Wendy

A bit of background.

My OH and me were both born in Bradford. As a kid I didn’t really have much of anything, there was just me, my Mum and my brother and because my Mum was an epileptic she couldn’t work – in those days an epileptic was treated like an idiot and people were scared they would catch it so wouldn’t employ anyone who had it, it didn’t matter that it was controlled they didn’t see past it.

When I was about 10 year old I met my cousin who came over to the UK from Australia – they had emigrated 2 years previously and returned. I remember saying to her, I would love to live in Australia I can’t believe you came back. It was that day I decided that’s what I wanted to do one day. I never saw my cousin again as they packed up and moved back to Australia once they had sold everything again.

Bradford was an OK place to grow up. I had a great childhood and have really fond memories of it. As I grew up though it changed and not for the better L. The industry disappeared and in it’s place were derelict buildings that eventually got burned out. Small independent shops that were in the suburbs, and in the town centre started disappearing as the need for them was taken away by places like Asda and Tescos. Nightclubs and pubs started shutting down as places like Brewsters moved in. It wasn’t the place I grew up in anymore, but one big ghetto that saddened me more every day. We started thinking of the opportunities that our kids would have if we stayed here – and there were none. We had to get out of it, so we started looking at places outside the dales. Until we realised that we couldn’t afford to live anywhere else! – well nowhere that we could get work would pay enough for us to be able to cover the increased cost of living that we would have.

After looking at every possible avenue, I said to my Mum there was no way we could ever leave where we were and I got talking to her of my dream to move to Australia. We looked into in one afternoon on Google, and a website came up – it was the visa bureau site and it gave a points test. I put in all the info and pressed the calculate button, I actually held my breath while it worked out how many points we had – it came back 10 short. That was it, no way in for us – I was gutted.

Tiggs+Graz

oooh its like a tv show ... we are waiting with baited breath for the next episode

hugs
A xx

Wendy

Sad times

We sold up and moved to another house just down the road. It was a bigger house so that we could have a spare room for my Mum to come and stay as she had just been diagnosed with secondary breast cancer – it had spread to her liver. There was nothing they could do for her except try to stop it spreading with chemotherapy. We knew that she would only get 12 – 18 months though.

Things plodded on as they do, and in the middle of August 2004 my Mum got really badly swollen ankles. They were huge and she couldn’t even stand up. We took her to the hospital and they said there was nothing more they could do for her – they told her they thought she had about 3 months left. I went to see her the next morning, and after doing some tests they told me that she only had 2 weeks at the most – my mum didn’t want to hear it so the doctor told me that I should just leave it and let her believe that she had 3 months. We had her room all ready at my house but she wanted to stay with my Brother until after Christmas, but she didn’t have that long so I told her that I couldn’t be expected to be going up and down to her house every day and that she should move in with me today - It was very hard to have to lie to my Mum about that and she called me a selfish bitch – but I think she knew deep down so she didn’t really make any fuss. She was with me for just 10 days and then on the 31st August 2004 my Mum – the best friend I had - passed away. She left such a big void in my life and I ran on autopilot for a long while after that. But my Mum passing brought me onto the next phase of my life and I can’t help feeling that it was something she helped with (yes I know that sounds really daft – but hey I believe it anyway )

Wendy

The very first step

On the day after my Mum’s funeral I was surfing the net, and looked at my e-mail. In the inbox was an e-mail from the visa bureau. I opened it, expecting some sort of spam but instead it said like:

We have on file that you looked into migrating to Australia a while ago, and see that your profession is an Electrician. We are happy to inform you that this trade has been added to the skills shortage list for South Australia, which means that you are now eligible to apply for a migration visa to Australia. If you are still interested, please respond to this e-mail with a time and date that is convenient to you and we will telephone you to assess you again.

So I replied to the e-mail and they called. Maybe I should have told G first, as he was really shocked when an Aussie bloke rang and started asking him about what he did for a living and would he like to move to Australia We started discussing it though, and although he had some doubts at first we both came to the decision that we would go for it.

