Always21

Homesickness hits people differently. Big events can trigger homesickness too after a few years of being settled (for me it was having kids and the breakdown of my wife's family here). Anyway, good luck with the move! I bet you are excited.

kt.2006

Thanks. I'm sure it does get better, we both just didn't expect to feel this way.

kt.2006

I had to google Rose Porteous to find out who she was (obviously not been in Australia very long have I?). I thought she was something to do with Gone with the Wind. I know what you mean as I'm sure a lot of people think that the swimming pool, new house and living in the sun will instantly make them happy, and I'm sure it does for a while.

I haven't got to that stage yet as we are renting a grotty house and have to decide whether to go back or whether to make the plunge and buy the house and the pool and see if that does make us happier. I keep reading that a lot of families have returned to the UK and then decided to come back to Australia and I don't want to be a ping pong pom.

Kathy

kt.2006

Have you stayed long enough to get citizenship? I would be quite happy to treat this as a working holiday if I only stayed 2 years but I believe the rules for citizenship will be increasing to 3 years. Unfortunately we took my son out of his GCSE year in the UK (not expecting it to be a problem as we were emigrating on a permanent resident visa). This causes me a lot of stress as I don't want to wreck his future.

Kathy

kt.2006

I think you are right as my husband has just found a job and although he says that his workmates have no sense of humour he doesn't seem so homesick now.

I have not met hardly anyone here and spend ages on the phone to my friends in the UK. They are all pushing for me to go back home and I know I would slot right back in. I think though that this is making it worse for me to settle here as I think of the UK as a place where people care about me and Australia as an unfriendly place. I know this isn't true it's just that I need to get out there and make friends, which is something I'm not very good at.

Kathy

Sally

I can empathise with your feelings even though I'm in US rather than Aus. Making friends has to be viewed as a task - I found I had to uncharacteristically force myself upon people for ages before I slowly started to make social contacts. Are you helping at school if your children are school age? It's torture sometimes but you will eventually start to break in. Please feel free to PM me if you want to chat.

jonesey

Kathy

Just been browsing through some threads and come across your one, just thought I could give you my thoughts on how your feeling. We are ex-forces and well travelled as you can imagine and thought we had settled back to a easy way of life back in Blighty for the last 2 years now, we have also travelled to far-away shores like you back in 2001 to Melbourne and travelled with 5 children and enjoyed every minute of our experiences but true fully suffered the homesickness that many do feel. But then after a 2 year stint back in Blighty got the chance to move to New Zealand by pure chance my old friend called me and sold the story of a new life in Auckland and a job offer was put on the table to me that was in 2003. Its now 2006 and we returned to UK in 2004 due to unforeseen family circumstances that led us to come back with only a year spent in Auckland at great expense, we now are nearly 2 years back in Blighty and have not found any difference to our lives except enjoying the fruits of being with our nearest and dearest along the way, but still we wonder why its come day go day for most brits as we all have jobs and lives to live. So my moral to this long winded story is this, we are in the process of returning to NZ and I am going back into uniform in the RNZAF and my family except that and know there will be days/nights of loneliness and sadness of missing nearest and dearest once again. But we now have comes across Skype to talk on and the kids can use Chat also and web cam that makes it all the easier when those special moments are needed to chat with your immediate family back home in the UK. Download it from www.skype.com if you haven't got it already it is such a MUST to have and fix yourself up with a Web cam....that is my advice to you and things get easier from then on in....all the best

http://www.skype.com/
With skype you can talk to anyone, anywhere for FREE forever.....


Mick & Sherren

john mcshane

[QUOTE=Sandra and Jim]PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, don't come back after just 3 months. Been there, got the T shirt, sold our house shipped contents of house etc. We arrived in Adelaide Dec 1997 and came back March 1998. BIG MISTAKE. Realised very soon we had made a mistake but it has taken us this long to finally admit that we should have given it at least a year. We are in the process of applying again. Just had meds this month. Get in touch with a group of people who are in same boat via this website is a good start. Please try and stick it out the fact that the children have settled is a major hurdle you have overcome already.

Good luck. We are hopefully going to Melbourne this year, not sure where you are.

Hi sandra & jim
Where are you in the uk , its not s w scotland by any chance
Regards john mcshane

arkon

Well I'm a bloke and don't mind admitting I am homesick after 18 months, but I would say the wife is equally homesick but for different reasons. Her reasons are mainly friends,family and isolation and mine are more just wanting to get back to what where I fit in, understand the rules and was a lot less frustrated all the time.

Sandra and Jim

Hi there,

We are in Glasgow, where are you?

Sandra and Jim

or4ngecrush

I would be interested to know where in Canada and where in the UK did/do you live? I'm just been nosey hope you don't mind

or4ngecrush

Ha ha I liked that

or4ngecrush

Just realised that I'm going now have three posts in a row (I must be bored) anyway I wanted to add to this thread as I believe homesickness doesn't just hit you when your in another country.

