Quoll

Indeed - hope you're well now!

That might be the way to go. My DH had no family in UK so he rarely made the trip with me back in the day. Then my son emigrated back (accidentally) so DH was marginally more inclined to visit but even then there were some milestones in our son's life that he missed (some he really regretted). On balance I would say that farewells get much much harder as you see your parents ageing and each time you do go away with the "is this the last time?" Ringing in your brain. One of the last times I howled all the way to London on the train - the poor lass opposite me didn't know what hit her but, to her credit, she was an amazing people person (hairdresser) and she really helped me (though she will probably never know just how much!). Then we went on holiday to UK for my sons wedding and the DH took one look at my parents and said "we can't leave them alone here like this " so we haven't - for 8.5 years now. Now we are facing moving back again and there's just my dad left but now he decided he likes being in a care home and so we will leave him there. I'm hoping that will be easier. We are currently on holiday in Australia and the farewell wasn't too bad, next time it will be worse I suspect but we don't have much choice. I know your case is different with very demanding parents - at least my parents never asked or expected it of us. But I always took the view that as I was the one to leave it was my responsibility to keep the family connections going. My parents weren't averse to travel though and enjoyed 6 months in Australia every year for 16 years. I don't think there is a magic answer, you do have to be very self sufficient and selfish to be a good migrant and I guess how well you can cope with any (self induced, not imposed) guilt really determines how you manage in the long term. One thing I do know, having watched my mum deteriorate, and pass away, and just a couple of weeks ago watched my aunt die, that on balance I would prefer to get "the call" rather than dragging through life waiting for their end. I love my dad very much but am hoping that knowing I am leaving him in a caring environment will make that easier for me. I think he will be OK - he tells me he is going to go quietly and I hope for his sake that he does (nearly 96, it'll happen!) Have a good trip back and know that you're a strong woman who can cope with anything!!

Yup, been a bugger hasn't it! When it rolled in the other night it was like being hit with a dusty blanket in two breaths!

Yes, it is as bad as the media is making out - although not up in Brissie at the moment. Gippsland Vic and NSW - mainly the southern coast and southern inland are bearing the brunt at the moment but who knows where will be hit next. Even if you're in a city and not impacted directly, smoke travels. Canberra had just had 3 days of hazardous air quality although it's eased off a tad today. My DH and I just went to the local gym to sign up for a month because the warnings all say don't exercise outside (bloody frustrating as I want to walk up our local mountain) but the gym wasnt staffed because of the air quality and members were advised that exercise was at their own risk. The advice is to wear P2 masks outside - feel like a Charlie but at least the lungs aren't aching. Insurance premiums reflect the risk so if you're in a Bushfire prone area, premiums will be higher - read the fine print!!!!! I know when we lost 500 homes in Canberra, more than you'd think weren't insured at all - including some mansion type ones (they were screwed!!!!). We found that the insurance companies were very quick off the mark and whilst that sounded good, there was a bit of a sinister underlying reason - once the insurance settled, that left the destroyed block still owned by the homeowner but not covered by any third party liability insurance - and burnt out blocks can be lethal!!!! Some homeowners were stung when people who shouldn't have been on the block were rooting round trying to see what they could find then injured themselves. There's usually a Bushfire bonus payment for all properties lost - can't remember how much my son got but around $20-30k I think. He wasn't insured as it was a self built self sufficient mud bag place right on the edge of the National Park (predicted to be burned out again tomorrow so thank God he gave that idea up!!!) It's Australia, expect it to happen and if it doesn't then you're bloody lucky.

I just wanted to add - look at your friends, pick one or two who can keep their own counsel, are strong in themselves and whose opinion and support you would value - never underestimate the power of a solid friendship. You don’t need to earbash them daily but it will help if someone knows what’s happening for you and who can be a shoulder when the going gets tough.

I think you've got bigger problems than just a relocation. Marriage counselling is the way to go but if you have a controlling perfect person in the counselling relationship your chances of a mutually acceptable compromise are going to have to be hard fought. I wish you luck but caution against a knee jerk return to be "nice" because then you would be screwed as the Family Court of Australia would never let you leave with your kids. Good luck!

We didn't, just the general categories.

Have you thought about moving back to U.K. to help your mum out?

