Never thought I’d be posting here

[SophW]

Some lovely, balanced comments here  I can't comment on living in Aus, but just to say that if you read the news at the moment, you would believe the UK is practically a warzone. The riots are appalling and the majority of people do not support this thuggery.

 

Aside from that, places are still busy and it's still a beautiful country. As someone said, they are both first world countries with issues like everywhere else. Experiences also heavily depend on where you live; the retail park near us is always heaving, but go the same distance in the other direction and you'll find boarded up shops etc.

Best of luck with your decision! 

[Cheery Thistle]

11 hours ago, SophW said:

Some lovely, balanced comments here  I can't comment on living in Aus, but just to say that if you read the news at the moment, you would believe the UK is practically a warzone. The riots are appalling and the majority of people do not support this thuggery.

 

Aside from that, places are still busy and it's still a beautiful country. As someone said, they are both first world countries with issues like everywhere else. Experiences also heavily depend on where you live; the retail park near us is always heaving, but go the same distance in the other direction and you'll find boarded up shops etc.

Best of luck with your decision! 

We move in November….leave here in October for a wee holiday on the way over. 
 

Yes they are both developed countries but Aus doesn’t have extensive and widespread rioting and people getting shot and stabbed on a daily basis.  3 teens shot in London yesterday.

I am hearing of a LOT of people struggling to get work in the UK at the moment too, and I mean a lot. A lady at my work is at the end of her contract, experienced, successful established career etc and has been trying for 6 months to get something….nada. Qualified teachers can’t get a post, my niece has been qualified 2 years and is moving from temp contract to temp contract. Nurses now saying the same. Young people literally applying for jobs for more than a year before finally getting a part time job in McDonald’s. 

Saw this post on my local community page yesterday - a lot of parents saying their young adult children can’t get work. 
 

I had a wobble last night about leaving my dad but honestly I know I’m doing the right thing for my 11 year old and that is vastly more important. Anyone bringing their kids back to this tension needs their head read (sorry in advance to upset people as I know it will, but it’s true, the tension is actually palpable). 
 

 

 

[bonanza]

Was the same for my friends and I in the UK in 1981. I worked all kind of temp jobs (including promoting double glazing and Woolworths) till I got myself good experience and eventually landed a great job which kicked off a really good career. One of my friends had a first class MA from Oxford. He grafted for 2 years on a bakery night shift to raise money to train as a solicitor by distance learning.  Nothing much has changed. You create your own chances.

[Nemesis]

2 hours ago, Cheery Thistle said:

We move in November….leave here in October for a wee holiday on the way over. 
 

Yes they are both developed countries but Aus doesn’t have extensive and widespread rioting and people getting shot and stabbed on a daily basis.  3 teens shot in London yesterday.

I am hearing of a LOT of people struggling to get work in the UK at the moment too, and I mean a lot. A lady at my work is at the end of her contract, experienced, successful established career etc and has been trying for 6 months to get something….nada. Qualified teachers can’t get a post, my niece has been qualified 2 years and is moving from temp contract to temp contract. Nurses now saying the same. Young people literally applying for jobs for more than a year before finally getting a part time job in McDonald’s. 

Saw this post on my local community page yesterday - a lot of parents saying their young adult children can’t get work. 
 

I had a wobble last night about leaving my dad but honestly I know I’m doing the right thing for my 11 year old and that is vastly more important. Anyone bringing their kids back to this tension needs their head read (sorry in advance to upset people as I know it will, but it’s true, the tension is actually palpable). 
 

 

 

Best hurry to the Promised Land then, people never get stabbed or shot there.

Edited August 9 by Nemesis

[Cheery Thistle]

46 minutes ago, Nemesis said:

Best hurry to the Promised Land then, people never get stabbed or shot there.

Get a life. You and I both know that’s not what I said. 

[Cheery Thistle]

53 minutes ago, bonanza said:

Was the same for my friends and I in the UK in 1981. I worked all kind of temp jobs (including promoting double glazing and Woolworths) till I got myself good experience and eventually landed a great job which kicked off a really good career. One of my friends had a first class MA from Oxford. He grafted for 2 years on a bakery night shift to raise money to train as a solicitor by distance learning.  Nothing much has changed. You create your own chances.

I’m so glad things have progressed and improved in 40 years(!). I don’t think the 80’s are what we should be aiming for if my childhood was anything to go by! 
It’s not just those starting out who are finding things tough. The lady at my work has 20 years experience and is extremely well qualified. But to be honest I should know better than to try and bring any kind of reality about the UK to this forum. If you’re a teacher or nurse and there’s no jobs in that field it can be very tricky to pivot elsewhere, especially when the market has been flooded with similarly qualified people. 

[Cheery Thistle]

It really doesn’t take long for the ‘well back in my day I was picking potatoes, now I’m a millionaire’ brigade to come out on this forum. 
Or people trying to say the pressure cooker situation we have in the UK right now is the same as Aus. It’s not. Nobody is saying Aus is perfect and the UK is awful. But you’d need to be deaf dumb and blind to think the UK is an awesome place to be right now. Actually, maybe that’s the problem. 

