Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

Be reassured that if you moved back there, the reunions and being treated like royalty would taper off very quickly and after a few months you might well be asking "why did we bother to move back?"

BB

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

I have just read the full thread and your first post brought a tear to my eye too as others have said. And I am one of the happy in Australia lot. But I can see the other side, I can how things change and even I sometimes wonder how life would have turned out if we had not even made our first overseas move to Bermuda, we were on a good path and I am sure it would have been a good life.

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

Yup, you may well have made the wrong decision but it was the best one you could make on the day! Never say never, I reckon! I was doomed to dwindle in Aus with an Aussie DH who would not countenance living in UK - ever! However, life throws you curve balls (and I caught this one with both hands) when the wheels fell off the parental wagon and I just never returned from the last holiday - the DH is happily living here with me now for the foreseeable future. You may get lucky when you least expect it!

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

I know the feeling very well, we returned to the UK 2 years ago and it really does feel like home to me even though Australia really is home in that I grew up there and spent most of my life there. I just feel more comfortable here. Dont give up, things can change over time.

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

I am now an expert on separating dreams from reality... I may start running lectures on it :):):):)

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

You can probably get a government grant for that - there's one for every subject in Oz ;)

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

Steve, I can relate to a lot of what you have experienced. I have lived here for 18 years and have always felt torn. I feel that my heart will always be in the UK. It is 'home'.
Australia is where my security (financial and relationship) is but it is not 'my' country or people.
I have made the most of the opportunities presented to me whilst living here and there has been a mixture of good and bad times. I neither love it nor hate it. It is what it is.

I have come to the conclusion that there is good and bad in both countries. It is the extent to which one or the other suits you personally.

Good Luck for the future :)

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

I can confirm this. We lived in Australia from 2002 - 2005, then went back to the UK, and then moved back here April 2011. We went back to England for a family holiday in 2004 and were treated like royalty. My sisters who I never had such a great relationship with were warm and welcoming and even cooked me meals for the first time ever!

There were picnics and days out, long fun filled days ending with drinks on the lawn during the long balmy summer evenings with family and friends who I hadn't seen in years. You knows those rare summer evenings in late June in England when the weather is still and perfect, the smell of freshly cut crass and the sound of laughter and BBQ's sizzling, that is how it was.

Me and the wife retired to bed after these long fun filled days and wondered to ourselves why did we ever leave? All memories of pre 2002 and all the planning and reasons were forgotten in that fun filled holiday period.

Fast forward to Autumn 2005 and there we were at Manchester airport in the rain permanently arriving back after selling up on our life in Australia with memories of the 2004 summer holiday fresh in our minds, we were all smiles and joy even if the weather wasn't so welcoming.

We quickly got a new rental and both started new jobs. The same people we had seen the summer before came to welcome us back and spirits were high. Then we got back in to the grind of things, people get on with their own lives as we all tend to do. From 2005 - 2010 I seen my sisters no more than twice a year, and yes I did try and initiate more times to meet up. We seen more of some people in the space of 3 weeks in 2004 than I did in the entire period from 2005 - 2010. There were some people we only seen one more time!

The truth is a holiday back in the UK does not give a realistic version of how it will be when you move back there, not for us anyway.

We may well even go back to the UK again to live but hopefully we have learn't our lesson regarding moving based on holiday experiences and get back to planning our lives based on reality and what it is we want.

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

Upon retirement buy half a place each in the Southern part of France..... Then the respective relies can come visit you/I, Pretty sure they'll come if you find the right locale...... Plus you've got the rest of your lives to explore Europe, "by road" as you wish, from your French Seasonal base and spend the rest of the year back here in Aus :starsmile::flypig:

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

Put me and my siblings in a room together and we barely talk let alone travel to visit. I don't think I have had a proper conversation with one sister since around 1998! Even if we are in the same room it is a 'hello, how are you' then an awkward silence lol As I come from a rather bleak northern town (Middlesbrough) any mention of returning was always met with 'you are crazy, stay where you are, what do you want to come back for, there's nothing here'

I pretty much accepted a good few years back that the relationship I have with members of my close family in the UK will never be very close. Not blaming anyone, just the way it is, perhaps if their is blame then a good portion of that will fall at my feet.

Also I am still around 30 years from retirement age so that kinda makes all that sort of thing hard to think about.

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

Well written! Know what you mean about June weather: in London the wet season can arrive by July....

What does it mean to be treated like Royalty? Is it red carpets, mounting dais (plural), being steered in the right direction both physically and in conversation, and assuming the world smells of fresh paint?

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

Well you can't live like there like you do in your home country. Even i miss mine but i can't do nothing so my advice is make it your habit that what i can to you. best of luck for your life there.

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

Well said Merseygirl could have wrote that myself.

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

:goodpost:

Re: Life Happened While I Made Other Plans - 8 Years On
 

Just read my original post from February 2013.... Things have deteriorated since then, I think in Feb I saw a glimmer of hope... that has gone.
My eldest daughter has just left for a four week Contiki tour of europe, yet again another sad farewell at the airport. This time it has really made me think that for the past ten years I have either loathed, tolerated or accepted my isolated existence in Australia but very rarely enjoyed.
Australia is just too bloody far away, and the longer I stay here the further it is getting.