Quoll

We ponged back early on in the pandemic. Packed up and left in 2 days, cleaned the house, locked up and hoped it would complete on a negotiated sale. We were on day 2 on compulsory home isolation but it was a very haphazard process back then because we flew from Sydney to Canberra and there was no compulsory mask wearing back then (we did!). Our son had set us up brilliantly (he’s long been a prepper so he knew what to do) and we called our local IGA who were happy to do home delivery. I found indoor walking exercises on YouTube which I really enjoyed and also had my staples of body weight exercise. It’d be different now because of the guarded isolation in first port of arrival but the basics would remain the same. I had a lot of yarn on hand so I was happy! Keep calm and carry on! Don’t get your knickers in a knot and just go with the flow (and hope you aren’t put in a room where people above you make a load of noise!). Certainly, home isolation was a doddle.

If you've got another passport then you're home and hosed. If you've only got one and it's out of date and you're in a foreign country then that's a bit more urgent I would have thought

And for the second time this year my ex daughter in law and (this time just one) granddaughter are packing as we speak, hoping to beat the closure tomorrow midnight and return to Canberra from the Gippy bush where they have been isolating. They evacuated from Marlo ahead of the huge bushfires over the New Year with much the same rush. Fortunately my son and the other granddaughter returned on Friday.

Yup, always happens. Best send it off smartish because you don’t want to be passportless in a foreign country! Take a photocopy just so you know the old number at least.

Indeed, AHPRA has always been a sluggard nightmare! I thought they asked for an Australian address as part of the process. It'd be a bugger to get yourself all set up with AHPRA then not get a visa but you've had to pay for a visit to get your AHPRA registration done. Swings and roundabouts I guess.

AHPRA isnt a nursing company, it's a registration agency (a nightmare to deal with!) and unless you have a visa, given the current travel restrictions, you could find that you arent able to get into the country anyway. Do you need to be registered with AHPRA before you get your visa? (I've no idea, I would have thought you would have got the visa first because then you'd have an idea of where you are going to end up) How much will you need to save - gee, that's a piece of string kinda question. Having just moved back to my own home, I've been haemorrhaging cash for the most trivial stuff - car, insurances, basics etc etc and we dont have any kids, mortgage, etc. In addition you will need to plan for being out of work for a period - they used to reckon 6 months. You'll also have the visa costs, transportation of your stuff, fares etc - I dont think you will get much change from £50k but if you do that's a bonus and you'll have a buffer.

Canberra has a beach (theoretically!) it's just that it is about 220km away from where we all live! There are closer beaches - Bateman's Bay at 150km and we have lakes - several lakes but people generally dont swim in them, most swimming is pool swimming. Outdoor lifestyle??? I am always intrigued by that, what, exactly do you mean by it? People go outside for sure - lots of people walk around the lake, walk up the mountains, generally potter about. BBQs? I am sure some people have lots of bbqs, there are public ones in most of the parks. Ride a bike? Sure, lots of bike paths. Sit on the verandah sipping pina coladas every night? Possibly - I am allergic to mosquitoes and I abhor flies so not so much for me. Sunbathing in the back garden? Hmm - today it is below freezing and I wont be going anywhere without my fleece. In the summer I prefer not to be burnt to a crisp so if I exercise I have to go out by 6am to get it done. Canberra has a lot to offer, real estate is expensive for what you get tbh. It used to be the home of the "quarter acre block" and some of us are lucky to have one within a half hour walk of the centre of everything but they come at a price. The further out you go into the new soulless suburbs the cheaper the accommodation and the more it costs you to get into town. There are lots of suburbs and pretty much everyone lives in one of them. Lots of sports clubs, interest based activities. The hospitals are OK, the schools are OK, transport is OK, the weather is seasonal so we get spring and autumn which are pretty good. It's cold in winter and hot in summer, we are prone to drought like the rest of Australia. You could do much worse!

I'd agree with Marisa - look back at what you wrote when you were unhappy. It is so very easy to compare the "bad of the now" with the "good of the then" and of course the bad will always come off second best. There were times in this past 9 years where even I have looked fondly on Australia because at times the going got really tough. I am back in Australia now and though the loathing I had for it back then isnt as strong, all those other little niggles that eventually drove me to dislike it are still there. You'll quite likely feel the same way you did back then and if there are bumps in the road you will begin to question why you ever left (again!). It may all be moot though, it doesn't look like you'll have much chance of a permanent move because you are over the age (and remember that Australia is a very ageist society with the over 50s being over the hill no matter how fabulous they might be) and is e-commerce on the visa skills list???/

The usual rule of thumb is 5 years so you really do need to talk to one of the agents who specialise in medical treatments - George Lombard or Peter Bollard are usually mentioned in this regard.