It's bloody hot and very smokey at the moment. The Braddon flats have gone and new swanky apartments (and a new Road) take their place. The bus timetables have changed yet again and for some that's apparently a disaster. Can see no reason why I would ever need the tram but we don't live out in Gungahlin. I'm back on a short holiday before a permanent return and the biggest shock to my system is the cost of everything. Still lots of building going on but otherwise, the nature strips are messier than I remember, the shopping centres are much the same (except the food Hall in the Canberra Centre now seems to be a slots arcade). I still struggle to get cream with my coffee but there are more water fountains about. If I didn't have to come back I wouldn't - Cambridge offers so much more but them's the breaks!

We’ve just used a MoveCube - packed all our boxes and packed them all into the move cube. Worked really well.

Honestly? I don't think you have much of a chance there. £70k will go in the blink of an eye especially if you can't work. Most of it will go in international student fees up front. I'd agree with the others, a more sensible option is for your daughter to get her degree in UK (unless she is absolutely minted) and maybe get an experience term or semester in Australia if she is very lucky. Then once she has got some post graduate experience under her belt she might be able to apply for a permanent visa in her own right and then, once she's settled you could supply for a CPV (which would see almost all of your £70k disappear in visa fees). Long - very long term plan and you'd probably be closer to 70 before it all happened. Talk to a registered agent by all means but be prepared for disappointment

You could try a Return Resident Visa - you've got strong family ties and you never know your luck.

ACT college positive are highly fought over and highly unlikely to be single subject.- the usual pathway is for teachers to have done their time in HS before landing a plum college position which they like to hang on to for as long as they can. He's have more chance of success if he can stretch to teach advanced maths as well as chemistry but it's see several years in HS before he gets a college role. If he were to give it a go, he should apply for a sabbatical and hang on to his big to see how things turn out so he can go back if it all goes belly up. Wouldn't be doing it for the "better future for the kids" - it won't necessarily be better, it'll probably be different but there's nothing magical about it and if they're anything like many kids they'll be gone once they've done uni and headed off to pastures greener. That's not to say they'll be very disadvantaged, they shouldn't be, but there are often more and better opportunities for them outside Australia.

Congratulations on your decision! Do you not have an old uk passport? You might not have to submit all original documents if you’re just going for renewal no matter how long out of date. If you’re anything like me you’ll love it but you will certainly be warned that uk has changed a lot in 30 years, and it has! If you look at it as an adventure moving forward you should be fine! Don’t expect to step back into your old life, you’ll need to make new friends and connections and in lots of ways it will be the same as if you were moving to a brand new country. All the very best, it’s worked out brilliantly for me but we are not in the process of moving back to Aus - expected, and I’m ok with it ... just! Now in Canberra in a holiday and our permanent return will be a month or two down the track after we get back. At this moment I’m not quite vomiting at the thought but it’s close!!! If this was my actual return I’d be closer to a basket case than I currently am.

I know you are a newbie but, honestly, that has to be the worst advice ever given. The outcome of following that advice would be far worse than returning home because, as others have said, it could lead to an effectively permanent exclusion.

That's what we thought! Too stressful by half!!! We certainly weren't expecting so much space left over as our mock up tesselation was much closer to the dimensions but guess DH must have had a misspent youth playing Tetris or something. I don't think we would have got away with medium but we could have included the freezer and tumble dryer if we'd not decided to leave them behind.

So sorry to hear about your dad's condition but it's one of the things we warn people about when they decide to do the onshore route, there is always a chance (increasingly as you get older) that one or other will fail the medical and have to return. I agree, on an individual level it sucks but as a general rule there have to be regulations and that's one of them and is widely known before people apply. I guess your best hope is that they won't estimate beyond the threshold but if they do then you have to strategise how to support them when they go home and whether you guys do too or not. The best advice comes from agents who discursive in medical conditions - George Lombard or Peter Bollard are the two usually recommended in this regard.

