ssnjeff

P.M on it's way

Jack The Lad

Replied

Genesis

Came here in 1990 on my OE as they call it in these parts (Overseas experience). Fell in love, vowed to come back, the UK got more and more crowded, fraught with a variety of irritations and I had kids with a lady who's a nurse= ticket to NZ..both from the perspective of not wanting to raise kids in the UK and nursing being a ticket to PR!!! 19 months in and we were right!!!!! Living it, loving it!!!

Jack The Lad

Glad to hear

My brain is hurting with the decision making. Im sure its right for us but really not happy about upsetting my folks. Thats going to be the only thing that would stop us.

Genesis

Jack, alas there's no way round it mate. You will piss people off by moving to the other side of the globe..its only natural....but at the end of the day who's life is it? I am not being hard and I fully understand some people will not/cannot make the move for this reason. I have to live with the decision to live so far away everyday..as do all the others who come here..only each individual can know if it is worth said tumult to make the move. I am homesick lots, but I know a better future lies here for me and my family. It would be utterly impossible to replicate our life here back in the UK in anyway. We are just sooooooooooo much better off here. In the final analysis I love my family in the UK but in reality they were only a tiny part of my life back in the UK..we lived apart from a geographical stand point and we had 'gone our own ways'. The bi-annual get togethers were not sufficient reason to stay in the UK when I kinda knew that a much brighter future awaited here. It did, it does and I am sure it will always be thus!! Good luck which ever way you choose to go.

Gill and Rob

OH was sitting reading her Nursing Times and said where would you go to, Australia or New Zealand? I said New Zealand. We talked about it thought it was too big a thing to do, as we had never even known anybody who had emigrated. We decided to ring the agency that had the job advertised and it just went from there. We had never before talked about emigrating but we had both had it in the back of our minds as a nice thing to do but unrealistic. We KNEW we wanted to do something and had often talked about moving somewhere else in UK. We had delays with visas (an epic story I won't go into here), had sold our house, cars sold, notice given at work.

What if we were turned down by NZ immigration, we'd be in the poo. We had made the decision to leave uk so we needed a plan B, this was to move to Ireland easy to get a job, and no problems with visas. Thankfully it all worked out ok and we are here in NZ and have never been happier and more contented with our lives.

I know this is not the correct post for this but thought I would cut and paste a line from an e-mail Gill sent at me the weekend from the uk (she should now be on her way to the airport 'home'. It just about sums it all up and proves we made the correct move:-

"Newcastle is horrible. I am so glad we moved. The people are miserable looking, they spit in the street and are so rude pushing past you. I felt quite sad that this is my over crowed dirty old region. Everyhwere is filthy and there are just SO MANY people here".

Rob

cottageinthesky

mumomonty

I was living in Aus (yes fully aware that people usually do it the other way around). My hub said let's go and have a look at NZ so we hired a campervan and toured around. It was cold, windy and reminded me of home (UK). I said I don't want to move there when it reminds me so much of the UK so I went home. After a while, hubster said he was coming here anyway so I had to follow really. I still don't get excited about it but it's 'ok'. Just find it a bit dull at times.

Jude J

On the way to work one day, we both worked in Sheffield, we had to live there for a year cos of hubs contract with a large company. We hated it, so this one morning whilst sitting in the traffic jam I was rambling on about a phone call I had had the night before with someone who was thinking of spending 6 months in nz. Hubs said 'shall we go?' I looked out at the horrible city we had been working in for the past 6 months and said 'yes' 11 months later we had gotten married, sold everything but the kids and was on our way with nought but a suitcase each and a hell of a lot of hope. We are all loving it.