I can empathize with you totally, sometimes I wish I'd stayed in the U.K, I don't feel I belong here and often think moving here added a bunch of stress and struggle to my life which I didn't need and totally bought on myself.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Yup, I agree, curse of the expat!

Perhaps sit down somewhere quiet and clear your mind, think about what you want your life to look like in 5 years, 10 years, 30 years and then work out how you can best get yourself there. If you see yourself settled down with a family, going to watch Spurs and having family holidays in Europe then perhaps Perth isnt going to be the place for you

My son has a saying though (snatched from John Lennon) - life is what happens to you when you are busy making plans - so even though you are working to achieve a goal that you set now, dont miss any brilliant opportunities that may come your way.

BTW, you can never go "back" - always think of it as moving forwards and your move can take you anywhere. Big advantage of UK is that you can move to somewhere new and wonderful in the country but still be within cooee of the important people in your life.

Maybe people are looking for either place to be perfect which of course they aren't. It really comes down to exactly what you want from life, from a personal viewpoint the supposedly better weather for us isn't an issue but having said that there will be times when it is grey and wet that we will look back at the Brisbane weather as 'better' and miss it. I cant see that being enough to outweigh all the positives for US about being in the UK though.
We wouldn't be human if we didn't constantly compare and analyse but as Quoll says you have to sit down and think about where you will be and where you want to be in the future.

Ah yes the curse of the expat. Welcome to my world LOL!!

I think moving to a different area is a fantastic idea, try and move to somewhere nicer than you left.........that is what I did.

Do you know how many times in my life I wish I had never emigrated to Australia in the first place OR why couldn't I have just settled in and loved it like so many others do..............life (and my pocket) would have been so much easier.......

So very true Quoll- we too wished we had never left the UK, but when you are young you think life goes on forever and then you wake up one morning in your 50's and think SH&T need to think about retirement, we too are planning to retire back in UK, not keen on snow shovelling and really cold temps in Canada!

100% agree - this is a biggie. Something we really didn't appreciate. Looking forward to moving back & getting that balance. Not just for us but for our kids.

Good for you !!!!
We book our flights tomorrow

Cumbrian lass, wow when are you leaving?
I am moving back to Leicester my elderly mum is there and I have family there and in Derbyshire, and Sussex, but for the time being I will be in Leicester.
5 weeks from now I will be home.........phew dont quite know how i am going to do it but I must, for me, I am leaving my family here

We are leaving in 3 weeks. Not quite sure where we are going when we get back.LOL! but we have family in Cumbria and we will use that as a base until we find an area we want to live in.

When I was working down in London about a year or so ago I met a guy of about 50 or so who came from Leicester (working in my department) and he told me about the days when the buses there had conductors on board as well as the drivers and when this particular bus was pulling into a stop this conductor yelled out: "Anybody for the Khyber Pass?" That has to be in the non-PC days before the Race Relations Act came into force.