You might laugh at this but I moved from the family home East Kilbride, where I'd spend 21 years in the same house (my parents are still there) I then ended up in Edinburgh but this wasn't planned. Considering it is only about an hour from Edinburgh to E.K. in the car I actually struggled with homesickness. I have been here for about 7 years and it took me at least a year to two years to feel settled. I only knew my boyfriend and no one else and I feel that Edinburgh is different to the west in terms of friendlyness (I hope I don't offend anyone, I dont mean to) I actually still dont have many friends (they all seem to be immigrating lol) but I live in a flat and feel there no sense of community here, but I have actually got used to it. I think if you grew up in a friendly street/town where everybody knows you then you move somewhere completely different then thats when it hits you. I now no I will never go back it's that whole thing of thinking it's the same as you left it and it's not now.

I know see my parents less, months could go by and we haven't seen each other for that matter, life just gets in the way. But I have internet and we email and sometimes use the webcam. But when I do see them it's quality time I spend with them and I still get the same "pang" when they leave to back home. I also feel it a matter of getting used to the new routine of not seeing your parents all the time, we are all creatures of habit and when our lives change in anyway it takes some people a while to readjust (did I spell that right) I also want to say that my partner moved away from his home town too and he never phones/sees/speaks to his rellies or friends it's not that he doesn't care but he's not a social kind of person they have to contact him and they understand and accept this.

I think it all depends on many factors and you will never know the right answer unless you do it. I'm now glad I moved out of EK it's not a bad place "really" (hmm maybe Madmac will disagree lol) but I'm glad in the sense of feeling free and seeing new things and life being a bit challenging, I would have rotted away at home and been bored I think.

Anyway thats my pennies worth lol

Emma

Pollyana

Homesick as hell. Not quite the right thread, cos The Bloke is an Aussie so he is at home, but I wanted to say to Kathy, the original poster - whereabouts in Brisbane are you? Anywhere near Aspley? (northside) Fancy a get together?

I am flying back next month to the UK as my dad isn't well, and its probably my last chance to see him - and I have found the most horrible mix of emotions. Although I know I'm going back for heartbreaking reasons, and only for a week, in a surreal way I'm looking forward to it. Does that make sense to anyone? I feel so guilty about looking forward to the trip, yet I can't help it, its like a beacon - when my sister said the family would pay I just couldn't wait to get it booked. very very odd feelings at present.

YoSemite

I got out to Brisbane in January this year, so that's what almost 6 months now!

I'd been to australia 3 times before the big move, and had travelled up the whole of the east coast (melbourne right up to cairns by car/bus) and totally knew that oz was the place for me. Have got family and a lot of friends in melbourne and a few who dot between brisbane and sydney so knew I'd be just fine.

The week after my birthday in april the homesickness hit. Total nightmare! i skipped a couple of classes (I'm a student), went to other classes and spent the qwhole 3 hours sitting doing nothing. Spent endless hours in t'internet talking for friends back home. About the same time I booked a flight back to the UK for the end of june. This was always part of the plan as I've got family things to go back for, and even though it's only for 2 weeks (and only to lay my grans tombstone and sell her house), like Polly I'm strangely looking forward to it....


But then towards the end of may homesickness started to go.

Brisbane felt a bit more familiar. I can now swipe my eftpos card first time, i know what fly-buys are, i understand that the cheapest time to buy petrol is first thing on a tuesday morning (well at my local garage). I know the names of the people on TV, and when the dodgy-esq "Today Tonight" (most awful programme ever - i watch it just to get angry!!!) say things like "remember back in xxxx, when we brought you the story of yyyyy" I actually know what they're talking about. A german tourist stopped me in the street the other day and asked me directions.... and I was able to tell them where to go! I've memorised my phone number and know what suburbs are where!

Now with the trip back just over a week away, I know that once I get there I'll spend my whole time thinking "if i was in australia right now i'd be......". I know that I'll be complaining about the edinburgh weather; that I'll be shocked at the cost of everything; that people's accents will seem strange and foreign, and that I'll have not a clue what's going on in the world that is scotland. The roads will seem narrow, and the cars small. The sky won't be as blue and sun not as hot. And probably the most scary thing is that I'll be in a familiar place, without any of my thing - because they're all in australia now! Infact by the time my 2 weeks is up I'll be dying to get back here!

Homesickness is a bitch... a total bitch-trog from hell. But it's something that I think almost everyone goes through (except for my OH who has, so far, been completely unbothered by the whole process!) male and female.

Just stick with it, because things will start to settle down (and the get worse, then settle down, then worse again, then settled........ and so on and so forth!) and slowly everything gets a bit more normal.