gobbyjock

We arrived at Perth airport, completely knackered, overweight luggage, meant a frantic switch around with toiletries flying out of cases into the nearest bin then 2 hrs stuck on the runway at Heathrow, only to have a crazy Olympic style dash through Singapore airport, had left us collapsed in a panicking,sweaty heap for the plane journey. Anyway we arrived ok, Hubbys Auntie & Uncle met us at the airport and I can remember walking out to the car and it was lovely & sunny afternoon and I thought "Oooh this isn`t bad for winter" fast forward a few hours and Im in bed with with PJ`s , a jumper & woolly socks thinking "Shit this is bloody cold, what happened to acclimatising", those Perth Hills are a law unto themselves - Im Scottish for gawds sake, I sunbathe at anything over 10 degs, so it must of been cold!!!
Anyhooo, we hit the ground running & got all the usual stuff sorted the first couple of days, then started looking for furniture & a rental down in Warnbro (we only brought over 15 tea chests). We moved in to our rental at the beginning of July (4x2 no insulation and no aircon but clean and freshly painted with new carpets - trust me that counted for something when I think at some of the places we looked at). Hubby is a sparkie and he started work the Monday after we moved in............and promptly walked out of the job 10 days later. Having just left the Royal Navy 2 weeks before we flew out he struggled the most, not with Australia but with working as a civvy, there was a lack of clarity in what was expected ( he`d be told to strip something down, then he was told "oh I didn`t mean you strip it down that much" then in the next job "right we need to strip this down -we need to do a proper job on this". Trouble is Im not sure if that was the Aussie way or just him getting used to having to do stuff differently, he got another job no problems anyway.
We settled in to life in Warnbro really well, I liked living there, you have million dollar houses next to beach shacks, it had character, the neighbours were friendly, daughter settled well into the Primary School (she had 6 months there before starting High School). We decided to get a rescue dog, so we got a wee Blue Heeler called Molly, she has a broken tail and we love her to bits.( Apart from digging up the garden in the rental - that was a nightmare) . The rental came with a big garden which was all grass apart from a couple of trees, this was where we ran into trouble, the garden became infested with Bindii weed, which just takes over and has really nasty spikey seed pods which are a nightmare. I decided to get some weedkiller and ended up killing most of the grass in the garden too - that meant the next few weeks frantically putting grass seeds, lawn fertiliser and watering, when that pretty much failed and we had an inspection we ended up chucking sand down (we told them it was lawn improver) and placing pots strategicaly to cover where the dog had decided to dig - it worked though.
We then started to look at buying our own place - we had lived in rented Navy accomodation back in Uk, so didn`t have a load of money to bring over, but we managed a 10% deposit, we went through a mortgage advisor who set us up with Commonwealth Bank for a mortgage, at least that was what was supposed to happen. Long story short despite having a pre-approval certificate, the house sale fell through because the bank queried hubby being on probation - despite the fact they knew this when we first approached them. It descended into a he said she said between bank & Mortgage advsor company as to who had or done this & that - in short it was a total pigs ear. We waited a few months then went to our own bank(Westpac) for a mortgage (we`d been advised by previous Mortgage Advisor that our bank wouldn`t give us a mortgage due to only having 10% deposit and hubby being on 6 month probation with job) We got a mortgage with Westpac and found a nice wee house down in Port Kennedy - this is where I think fate played a hand and losing the first house turned out to be not such a bad thing after all as I preferred the new house and it was cheaper than the first one too.Another twist of fate was the fact that just after having the offer accepted on the house we received a letter saying that the owners wanted our rental back as they needed to move into it (thank god we hadn`t waited until the end of hubbys probation, as advised, before looking for that mortgage!!)
Our first Christmas was nice - weird but still nice, we had prawns & scallops on the barbie for lunch then in the evening we had cold cuts of turkey (glad about that as it was 40 deg on Christmas Day in a house with no aircon or insulation, even the walls inside were hot!) we went down the beach in the afternoon and had what was probably the most relaxed, chilled Christmas ever. TBH the heat wasn`t too much of a problem in Summer, though there were a few days spent sat in front of the fan in my bikini with an ice lolly, when it got really bad we`d go to the shops, as they had aircon!!
We moved in to our house in January,it`s not flash, it needs a bit of tlc but I don`t care, it`s our home and we love it. I have all sorts of fruit trees in the garden (including a bannana tree).
Hubby changed jobs yet again in March as he was fed up going away all the time (had enough of that in the Navy thank you!!) daughter started High School in February and has settled well.
We got a scabby parrot called Max, who was in a real bad state at first and is still a grumpy bugger, doesn`t really talk and won`t let us handle him (especially after we had to take to the vets as he got his beak wedged in one of his toys - the bird equivilent of a kid getting a saucepan stuck on his head).
For the most part it has been good, though hard at times - never, ever understimate the value of familiarity, that is what I`ve missed most in my time here ( suddenly even knowing which soap powder to buy can become an overwhelming decision), I now no longer have to stop and think so much about the stupid every day stuff. The hardest thing for me is not working, I seem to be unemployable, I don`t drive, although Im taking lessons and that will help I think.
I haven`t really suffered homesickness, though I`ve had the odd down moment when I`ve thought " what have we done" our lives have become more chilled and we do more as a family, that makes it worthwhile.

Gems

Great up date. We have been in WA nearly a year so its great to here a story from someone else who arrived around the same time.

Glad things are going well
Gems

gobbyjock

Thanks! It`s amazing how quickly it`s gone, almost as if the UK was someone else`s life.

little bear

I know I've already said it today but here it is officially

CONGRATUALTIONS

gobbyjock

Cheers mate!!Of course it wouldn`t have been so easy without some good mates I`ve made along the way

busterboy

Well done to you!

yanchep

Great to hear you are loving and living your dream. We are coming over in September to Perth, thinking maybe Joondalup/Currambine area. Only today I was getting a few jitters like 'r we really doing the right thing' and after reading your post, I do believe we are doing the right thing.

Hope all goes well for you for the rest of your time in Australia.

j and k

Hi glad to hear you're enjoying your new life...
We're coming over in sept too, we're staying in wanneroo.

These happy endings are good to hear.
Cheers Jason & Kate

yanchep

Have I got you guys right, didnt you have the little girl who had speech problems and was worried about the medical if they thought she had a form of autisim, (sorry if Im wrong about this) but if you are the guys than thankfully everything went good and you are all coming over in September.

Have you booked ya flights already, and the place where you will be going to is it really nice, is it anywhere near Joondalup area

mick69

Great to hear things are going so well Gobbyjock

Just little updates now and again so I can keep up with what you lot are up to

Heres to another good year.

Lynne x

gobbyjock

Hi Lynne!! Cheers mate Hope you are all ok - hows Co Durham???

PC Pom

"...though there were a few days spent sat in front of the fan in my bikini with an ice lolly"



Brilliant stuff!

little bear

Even the ones that can't spell?

Brisben

Good post and can agree entirely with the statement above, one year in for me also.

gobbyjock

I think the problem with migrating to the other side of the world is that all of a sudden you think about stuff a lot more. You analyze everything, probably because it is so life changing, once I stopped doing this and just thought ok lets try it, rather than, if I do this what will happen here and how will it effect that and when I was in the UK it was this....... It all became more relaxed, a kind of letting go I guess.