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Back in the UK one month - update

Back in the UK one month - update

Old Mar 13th 2007, 9:20 pm
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Default Re: Back in the UK one month - update

Originally Posted by LouiseD
Hi everyone - well we've been back in the UK for exactly a month now so I thought that I'd update you all on how things are going here in Blighty.

We arrived early February to cold, snowy winter days, which was in sharp contrast to the 30+ Melbourne summer. To be honest though I haven't been bugged by the weather at all - there are far more important things in life than weather and anyway, spring is on the way.

It is wonderful for us just to be a family again - for those who don't know my story, our youngest daughter who was 17 at the time, only stayed in Australia for six weeks, leaving me distraught as we had to stay due to our eldest daughter being at university there. We stayed in Oz, hoping to make a go of things and hoping that our daughter may return, however our eldest daughter didn't really settle either, missed her friends and her sister and hubbys work was very sporadic and much lower paid than in the UK. Whereas in the UK we had fantastic holidays and a great lifestyle, in Australia, our finances were such that we had no choice but to return to England. Every month we had to dip into our savings to help pay the rent, which wasn't part of the plan.

Whilst we liked Australia, we didn't fall in love with it at all, however once the decision was made to return, removals and flights were booked, we actually started to feel a bit sad at leaving. After all, it was the end of our dream - 3 years of planning and hopes of a new life were coming to an end.

On our return, I expected people to be telling us "I told you so" etc., but they haven't. Most people are genuinely interested in our adventure and tell us that they wish they had the bottle to do something so exciting.

Since our return 4 weeks ago, hubby started work after one week and one phone call - it's great to be earning a decent wage again. We bought two cars and after three weeks we'd signed up for a rental property. The house was the hardest thing in that we have loads of stuff coming over from a big 4 bedroomed Australian house and British houses are much smaller. We persevered though and eventually found an beautiful old cottage just outside town with lovely views over hills, fields and a golf course. The village pub is about a 5 minute walk away We move in at weekend and just can't wait.

We've also been able to celebrate our daughter's 18th birthday and I'm now teaching her to drive It makes me so happy to be able to take her to college each morning - as she walks away, I just sit there in the car grinning, realising just how wonderful life is. It isn't big houses or sun or warm weather that make me happy, it's people and living life. Life in the UK is portrayed as being bad by the media here, but in reality it's nowhere near as bad as they try to make out and no different from anywhere else - good and bad everywhere. Before we came back, people told us of asylum seekers everywhere in our town and Poles taking over the building trade - we haven't seen one shred of evidence to support these claims.

Our social life has been renewed - it's great to get out with our mates again. Shopping is fantastic - the choice and quality of goods is just brilliant.

So to all of you who are on your way back, don't worry. Life in the UK is good. Very good. In fact wild horses wouldn't drag me back to Australia right now

We are planning to move to Melbourne. can I just ask, would you have stayed if your daughters had settled. Reading beneath your post I would say that the main drag home was your children which I can fully understand. I also read beneath your post that you enjoyed Melbourne (if you did not have the upset of your daughter leaving). As your eldest left only 6 weeks after arrival could you really say that you ever felt settled?, could you really give it a go with your family separated on different sides of the world. I believe that the main reason we are going is for our children (11 and 8) and if they were older it would be so hard for them to settle. I can understand why you came home and yes home is the roof over your family but I perhaps do not believe that it was Oz itself you disliked just the circumstances around your move over there.

Cheryl

Last edited by stevensfamily; Mar 13th 2007 at 9:23 pm.
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Old Mar 15th 2007, 3:57 pm
  #47  
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Default Re: Back in the UK one month - update

Originally Posted by stevensfamily
We are planning to move to Melbourne. can I just ask, would you have stayed if your daughters had settled. Reading beneath your post I would say that the main drag home was your children which I can fully understand. I also read beneath your post that you enjoyed Melbourne (if you did not have the upset of your daughter leaving). As your eldest left only 6 weeks after arrival could you really say that you ever felt settled?, could you really give it a go with your family separated on different sides of the world. I believe that the main reason we are going is for our children (11 and 8) and if they were older it would be so hard for them to settle. I can understand why you came home and yes home is the roof over your family but I perhaps do not believe that it was Oz itself you disliked just the circumstances around your move over there.

