Quoll

Curious as to what you think will be "better" (said as I sit here in mid summer cloudy and rain forecast - makes a change from it being so damned hot I dont like to walk during the mid morning). The flies have been bad this summer too, I am going to buy a head net on my way into town today! You havent said how many of you - if you are a family coming on a temporary visa because you've said you've just got a job so sponsorship??? then, yes, I would be very concerned. If there is just 2 of you then you can think of it more as another adventure. Dont sell your home, take a career break, suck it and see. If you've got kids, will you be up for fees in school (some states do)? Will they be leaving good schools - that's a bit of a gamble because when your temporary visa ends (dont assume it will lead you to PR these days) they will be going home and you might have to renegotiate getting them back into schools. On balance I am in the "if it aint broke dont fix it" camp but I also believe in having adventures while you can do so without penalty, so if adventure is in your future go for it but if you aspire to "settled" then probably maybe dont.

You can't, in all honesty, take a kid out of their final year of school so, there at least I would be leaving them with a relative to at least finish A levels and consider their options. They are at a terrible age to transfer, being a bit too old to start year 11 and you can't drop them into Aus year 12 without having done year 11 not without significant disadvantage anyway. If they want to do Uni in UK then facilitate that, they'll be leaving home anyway. The 18 year old - in work or further education? If hanging around doing diddly squat then at least get them into work and see them settled independently (they're technically old enough to make their own decisions) but if you/they haven't validated visas then get them to do that before they cut loose. Your 15 year old - aspirations for Uni or heading for work? If Uni then I wouldn't be mucking up their education - could they stay with relatives to at least finish GCSE in case they do want to continue with UK education. Unfortunately you've chosen a bad time to move with respect to their education and, for me, personally, I wouldn't have been moving kids in their last years of secondary. Sadly, not everyone has the same aspirations as everyone else. There is no telling where any of them may be in 5 years time, they may want to be in Australia or they may have met the love of their life and be zipping off to live in Latvia or Arkansas you never know but we give them wings and teach them how to fly and hope that they don't land flat on their noses! I would imagine that no matter what you do there is going to be resentment on one side of the other - you resenting them for screwing up your dreams, them resenting you for screwing up their aspirations. Not going to be too many winners I fear but good luck with it.

They really do need to stamp on that risky loophole, especially when people can and should apply offshore. They can still take holidays to Aus but not move permanently until their visa is through.

Wouldn't think reciprocal Medicare would cover it, it's hardly necessary medical intervention. I think you would be liable for all costs. Your private health insurance may cover it if you've paid premiums for long enough and are beyond the waiting period. As long as the policy doesn't exclude ivf specifically.

No idea but for we motion sickers they're bloody miraculous! Wonder if I've got one left!

Not necessarily. I always show an Australian passport leaving Australia but I enter UK on a UK passport - probably because UK does a border visa for Australians so there is no visa check. At the check in desk in UK I have to show Australian passport in lieu of a visa for entry. I then use my UK passport for all travel until I reach Australia. The airline doesn't make a record of my passport number when I book the ticket, they don't need to.

They used to be called Scop here but I tried to get some for one of my trips and they looked at me very oddly. Might be able to get them on prescription but I haven't asked -yet!

They check at check in

Aha, travel sickness, know all about that one. I have been known to use Avomine - 24 hour tablets until I discovered that you can buy (not cheap) Hyoscine patches (maybe called Scopolomine or Scopoderm) at UK pharmacies - I think you can buy 2 without a prescription and they are magic. Stick them behind your ear and forget all about ever feeling queasy no matter how rough the trip. I dont think you can get them in Australia so I was agreeably surprised to find them OTC, albeit limited, in UK. They last for around 48 hours so, being a miser I have cut mine in half and each half does me for the Aus/UK trip but if in doubt, put a whole one on and be sure.

As long as they are prepared to take it home with them when they leave at the end of their 3 years, I dont see why not. People moving on temporary visas bring "stuff" with them all the time.

Nope, me neither

Also with an older age start in the Australian workforce (if you can get a job) you will have much less time to build up a reasonable retirement income and will likely be working into your 70s or 80s (heaven forbid). I, too, think it would have been much easier to get a job as a 60 something in UK (I was offered 3 and my DH was offered 2 even though we hadn't put in any applications and couldnt work anyway being carers for an elderly couple).

Good luck Bug!