My 17 year old had other ideas though and told us he didn’t want to come. L

Wendy

I'm busy beating G's high scores

Geelong Gent

I'm both happy and sad for you already Wendy. Like jumping ahead to read the last chapter too see who did it I know this is going to be a happy ending (or start of well fingers crossed for it anyway)

Wendy

The next step

We decided to put him on the application anyway; he could always validate and return to go to Uni like he wanted.

So after 4 months of putting together we finally sent off our application to the TRA. At that time they were taking 16 weeks to assess, so we set about our lives and put it to the back of our minds. On week 15, day 4 our TRA came back – we had passed. We were so thrilled, it was the first step on the visa ladder and we had managed to climb it.

Next thing for us to do was to tell his parents. Luckily for us, they were both really happy for us and gave us their full support right from the start. His Mum told us she would be happy to look after Marc, whether he went to Uni to stay or even if he wanted to live with her and go from there. And true to her promise she takes really good care of him, she takes him some food shopping every few weeks, buys him clothes every now and then and they have just both jetted off to her apartment in Turkey for 2 weeks! - I sometimes think I should have stayed behind too

Just as the TRA came back we got a call from our agent, the MODL list had now changed to include Electricians – this meant that we could apply for a PR visa in out own right and didn’t need a sponsorship from SA any more. I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not at the tome, as I had set my heart on SA when I learned that my Aunt lived there! (we got in touch after she sent me a sympathy card from Australia with her contact details in, whether that was another coincidence or meant to be I don’t know)

Anyway our application went in and we prepared ourselves for another wait of 6 – 9 months. Before we lodged it, my son announced that he didn’t want to be included on our visa application, as he had no intention of validating and that he wasn’t even sure he would come over at all.

Wendy

BE and me

The thing about applying to Emigrate is that we put everything on hold. We didn’t want to buy stuff as it would cost us to bring it with us. We didn’t want to plan a holiday as we’d rather save our money for our new life. We didn’t want to do anything much, and we were stuck in Limbo land – not a nice place to be.

I took to surfing the net a lot, and one day stumbled across BE – what a God send the place was. I finally found others who I could talk to about it all, who understood where I was coming from, and didn’t make me feel like I was bragging all the time (which of course I was, hey I dreamt about it from being 10 years old! )

BE brought me a distraction, I got addicted to the site pretty quickly and made some really great cyber friends. Some of whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, and others who I have still to stalk – erm…I mean meet (you know who you are!)

I didn’t really use the site as a place to gather info like others did, but more as a place to socialise with people who I had something in common with – the site is fantastic for that and I will always be grateful that I found the site, and thankful to the owners and all it’s members who got me through some tough times, even though they didn’t really know I was having tough times.

On the 4th January 2006 we were finally granted a visa for Australia – yippee!

Wendy

In transit

I’m not going to bore you with all the details of our house sale as it wasn’t really that hard for us to sell compared to some. I will say though that they really should change the way things are done in the UK. It’s such a pain and there is no protection for the seller until contracts have been exchanged – this is the bit they should change, contracts should be exchanged after say 7 days or so. It would make a huge difference

We didn’t ship anything over with us, we left with just a suitcase each. We set off from the UK on the 5th July 2006 from Manchester. We flew via Singapore with a 18 hour stopover so booked into the transit hotel for 12 of them. All I remember of the room was that I crashed on the bed as soon as we got there and woke up 9 hours later feeling like I hadn’t slept at all. I had never been so exhausted in all my life!.

We had to give up the room with 5 hours left to go before we flew to Australia, so we went for a wander around the airport – OMG! What a fantastic place it is. I swear you could have a two week holiday in the place and not run out of things to do (well maybe 10 day would do ).

We found the outside bar (where you can smoke) and went out for a beer and a fag (which I needed after not having one for over 24 hours). As I walked out of the door, all I can remember is the humidity hitting me like a brick wall – I had never experienced anything like it. I had to go back inside after 15 minutes as it was that warm, but I adored Singapore (well the airport, as I didn’t venture outside it )

We ate a bit, drank a bit, had too many cigarettes and then headed off to the other side of the airport to catch our next plane which was bringing us to our new life.