Are the children Australian? If, for example you are married to an Aussie and the kids are citizens by descent then, no, they won’t pay. Otherwise if you are all foreigners then yes you probably will as the general rule of thumb is that your bridging visa has the same conditions as the visa you walk in on. Why not apply offshore now and be done with it. You probably won’t be getting in for a while anyway. Fees vary according to age but think average $10-15k pa so, much easier to apply offshore and get it all at local cost when you arrive.

DH sent one like that to the grandson about 3 or 4 weeks ago and it sat in the Sydney office all that time, then a couple of days ago there was a notice on the tracker that said they were going to send some mail by sea because of a lack of air couriers. He was getting miffed at that point, then 2 days later it was in UK and the next day it was delivered to the grandson. Ironically, a week to 10 days after DH posted his item, I posted a large letter to the same grandson and he got it the day before he got the DH's = nothing special, not tracked, just mailed! But I did get a letter a few days ago from UK which had been posted on 27 March!!! It's totally up the creek!

There’s always a risk when applying on shore you’d be much better putting your offshore application in now and waiting until it arrives. Just because the end of the year may be good for you, that’s hardly a compelling reason! Get it in right now and hope for the best. Even if you do travel in the meantime, it’s hardly a hardship to pop off to NZ for the day to validate the visa and you get peace of mind knowing you’re not languishing on a bridging visa for years. Get your kids’ passports sorted while you wait and your husband’s U.K. citizenship if he doesn’t already have it, you never know if you might want to return at some stage. There’s no telling when casual travel may resume so you might as well make the most of it. It’s a shame you didn’t Apply for your visa a while ago then you’d be sitting pretty.

So sorry to hear about the loss of your dad. It's a bugger, isnt it? I think you could do the urgent personal business thing - are you his executor? I guess they could argue that you could hire a firm to clear his house and then you could put it on the market remotely but that wouldnt account for personal belongings which might be included under his will. Whilst it is perfectly possible to sell a house from overseas it isnt exactly a walk in the park! I have yet to deal with will execution being overseas but I think I might be in for a rocky road and might have to return to UK to at least get that under way but as more things are being done remotely these days it might be easier than it once would have been. I assume your mother in law is a separate issue - is she independent at the moment? Will you be looking at arranging ongoing care for her or some other thing. In her 70s she might be considered quite independent and able to take responsibility for her own decisions. I think an agent would be your best bet to make the strongest argument. I assume you'd be planning on going for some time though - the thought of 2 weeks isolation on arrival in UK then 2 weeks isolation on arrival back makes any short term visit impractical (believe me, I've considered it recently) - I guess 3 months would be more palatable.

Wherever you can get a job! If you like it, you win. If you don’t like it you move on once you’ve had a look and decided what you prefer.

Kids in Australia move all the time and it wouldnt be unusual for a kid to be starting in Mid April if that is what their parents are doing. Unless you have a child going into year 11 I would say dont worry about the start of the academic year, wait until your visa has been approved. No saying whether tourist visas will be being issued before Christmas or not. If a kid is starting year 11 then probably send the child with dad to get settled in.

Unless she’s a psychologist or a nurse she’s not going to get much traction with CBT (or any other mental health for that matter) for employment prospects. Check out AHPRA as most mental health practitioners reside in one of their categories.

I second the idea of the MoveCube - we found Seven Seas excellent to deal with and the Cube was perfect for what we wanted. They even rocked up with a starter pack when they checked the access to site. It wont sound cheap but it really is very good value (no affiliation etc etc)