Cheryl
Hi Cheryl - I do think that our daughter returning home had a huge impact on how we felt there - we missed her so much that we just had to come back to her. There were other factors as well though. Financially it was complete suicide for us - my husband can earn far more here in the UK. I personally hated the "Australia is best" attitude too - it's in the newspapers, tv, people's attitudes. It's quite nice at first but after a while it just really got on my nerves. We also missed the culture of England, the old character buildings, the history and a sense of belonging.

We did like Melbourne - it's a lovely city and the people are polite and pleasant, but we didn't really make any friends there. We did all the touristy things to pass the time and it was great to see places like the Great Ocean Road, to go up to Southbank for meals and stoll through the city etc., but I can't say that I ever totally fell in love with the place (maybe we weren't there long enough?). But that's just us. We enjoy walks in the country with our dogs (which we couldn't do as almost everywhere is "no dogs allowed"), going for a Sunday afternoon pint in a country pub with our friends, being close to a town. Because our girls are older, we didn't want to spend afternoons on a beach or having coffee at one of the zillion cafes (which we would have done, had they been younger). We couldn't afford to live right near the city and there isn't much nightlife in the suburbs. We didn't realise all of this though until we moved.

Everyone is different though and certainly if our girls were younger, I wouldn't hesitate to give it a try as your needs are completely different when your kids are young. I really hope it works out for you as Melbourne is a great city (and it is nice to get up to sunshine and blue skies nearly every day).

Good luck
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Old Mar 16th 2007, 2:18 am
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Default Re: Back in the UK one month - update

Originally Posted by LouiseD
Hi Cheryl - I do think that our daughter returning home had a huge impact on how we felt there - we missed her so much that we just had to come back to her. There were other factors as well though. Financially it was complete suicide for us - my husband can earn far more here in the UK. I personally hated the "Australia is best" attitude too - it's in the newspapers, tv, people's attitudes. It's quite nice at first but after a while it just really got on my nerves. We also missed the culture of England, the old character buildings, the history and a sense of belonging.

We did like Melbourne - it's a lovely city and the people are polite and pleasant, but we didn't really make any friends there. We did all the touristy things to pass the time and it was great to see places like the Great Ocean Road, to go up to Southbank for meals and stoll through the city etc., but I can't say that I ever totally fell in love with the place (maybe we weren't there long enough?). But that's just us. We enjoy walks in the country with our dogs (which we couldn't do as almost everywhere is "no dogs allowed"), going for a Sunday afternoon pint in a country pub with our friends, being close to a town. Because our girls are older, we didn't want to spend afternoons on a beach or having coffee at one of the zillion cafes (which we would have done, had they been younger). We couldn't afford to live right near the city and there isn't much nightlife in the suburbs. We didn't realise all of this though until we moved.

Everyone is different though and certainly if our girls were younger, I wouldn't hesitate to give it a try as your needs are completely different when your kids are young. I really hope it works out for you as Melbourne is a great city (and it is nice to get up to sunshine and blue skies nearly every day).

Good luck
Hello LouiseD

Great thread! So happy to see that you are back and enjoying it. Congratulations on getting through the difficult task of relocating.

This post is such a good reflection on your reasons to go home. I think you are accurate here in your description of everyday life, it is how I see it aswell. My perception of living Australia is very similar to yours. Some may agree with this point of view and some may not, each to their own.....

All the best to you XXX
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Old Mar 16th 2007, 11:32 am
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Default Re: Back in the UK one month - update

Originally Posted by Rosie Cheeks
Hello LouiseD

Great thread! So happy to see that you are back and enjoying it. Congratulations on getting through the difficult task of relocating.

This post is such a good reflection on your reasons to go home. I think you are accurate here in your description of everyday life, it is how I see it aswell. My perception of living Australia is very similar to yours. Some may agree with this point of view and some may not, each to their own.....

All the best to you XXX

We had a recent job offer to go to melbourne, seriously considered it, have lived there before, 3 months in a long grey damp winter, but that didnt put us off it was the house prices, truly scary. Plenty of houses under 500 but they are way out, most a good hours drive to beaches, city, work..... I feel if I am going to live in a city (one that gets a lot of pollution and traffic at that) at least I want to be compensated by being close to everything, but OMG the price of anything inner city not outer burb is horrendous. Old tiny houses on tiny plots going for million + or X millions Yes melb has a bit more life than many places but I dont think many could afford to buy a slice of it.
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Old Mar 16th 2007, 7:17 pm
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Default Re: Back in the UK one month - update

Originally Posted by LouiseD
Hi everyone - well we've been back in the UK for exactly a month now so I thought that I'd update you all on how things are going here in Blighty.