Wendy

Our first day in Australia

We landed in Adelaide at 7:20am on the 7th July 2006, my aunt who I hadn’t met before picked me up from the airport, along with her cousin who I also hadn’t met before. They took us to our caravan at West Beach – our new home for the next 2 weeks, or longer depending on how long it would take for us to find somewhere to live.

As we got out of the airport, the weather was grey, wet and miserable – not what I expected, even though it was winter. It wouldn’t have hurt the Aussie authorities to have ordered me some sunshine!

Driving to the caravan park I thought this really isn’t what I expected. I wasn’t sure if it was better or worse – just totally different I guess. It was a weird feeling that I can’t explain very well. I did think OMG what have I done though – only briefly mind

We got to the caravan park and it was a nice enough place to stay. I doubt I could have stayed longer than 2 weeks though. I did have my first experience with a cockroach there too;

I woke up one morning and as it was the middle of winter, I put on my dressing gown. As I came out of the bedroom, I felt a tickling on my face and as I went to scratch it this ‘thing’ flew off. When I looked down, it was the biggest cockroach I have ever seen – I have never screamed so loud in my life. It’s a wonder someone didn’t call the cops and tell them I was being murdered

We didn’t do much that first day except sleep for most of it. The only other thing we did was walk to the beach (which was just behind our caravan, so not far to walk). As I came out onto the beach I looked out to the sea to the most amazing sunset I had ever seen.

Wendy

Where we are at now.

Since getting here I have learnt to drive – something that I could never quite manage to do in the UK for some reason. The timing was always wrong, or we couldn’t afford the lessons, or some other reason always stopped me. It’s given me a great sense of freedom to have my own car – it’s a 15 year old Holden Barina, which is really economical, nice to drive and she doesn’t look her age at all (like her owner

I have also given up the cigarettes – now that really is something as I never really wanted to stop smoking. But now I have I am really glad I did, and extremely proud of myself for doing it.

My OH has a really great job working for a company that make parts for Holden cars. He gets a decent wage and is home by 3pm every day.

The kids have made some really good friends, and they love going to school. They have settled into the Aussie way of life really easily and tell me they are glad they live in Australia – I know that what we did was the right thing for them as they would never have had a chance in the part of the UK that we come from and they would have been extremely lucky to be able to get away from there.

Wendy

My final words

We have been here two years today, and I adore the country, it’s people and most of all I adore the fact that I live here. I don’t want to be anywhere else.

It’s not always easy, I’m not magically rich, and we both still have to work. Today I had a ‘I live in Australia’ moment, my eyes welled up, and the hairs on my arms stood up – I thought of my Mum, who I will always miss and I thought of my son who is still in the UK, and if I could have anything it would be that he was here with me today - but it’s not to be at this point in time. He has said that he will most likely come over once he has finished Uni, but we’ll just have to wait and see if that ever happens.

I am however, extremely thankful for the things that I do have – My OH, my other two kids and the lovely friends and family that I have gained since moving here. I am thankful that I have had this opportunity and I wouldn’t live anywhere else – this is where I belong, it’s where my heart is and it’s HOME.

To all of you on BE, wherever you are in your journey – it has been a pleasure to know you all and I wish you all the happiness you deserve in your future.

Wendy x

NickyC

Bless you, Wendy. That brought a tear to my eye.

All the best to you for the rest of your lives in Australia.

Sleeping Beauty

awh wendy.............i feel as though i know you so well, and yet i have never met you. it is very nearly our two years, and although we too have come on our own journey, reading yours has been emotional.

maybe we can celebrate our citizenship around the same time, and i will raise a glass to you, my cyber friend on BE

xx

PLANTS

What a great post, so good to hear how you got on with your emigrating and move over here.
Thanks for the post!
Keep is updated wont you
Plants