rebnatoli

Hi all,

for anyone interested this was our first year:

The First Year

Now for the second!

House

We're still in the same house and it is slowly becoming a home - we have almost finished our formal room off after having it empty for almost 2 years! We are on acreage and I have to say although its "only" 1/2 an acre we have to maintain (the rest is bush) I have been finding it a bit much at times but have finally realised that its a full time job and really there's no real rush in getting it all "done".

Work

Great news for my OH - he got offered a permanent role in May - just as well as the company then let all the contract staff go! That's such a relief and meant that when SBIT ran out of money and let all its contract and casual teachers go, including me, it wasn't such a bad thing and will allow me the time I need to get the garden and house sorted and be there to attend the Eisteddfods and other kids performances which have been quite numerous this winter.

Schools

Both children started new schools in Jan and they are both very happy now, they are working much harder and I am much happier with the academic level. They have made much nicer friends and we have no plans to change schools, except my son may move to join my daughter's school in a couple of years time.

Citizenship

We had our citizenship ceremony last week and are really happy to be Pozzies! I will always be happy to both British and Australian as both countries have given me so much. Despite a minor hiccup when I got one of the mandatory question wrong and had to retake the test, the citizenship process was very straightforward. We took the test then went downstairs and it took 5 minutes to process our application and we were told straight away it was all ok.

Trip back to the UK

In between taking the test and our Ceremony I took the children back for a 3 week holiday to the UK. My OH couldn't come as being made permanent in May meant he didn't have any holiday accrued. We arrived to fantastic weather which along with my friends being amazing really completely took me by surprise and I very unexpectedly got very homesick and its taken me almost 2 months to get over it! I really could have easily stayed back in the UK - so just as well my OH stayed so we had someone to come back here for.

The shopping was brilliant and I couldn't believe how cheap the clothes were - I luckily had travelled over very light so was able to fill suitcases with our new purchases. I had been very organised and had an itinery planned which I think really helped, my friends and family knew which days we would see them so they could all arrange to be free and I have to say everyone had made such a great effort to provide fun things for the kids to do so there was no sitting around being bored in peoples houses.

What I did realise was that I had been trying too hard to make friends here and not being myself, doing things I didn't want to do. So I am now being more true to myself and family and I think I am getting even happier. I have always had a mix of friends as I have many different interests - so we found some people to go walking with and climbed Mt Warning a little while ago which was great and the kid's first mountain summit. We already had a nice group of friends here that we socialize a lot with and go camping and now boating with, they have been a great source of support and fun.

What next

So from now on I see us becoming more relaxed and settled and finally having time to travel a bit more around Oz. We're off to Melbourne in December which will be our first visit to Victoria. We've more visitors next Easter and September to look forward to but now I reserve a couple of the school holidays for ourselves as the first year we had visitors for every holiday so all got worn out playing hosts.

It really is so beautiful here and we have just had 8 weeks of amazing weather which we could never really get in the UK. I do things I never thought I would like collecting eggs from our own chickens and taking photos of poisonous snakes lying in the road and even more unlikely going to craft mornings and making things (ok its the coffee, cake and chat I really go for!)

The TV will always be crap, there will always be bogans and no daylight savings but as long as the positives outweigh the negatives we'll be here.

Rebecca x

loubylou1

Hi Rebecca, I have just come back to expats as it has nearly been 2 years since we arrived. It is great to hear such an honest and balanced account of your time here. My OH is heading back to the UK next winter on his own, "to close the loop" so to speak....say a proper good bye to the old country. At the moment i have no desire to go back, despite missing my best mate loads. I will try and post an update too soon! I am glad you have settled now you are back......Not loving the dust storm righ now, but otherwise loving it!

Loubylou1x

comet555

Congrats you guys! I hope things continue to go so well for you

Kapri

Great update

Juliecabs

Great to hear you have settled so well Rebecca. I hope it continues for you in the years to come

Julie. x

mark 'n' joe

Great update and congratulations on your citizenship

Sally Simpson

Lovely update. I like the idea of the itinerary for the Uk trip
Congratulations on your citizenship

mindblower

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Always interesting to see how trips back to blighty pan out.
Glad your settled.