would like to live nearer the coast.....daughter is at Uni in Brighton, so depending on where I get work, probably somewhere between the two. Who did you rent your flat through and did you have to put down a few months rent as deposit?

betsyboob

We rented through 'yourmove' - i wouldn't recommend them i think their costs are very high. We paid 110.00 each for referencing and then 110.00 for a guarantor and then admin......so costs on their own came to 450.00! Then we had to pay 6wks deposit and a month upfront. all in all came to about 2200.00 If i ould go back i would have gone for a private rental.

exvj

Great story with nice honesty about how your ideas developed.

I am ok with the US right now but I have all eventualities covered so I can get back to the UK if my thinking changes. I return for 1 week every 12 weeks so at the mo I feel I have it both ways and dont have to chose. It's easy for me as my kids are now grown (and so are their kids). In your situation it had to be a choice and sitting on the fence wasn't an option.

Many people emigrated to Australia etc decades ago and then found they could not return to the UK because the exchange rate and house prices had left them out in the cold. These issues need to be addressed by emigrees 'just in case'.

Yes you did right to emigrate and did right to return and you can live the rest of your lives without wondering whether you should have done it.

Good stuff

Nu-Shooz

Good post betsy.
I can't talk about OZ either anymore to people, it's just something i want to forget and cringe about.
Time is for living now...so glad you made the right decision to come back and that you are all so very happy, well done.

mikelincs

May well have cost as much, we had to pay 6 MONTHS upfront, as we had no UK credit rating, and we had a guarantor, but only 85 for referencing, and that was an agent. I doubt that you would find a private rental that would accept you withpout a UK history.

quoll

Thanks for that BB - great to know that you have found the right place to be! It is that grinding boring sameness of Aus that gets you down after a while - give me the mellow changes of UK any day of the week! Hope it all continues to go well for you and that the home you buy is all that you could wish it to be - a place with character you can call your own!

bithbheo

Lovely post BB and spurred us on with our plans to return home from "yes we are definately going just not sure when " to we are aiming to leave in March 2010 !!!!!
We are both so over this Oz experience.

exvj

Everyone is different and everyone's circumstances are different and we should just be honest with what fits our thinking and our circumstances - then nature takes it course.

I can think of many circumstances where the last place in the world I would want to be is right here in the US. But I am footloose (oops one just fell off) and fancy free and retired and able to split my time between the US and the UK and it's great for me. I have left a house worth of cash invested in the bank of england so I can always return dead easy.

I imagine people with children and other commitments in this horrible world economy and I know there are some huge decisions to be made by these people.

I also know that some people only want a beach and a sangria and that's the lot. So I would never try and convince anyone that one country is good and one bad etc because everyone is different and so are their circumstances - this is compounded many times by people's changing values as they grow older and what they vigorously defend today will be something to avoid like the plague in 30 years time.

I used to get desperately homesick after 2 weeks in Tenerife but here I am in a desert in the middle of Washington State 2 years after emigrating and I am doing great just now. But I know that things change so I never say never and I concentrate on analyzing my own feelings and making sure it's what I really want - for now. If it was gnawing at me I would do something about it and to heck with what people think.

I would say give it a chance though and a decision made with a couple of years of info under the belt is bound to be a better quality decision and the return will be better planned too.

betsyboob

well, OH has always been self employed so we didn't tell them we were off the boat as we knew that they would want 6months (something i picked up off expats!).

betsyboob

You are right, it is very different if you are able to skip between 2 countries and 'get your fill'. For us with 2 little 'uns in tow it would cost $10k to visit home at xmas, so it really wouldn't have happened often, so we felt in time family would be more or less written off. Australia is also considerably further away than the US.
Good for you and i hope you continue to grow there. Another year for me and i would probably have slit my wrists!

exvj

I would never have lived in OZ or NZ though I enjoyed visiting. Here I am near Japan but I can be in London or Paris or Munich in few hours so I don't feel cut off. I have spoken to so many people who emigrated to OZ and returned badly disillusioned. I will try and read of some who did well so I can see their side too. I bet it's more down to personal circumstances involving kids and money etc and that is the real make or break.

Also the particular area makes a difference. People seem quite happy here but If I was near Detroit or some place where the economy had collapsed and crime had increase, it would be very different. We were in Florida first - for 6 months and my wife worked really hard at trying to get a job for 12 hours per day for 6 months - no luck and it was really tense and she was at breaking point. Now she has the best job she has every had and there are no tensions or fears or worries and that is a good background to being able to settle.

Many factors are at work as to whether it works or not but the isolation of OZ/NZ will never change, and as you say, with that goes enormous expense and effort to visit anywhere else

CostaCookie

Great to read how it's all worked out for you. We are moving back home to the south coast after 4 years in Spain & I'm so excited to be going home. Like you, there's so much I've missed about home & will appreciate it so much more. It's good to go abroad & experience a different way of life if that's what you really want to do, but to me, England will always be my home & I'm so happy to be going back.
Good luck all with your plans! I know the initial costs of moving & renting will be a bit of a shocker for us, but 6 to 12 months down the line, we'll slowly start getting on our feet again.
x

exvj

Good plan, good approach to it. Nearly all the other 60 million are making it ok so it'll be all right in a few months. The 'not knowing' is the worst bit and it comes right. I overcame some real hurdles here so the UK will be a lot easier.
Driving licence doesnt run out til you are 70 for a start !