I don't come on here much these days, but I thought I would write a few lines about the last four years and our family's journey to making Perth our home.

We started the process of coming to Perth in September 2004 - I spotted a job for my partner whilst surfing the net, he was offered the job and we (me, him and our two kids) arrived in Perth in April 2005 on a 457 visa.

Now, four years on, three rentals later, we are just about to put down some more permanent roots. Our PR came through last week, and we are looking forward to buying a house and really settling here.

Perth began to feel like my home in our third year - the memories of the UK faded with each passing month. My kids were only 4 and 1 when we got here, so their memories are fairly are non-existent. We miss my sisters, my nieces and nephew and my mum but have never felt overly homesick.

I've been through the big emotional flight home for my dad's funeral. We were so glad that we had seen him on our holiday back to the UK a few months before.

Things we miss - whilst we were back in the UK on holiday last year, we loved the pubs, seeing (old) friends, Europe on the doorstep, European culture, the weekend newspapers. None of these things have made us want to go back to Blighty though.

We live a fantastic outdoors lifestyle. I find that Perth has the culture I need (although you do have to scratch the surface a little deeper to find it). Yes, there are many irritating things about living here, but there were an equal number of irritating things about living in England.

For us, we have made the right move. Whether it is forever....who knows....but for the foreseeable future, we will be here. OK, so it will be with a huge bleeming mortgage (yup, we can't sell our house in the UK either), but I will be very, very happy to have four walls and a piece of sand I can call my own!

Thanks for listening.

Webgum

Great update - thanks.

Thanks for this, nice to hear some positive about WA!

Nice update & good luck with your house purchase

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Well done.

Nice update and congratulations
We have very similar stories - my OH applied for a job in October 04 and we arrived 4 years ago this Friday, also on a 457 and we got PR last June.
Our boys were 5 and 7 when we arrived, my oldest will be a teenager next year
We settled in quickly, mainly I think, to making really good friends
My OH had to work away for a while which put a strain on our relationship and then he was quite ill last year with Guillain Barre syndrome. He's fully recovered now and things are good for us
My kids have the kind of life I wish I'd had - I'd have loved a pool in my backgarden
We love Perth and the slow pace, but haven't even scratched the surface of things to do
Sometimes there's so much on offer we just end up taking the jetskis out again because we can't decide

It's a tough life then?

Yeah I know