Hate to tell you but you’ll probably never leave. I’d say this is probably it for you, unless you can persuade the family to move before the kids get entrenched with their own families and financially it becomes impossible for you to move. I really feel for you, I’ve felt the same - and I thought it would all be ok in retirement but initially it wasn’t - my DH had zero intention of even visiting uk for a holiday let alone live there. He had very different ideas for our retirement and we both thought the other knew. In the end, one of our sons went on holiday to U.K. and didn’t come back, he got into a great career, marriage, a home and family. We went back for his wedding in 2011 and I had to drag my DH there for that. In the end, we didn’t come back to live here again until mid March this year. My elderly parents needed care and I’m an only child. We are back now and though my loathing isn’t quite as bad as it had become I still don’t belong. My head has always said that this is home but my heart never got with the plan. Best advice to you is to either address it now and move to where you belong or draw a line and understand it will never happen. If the exogenous depression gets you down then talk to your GP and try and get hooked up with a CBT or ACT psychologist- they’ve got strategies that can help you get through every day. Won’t fix it but might make it more liveable. Lots of people won’t be able to understand your displacement but many of us do “get it”. It’s not logical or pragmatic and you’re probably an inherently strong and independent woman but if the place doesn’t float your boat, it really doesn’t and no amount of rational thinking can make that old boat float. We just get good at learning to live with it! Good luck!

Where will you be working? In this day and age that’s step 1.

Usual rule of thumb - do the coin toss - if your response to the first answer is "best of three" you know what you need to do. I would once have considered myself a very successful migrant but 30 years down the track I was trapped and loathed it. I've just returned from nearly 9 years in UK and without a doubt they were the best 9 years I've had of late. It really is a stupid ephemeral thing - belonging. If you dont belong, you dont belong I reckon and trying to be rational and pragmatic about it just doesnt work. For me it's a whole load of things - colours, humour, friendships, variety, history - the works. Marisa said it - dont let yourself get past the point of no return! I had to laugh at your comment about better weather though - in Ballarat????? (sorry, the in laws live there and the weather has done all sorts of weird things when we've been there, including the year it snowed on Christmas Day!!!! Bushfires in Canberra and sleet in Ballarat, go figure!). Good luck with your decision making!

And even at the end of it, don’t expect to find a job as a teacher! Not in a place that anyone wants to live in anyway.

I’m still unclear. Are you aiming to move to Australia or just have a couple of years here? If you aim to move (and stay) then go for the PR and as long as you arrive before your son is just 16 or just about to turn 16 to enter year 11 then he will be ok with Aus education. If you only want a 2/3 year visit then I’d say you’re probably going to be short on time but could opt for the TSS and aim to get him back to uk to do GCSE and Alevels if he has any aspirations of further education but you’d have to leave about now and that’s not going to be possible for a whole range of reasons. Don’t think that he could do yr 12 In Australia then go back to a U.K. Uni - Aus scores don’t rank as well as A levels and he would be up for international fees at a U.K. Uni (yes, even though he is a citizen) because he won’t have been resident in country for 3 years before starting Uni.

Not being nosy but how old are you? If you’ve worked in youth justice for over 20 years you are probably hurtling rapidly towards the point of no return - 45. Beyond that, it’s pretty much too late. Talk to an agent and see if there is anything that fits the bill but, realistically, it may be a non starter - Australia is quite picky about who it takes.

I’m a little confused about your time line imperatives - do you want him back in UK by Sept 21 for year 9? That’d be running it pretty close! Remember that the Australian education system is not the British system. Year level names may be different and the essential Aus years are 11&12 which start in the January of the year that the child turns 16. (No GCSEs in Aus). Pretty much across the board in Aus a child aged 12 now would be in year 7 so in 2021 would be in year 8 (unless they’ve only just turned 12 in which case they would be year 6 this year) so you wouldn’t be aiming for year 9 in 2021. Are you intending to stay only 2/3 years? In which case the issue is when will he need to be back in order to avoid being penalised for not having been in the U.K. system? In answer to your question though, yes, in some states you will have to pay school fees - anything between 5 and 10kpa depending on where you go. Some states don’t (yet) charge so very much luck of the draw where you end up. Also, yes, you will be covered by the reciprocal agreement for Medicare but that isn’t full Medicare and it covers only “necessary” medical interventions. Some things you may consider necessary may be technically elective, so budget in private health care insurance as well. Another thing to bear in mind is the cost of flying back for 3 weeks every year (bang goes your annual leave and a huge chunk of your salary ) so, at 12+ a trip alone might be the more attainable option but, given the current C19 situation with possible quarantine implications that might be a trickier prospect. I sent my son back at 9 on his own, it wasn’t a problem.

Why would you not apply for an offshore child visa? If he’s going to rock up as a tourist then apply for the onshore visa, he’d be up for international fees until his substantive visa came through. Not sure that I’d be choosing NT as a centre of educational excellence though. If he gets his visa offshore then he’s Not going to pay school fees, other than what everyone else pays. Short term pain, long term gain.