You might want to consider an alternative. My parents visited for 6 months of every year for 16 years when they retired but then the travel got a bit much and they decided that their old age was better provided for in UK. They were in the fortunate position of building a granny flat on our block (thank heavens for the good old quarter arcre huh?) they bought a car which served as our second car from March to October when they went home and they spent their 6 months here on the golf course and travelling around the country. They really had the best of both worlds. They made friends here and retained their lifelong friends in UK. They always said how happy they were that they did get to see a lot of the grandkids growing up but even though they were on our block we weren't in each others pockets. They got travel insurance for each trip but reciprocal Medicare kicked in just once when dad had a TIA. I have a Canadian friend who does much the same when visiting her son in UK - airbnb seems to be her saviour for 2-3 month trips which she does every 9 months or so. When they weren't able to travel any more our eldest son happened to have emigrated back (well, he went on holiday and never returned) so they were able to attend some significant events in his career and we made sure that they got to meet their great granddaughters a couple of times for a couple of months and I visited every 6-9 months. Eventually we decided that they needed support so we went back and stayed in their back bedroom for 9 years and that actually worked well until dad decided that he really did need care and was happy in his "care Hotel" and we packed up his life and returned to Australia. Comparing what my parents had by way of support through the NHS and other social supports in their very old age with what my mother in law had here, I'd say they had a better outcome but old age is difficult and expensive wherever you are. Everything Marisawright has written is true. I think it is a real gamble about whether you gel with the place and find friendships - my parents did because they were "out there" people and they loved the heat. I haven't - even though I've been here over 40 years - I just have transients no matter how hard I've tried and the 9 years we had in UK were the happiest I've been in a long time - I hate the heat (and the flies do me in). Good luck with it. Being a Skype grandparent sucks but you do get used to it (never had all my grandkids on the same continent!) and when governments close borders and you don't have the freedom to come and go at will it does get difficult.

Yup, I was always brought up with the mantra that you cut your coat according to your cloth but I am guessing such concepts would be foreign to someone who has always had unlimited cloth!

No not really. Their foundation is registered in Delaware where they are required to account for only 5% of donations to be passed on to "worthy Causes" the remaining 95% may be used as tax write offs ie expenses. Delaware is apparently renowned for its generous tax write offs. Not sure how much their "foundation" is actually raking in. For the tax year 2020 they reported donations less than 50k to the IRS. If they were rolling in dough they wouldn't be whingeing that Charles had cut them off. Rumour has it that Spotify will be dumping them too because of failure to produce marketable material and who knows if/when Netflix will give them the flick.

I think that's right. Where I was in Cambridge, the Cambridge city U3A was largely run and patronised by academics so learning classical Greek or studying feminist literature would have been lead by ex professors whereas in wider Cambridgeshire you're more likely to get foraging and jam making or countryside walks led by WI members. I have a feeling that Canberra is probably going to be more the Cambridge than the Cambridgeshire option but, tbh, I don't really have the inclination to find out! Not unless there's a course on genealogy in Germany for rank beginners! Or maybe overcoming family history brick walls.

Most of my UK friends were heavily into U3A but AFAIK only one of my Canberra friends because she wanted to learn bridge. The UK ones were into line dancing, French, Roman History, knitting, poetry and a few other things I can't remember. I guess it's just what crosses your bows wherever you are.

Oh dear, poor you. It wont take long for the resentment to kick in if you are having to live in the inlaws pockets. For us it was a good 12 hour drive back in the day (marginally closer now the roads have been improved LOL) and that was just about right. We both had to learn a new place, make new acquaintances, make a similar effort to see our families and they us.

Yes, if he is not 7 before 30 June 2022 he will be in year 1 in 2022. In NSW the cut off is 31 July but not so many May/June/July babies actually start the year that they technically can - it means they are very young going to Uni and any immaturity does tend to show up in those later HS years. The states do have a bit of staggering of school term dates but they all have 200 school days a year - they stagger to help stop pressure on holiday destinations. There has been more of an effort to implement an Australia wide curriculum over the past decade but there are still all sorts of state specific decisions. It would make life much easier for everyone if all states fell into line but they wont.

No idea - when is his birthday and when does he turn 7? It's a foreign country with different cut off dates - heck, even the states can't agree on cut off dates! Queensland is 30 June so if your child turns 7 before 30 June 2022 they would be in year 2 in 2022. That's technically the situation but many schools will advise that a child whose birthday is, say, April to June, might go into year 1 as that is likely where most of their age cohort will be (holding the younger kids back a year before starting school is quite normal, especially for boys!). Fitting in with a social peer group is considered better than hot housing and they take into account things like physical development, global skills, social skills etc. Please don't think of it or talk about it as repeating because he won't have done year 1 in Australia before! You will probably find that his core literacy and numeracy skills are well in advance of his age cohort to begin with but there may be other things they're better at, like independent learning, experimentation and research.

What else do you teach? History is usually part of the HASS curriculum (humanities and social sciences). Very rarely would you get single subject history and even then it will be focused on Australian history and Australia's place in the world. Most secondary teachers have more than one string to their bow.

They were but all those poor little fans who pour their hard earned pennies into their coffers (so that up to 95% can be skimmed off to help pay their books) think they're doing a Good Thing and donating to charity!

And to add to the H&M debacle - I didn't list all the charities I had given money to on my Christmas cards this year - is that now the thing too? Especially when you give away money that other folk have given you (once you've taken out your 95% living expenses). Naff in the extreme.

Nah, she's generally bilingual! She was very pleased with her haul and would happily acknowledge either!