OK, I'm back. We moved in December, and had made the final decision maybe 7 or 8 months before we left. We had already sold our house and were in rented so that was a great relief.

Are you shipping stuff over? If so, is it everything or just some things? Either way I would start getting quotes and researching companies now. The quotes might expire by the time you come to actually send stuff but you will have an idea of what costs you can expect.

Consider where you are going to live when you first get to the UK and if necessary start looking at holiday rentals etc now. I've been PM'ing beccarose over this (and need to reply, sorry!) but it took us quite a bit of research to find a suitable place because of the time of year (we stayed from early December to early Jan but could have stayed longer). If you're going down this route make sure you get somewhere with internet and with bills included.

Do you still have UK bank accounts? We did but if you don't, start sorting that out now too.

Can't stress enough to start getting rid of things/sorting things out now. We had sold our house a year before we left, and got rid of a lot of things then but even so when we came to move out of our rental we just had so much stuff. We started ebaying/gumtreeing things over the (Australian) winter to leave in December. Depends on your family set up etc but we were able to clear then entire spare room of furniture, for example, well in advance, which in turn gave us a room for sorting stuff out and for packing when the time came. We shipped personal items but not furniture.

I also again want to stress to do/see the things you love before you go. We were happy to be moving back but that didn't mean there weren't lots of happy memories in Melbourne and things we wanted to do one last time. We got through most of them but ran out of time for a few favourite restaurants.

If you have it available, possibly transfer some money across to the UK now. When we secured our rental they wanted proof of savings (because I'm not working) and went as far as to ask for proof that we'd had them a certain amount of time. This may not be standard and you might not be happy to do this, just raising it as a possibility.

Thank-you for all the wonderful advice. I am particularly taking on board the need to de-clutter and sort things as I do have a lot of "stuff" that really isn't needed.

Filled the bin last week and sold a piece of unwanted furniture tonight so that's a start... must also chase up moving/storage costs.

Thanks again... I know the year is going to seem very quick!