My husband just did all ours last week and yes it did it all electronically. We have a stand by excel spreadsheet with the salient items but, as above we used generic descriptions including Family History documents, wool, clothes, books but my DH is a little over enthusiastic and he did go into much more detail on each of the boxes. We set out a space in the dining room and measured out the dimensions of the move cube then packed things and stacked them to ensure we had enough space (we did, with quite a bit to spare) but we packed not only the Seven Seas boxes they brought but some I had bought from another storage place and loads of smaller plastic useful boxes. The container arrived and we had packed it within 30 minutes and it was gone within the hour (the driver had coffee.) We put items that had to be declared at the front, numbered and weighed all the boxes as we packed them so we were within our weight limit (lots of books and some tools weigh really heavy)

We haven't insured and our cube went last week. Generally we are your cautious but the 7 Seas insurance seemed like a right faff and if it takes off the shop we would never be able to replace much of it anyway. I'm not sure how I feel about it actually. We had more space than we needed.

All depending on when your partner was born, (after 1983 is good and given your birthdate, most likely) then she, too can just apply for a passport given that her mother is a British born woman. She will need her mother's birth certificate along with her own (and her parents' marriage certificate too if appropriate) - she will be a citizen by descent, as will your daughter (through you, a British born person assuming you are listed on her birth certificate). Very straightforward on both counts

I’d agree with that - as far as whatever “settled” means. I guess the niggles started for me at about 20 years and hit peak loathing at 30. But right at the beginning I just landed and slotted right in. I don’t think there’s an x time that you have to bang your head against the wall for in hope of making your headache go away.

The OP said temporary when in fact the visa they are referring to is a provisional visa and the rules are different. Provisional visa holders pay what everyone else pays, temporary visa holders are subject to fees in some states. It’d be wise for the op to check up on the visa number for sure.

I suppose you've checked out your partner's family history? If he had a British born grandparent lurking in there then an ancestry visa is the way to go rather than the spouse visa which has several little irritating issues - like your inability to access some benefits because you accessing a benefit would indirectly benefit him and the application is specific that he will receive no government benefits for the duration of the visa. Also, there are periodic evaluative of your funds to make sure you still comply with the financial requirements. At this point, too, even if he doesn't have a UK born grandparent does he have any other European ancestry which works entitle him to a EU passport which might be enough in the first instance for a move.

You actually cant just move interstate, your husband can go to court to demand that you return and the chances are you would never be allowed to leave the place you are currently living in - even moving 20 miles away, if it interfered with contact, potentially, could be deemed a no no by the court. Moreover, you are required to advise Immigration that your relationship has changed so you could find yourself being required to leave the country but refused leave to take your kids with you. You definitely need a good agent and good lawyer's advice - the one for the immigration status and the other for your rights in the relationship. This is far from a simple "I am going to bugger off and start a new life" scenario unfortunately

Dont often disagree with Bunbury - in an ideal world I think this might be true but, sadly, the world is far from ideal and what starts out as deep love sometimes can end up as deep loathing when one's actions impinges on the other's mental health to such a point that all love is lost. It's hard to hang on to a person who, even unwittingly, hurts you. I think I would have described myself as one of Marisa's nomads for 3 decades or so - it wasnt a problem, I believed I was free to go where I wanted and do what I wanted but when the man I love more dearly than life itself said that one of my options was not on his radar then whammy! The longing to "belong" after that time just became almost too much to bear and whilst I wasnt actively suicidal, my behaviour was very self destructive as a way of coping (I was a couch potato who ate - I saw some pictures yesterday evening and they were ghastly!!!!) - that destruction can take many forms as your mental health crumbles. I probably knew exactly what I was doing but after a life time in the mental health industry I didnt think it would attack me in quite the way it did - some things I knew about academically and may once have had the disdain of those for whom it hadn't happened, became an uncontrollable monster in my life. Dispassionately standing back and looking at what happened I am surprised that I succumbed but there ya go, it was a perfect storm, in hindsight As it happens, we did love each other enough and it has worked out brilliantly - I think for both of us. He didnt get his self sufficient life in the bush but with the advantage of 10 years of retirement and a few health problems I think he is sanguine about that now and realises (especially after the DS got totally burned out in a bush fire) that it wasnt quite the paradise he anticipated. I got a period of "belonging" which has been enough to kick start my life again - slimmer, fitter and generally much happier. The key to all here is compromise. That I survived at all was due to the compromise positions we both took and whilst, for neither of us, was it ideal, it was liveable. That's why I think counselling is a good way to help you work out what you are prepared to compromise on and what you would hope for in return. Some of us, I guess, are lucky with the people we love but you never can tell back at the beginning, can you?!