We arrived early February to cold, snowy winter days, which was in sharp contrast to the 30+ Melbourne summer. To be honest though I haven't been bugged by the weather at all - there are far more important things in life than weather and anyway, spring is on the way.

It is wonderful for us just to be a family again - for those who don't know my story, our youngest daughter who was 17 at the time, only stayed in Australia for six weeks, leaving me distraught as we had to stay due to our eldest daughter being at university there. We stayed in Oz, hoping to make a go of things and hoping that our daughter may return, however our eldest daughter didn't really settle either, missed her friends and her sister and hubbys work was very sporadic and much lower paid than in the UK. Whereas in the UK we had fantastic holidays and a great lifestyle, in Australia, our finances were such that we had no choice but to return to England. Every month we had to dip into our savings to help pay the rent, which wasn't part of the plan.

Whilst we liked Australia, we didn't fall in love with it at all, however once the decision was made to return, removals and flights were booked, we actually started to feel a bit sad at leaving. After all, it was the end of our dream - 3 years of planning and hopes of a new life were coming to an end.

On our return, I expected people to be telling us "I told you so" etc., but they haven't. Most people are genuinely interested in our adventure and tell us that they wish they had the bottle to do something so exciting.

Since our return 4 weeks ago, hubby started work after one week and one phone call - it's great to be earning a decent wage again. We bought two cars and after three weeks we'd signed up for a rental property. The house was the hardest thing in that we have loads of stuff coming over from a big 4 bedroomed Australian house and British houses are much smaller. We persevered though and eventually found an beautiful old cottage just outside town with lovely views over hills, fields and a golf course. The village pub is about a 5 minute walk away We move in at weekend and just can't wait.

We've also been able to celebrate our daughter's 18th birthday and I'm now teaching her to drive It makes me so happy to be able to take her to college each morning - as she walks away, I just sit there in the car grinning, realising just how wonderful life is. It isn't big houses or sun or warm weather that make me happy, it's people and living life. Life in the UK is portrayed as being bad by the media here, but in reality it's nowhere near as bad as they try to make out and no different from anywhere else - good and bad everywhere. Before we came back, people told us of asylum seekers everywhere in our town and Poles taking over the building trade - we haven't seen one shred of evidence to support these claims.

Our social life has been renewed - it's great to get out with our mates again. Shopping is fantastic - the choice and quality of goods is just brilliant.

So to all of you who are on your way back, don't worry. Life in the UK is good. Very good. In fact wild horses wouldn't drag me back to Australia right now
That is nice to hear for a change. I always hear negative stories especially regarding London. I am not returning for good but people have been putting me off even going back on a vacation.

I'd love to go shopping and to a nice local pub with my family. I miss fish n chips & mushy peas. I hope to go back maybe next year. I have young children so hard for us right now.

It is nice to hear a positive voice so often the neagtive ones are the loudest!
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Old Mar 17th 2007, 2:56 am
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Default Re: Back in the UK one month - update

Originally Posted by redlion
This country IS allowing too many people in, some of them are contributing to our society by earning and paying taxes like the rest of us but maybe its you who should take a look around and see that many many of them are not contributing and are just sponging off our freebie system. Even the big issue sellers on the high street have been taken over by these people, this has not been told to me by 'the sun' this i see with my own two eyes. Can i also say you have no idea who i am or what i have done in my life, so you dont know if i or my wife have lived anywhere else other than this country, you just assume that because we want to emigrate to Australia that we have never been or seen anywhere else. WRONG!!!
Nev.

Just curious, how can you see if someone is a sponger of the freebie system? Do they have a certain look about them? Afterall, you can't know everyone, or know what they have done in their lives. How can you tell?
I guess you must be making assumptions too.
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Old Mar 17th 2007, 1:11 pm
  #52  
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Default Re: Back in the UK one month - update

Unfortunately the Uk is unable to stem the flow of immigrants from the new EU countries. And, its a fact that its having a terrible toll on the economy. But what do u do, refuse to let anyone in and anyone out? Maybe the system is too easy, look what u can get when u dont pay into the system, child allowance, medical, free education, free school meals, housing benefits. What do the immigrants bring with them, I for one enjoy different cultures, languages, lets face it england is not tops of the language list is it. And no mancunian isnt another language. I just worry that its such a small country if its big enough to cope.
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