Well here we are, 2 years to the day since we landed at Brissie Airport. Never been to Australia beforehand, just applied for the visas, sold up and left on a big massive plane!

To say I felt shell shocked for the first couple of weeks is an understatement and I sorta walked around in a bizarre daze. Lots of shopping passed the time quickly though as we had to start from scratch. BigW was our best friend.

I have to say, the first year here I hated it, was bored, lonely and terribly homesick (hence the huge BE post count in my first year) and at one point, was set to go home. I really struggled, but managed to sort myself out and decided to stop being daft and live my life.

I still have the odd feelings some days that I should go home and wonder what the hell I am doing here. It doesn't last long though.

We have been thoroughly impressed with the school the boys are in, the staff and kids are very welcoming and can't do enough for you. The Mater children's hospital in Brisbane too has been fabulous. My son has hydrocephalus and the plane pressure tampered with his shunt (which shouldn't have happened according to all the specialists we spoke to), he got ill basically as soon as we hit base, so a trip to the hospital bound we were. Turns out one of the ward nurses was from the same town as me, so really helped make him feel comfortable. We even got to speak to doctors in the middle of the night (outa their beds they were dragged) to our request. I only have the best of words to say about the hospital and education system so far.

There are still things I don't like about Australia, but they don't bother me any more. I like it here now.Though I am still adamant I want to move to Europe when my eldest finishes high school (he is only yr 6 just now) so still lots of time left to explore Oz.

Have the inlaws arriving in a fortnight, then the day after they leave, have my mum , her bf and my sis arriving for 5 weeks.

Roll on xmas.

ps - don't get me started on how crap xmas is here!

Congrats on your two year anniversary Wendy!
It can be very hard to start with & I suspect that this is the reality for most people. It takes time & you were brave enough to give that, so well done
Hope the next two years are much easier for you hen!

Aw fanx sweetie

Congrats on the 2 years and after a few years more xmas gets a little better

Thanks - good to know Xmas gets better!

Im really pleased to hear that you are more settled now.Hope it continues and that life is sweet.x

Congrats on the anniversary....we really must get together again sometime

Nice one SC! Well done on turning it around Good luck with the inlaws if you need to escape you're more than welcome to pop in for a coffee

goodonya mate

Well done on the two years. Glad you settled eventually, must be hell to feel like a fish out of water.

However, imo Christmas is christmas, it's how 'you' deal with it makes it great or crap. If you're used to having and loving the rellies round then it's probably crap, otherwise you make it what you want.

True. We have been trying to make xmas our own, doing the same things we done back home, just doesn't seem 'xmassy' in the heat! Lots of people have said xmas does get better the longer you are here.

They lied!

Sorry. I forgot one of these

Well done for lasting 2 years by the way.

God can't believe it's 2 years SC. Glad you are so settled now. Sorry we didn't get to meet up when we were out. It was all a bit of a disaster, but that's a whole new different thread Hope things keep on the up.