[Ausvisitor]

7 minutes ago, Cheery Thistle said:

I’m so glad things have progressed and improved in 40 years(!). I don’t think the 80’s are what we should be aiming for if my childhood was anything to go by! 
It’s not just those starting out who are finding things tough. The lady at my work has 20 years experience and is extremely well qualified. But to be honest I should know better than to try and bring any kind of reality about the UK to this forum. If you’re a teacher or nurse and there’s no jobs in that field it can be very tricky to pivot elsewhere, especially when the market has been flooded with similarly qualified people. 

I'm not going to dispute your friends experience as I suspect you have no reason to have done anything other than just report the situation as you know it to be. 

I am surprised though as the UK has a massive under supply of teachers and nurses at the moment so can't work out why they would wb struggling to find a role.

I guess maybe they aren't keen on moving to where the openings are or taking a lower paid role than the currently have (both of which I can understand)

 

It's easy to see why people think AUS is the answer but actually when you look at it if they had been willing to move miles from family, reprove (and maybe even retrain) themselves in their field back in the UK they would have made a successful there too, after all everyone getting a job in AUS from the UK has made some pretty big accommodations in getting that role.

[Ausvisitor]

10 minutes ago, Cheery Thistle said:

It really doesn’t take long for the ‘well back in my day I was picking potatoes, now I’m a millionaire’ brigade to come out on this forum. 
Or people trying to say the pressure cooker situation we have in the UK right now is the same as Aus. It’s not. Nobody is saying Aus is perfect and the UK is awful. But you’d need to be deaf dumb and blind to think the UK is an awesome place to be right now. Actually, maybe that’s the problem. 

Honestly AUS has some pretty big structural problems now, the mortgage / affordability crisis has hit way harder than the UK and it's only a few months before huge swathes of middle income earners are in massive mortgage stress (if not already)

AUS has never had the BNP / National Front brigades that exist in the UK so the "pot-stirring" to cause trouble at any slight issue just doesn't exist here, so you don't have the riots but the underlying causes are still here (and arguably more intense) but as people the AUS are more inward and deal with problems without hitting the streets 

[Cheery Thistle]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66491354.amp
 

I can’t think of any reason why people wouldn’t want to relocate from Scotland to England right now….

 

[Ausvisitor]

Just now, Cheery Thistle said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66491354.amp
 

I can’t think of any reason why people wouldn’t want to relocate from Scotland to England right now….

 

I can think of at least one (tongue in cheek)... In the UK it's nearly 30c at the moment, in Melbourne it's f'ing freezing...

No-one on neighbours, home and away or wanted down under ever tells you in the south east (Syd,Mel etc) it rains all the bloody time and gets really cold... 

Kylie lied to us all !

[Cheery Thistle]

Basically bottom line is that teachers and nurses are ‘needed’ but there’s no money in system to pay for them. 
I bumped in to my old boss who is now head of education for a local authority. They told me that there is no money, all the meetings are about budget cuts, there are no permanent jobs and the level of staff absence is immense due to the conditions everyone is working in. 

[Cheery Thistle]

1 minute ago, Ausvisitor said:

I can think of at least one (tongue in cheek)... In the UK it's nearly 30c at the moment, in Melbourne it's f'ing freezing...

No-one on neighbours, home and away or wanted down under ever tells you in the south east (Syd,Mel etc) it rains all the bloody time and gets really cold... 

Kylie lied to us all !

It’s about 14 degrees in Scotland today. And raining. That’s summer for ya! 

[Cheery Thistle]

Sorry just to clarify I am no longer in teaching so the experienced lady at my work is not a teacher - it’s another field altogether. It’s a fairly widespread issue. She is not Scotland-based either, so not just Scotland. 

[Ausvisitor]

For all it's good points Australia has some major negatives that the UK does much better

Sport - Australia has foraged a US style path in sports where everything is about high scores, half time entertainment and level setting each year so everyone has a chance next year (and the concept of a grand final knockout to decide who wins after a 30 game season is just f'ing mental)

Beer - good god the stuff here is crap, it's only palettable because it's served so cold it freezes your taste buds so you don't have to taste it

Public transport - doesn't exist outside of the CBD of major cities and then it's still pretty poor

 

But happy here for now, but then we've lived all over the world and life is what you make it

[Cheery Thistle]

I have taken on board what the sensible people here have said and I have been to see for myself. I know where my life will be better. I don’t need to move to prove myself or to get a job - I’ve done well where I am. 

[calNgary]

4 minutes ago, Cheery Thistle said:

I have taken on board what the sensible people here have said and I have been to see for myself. I know where my life will be better. I don’t need to move to prove myself or to get a job - I’ve done well where I am. 

Good on you. With that positive mindset i am pretty confident you will like it and settle here here (especially as a lot of your reasons for moving are similar to what ours were.) 

Lots of people say Aus ,is 10 years behind the UK and tbh i havent found that such a bad thing,lol

             Cal x

[Cheery Thistle]

12 minutes ago, calNgary said:

Good on you. With that positive mindset i am pretty confident you will like it and settle here here (especially as a lot of your reasons for moving are similar to what ours were.) 

Lots of people say Aus ,is 10 years behind the UK and tbh i havent found that such a bad thing,lol

             Cal x

Yeah we have a ‘do whatever it takes’ attitude. It’s the only way to approach such a huge move really. From what I’ve seen, if we can do well in the UK we shouldn’t find it too hard in Aus. 
I’m sure there will be challenges - it’s not like life here doesn’t have those too. 
Not long to go now. 

[tea4too]

I think it is easy to find fault with a place when your heart is not there, just as it's easy to be oblivious to the niggles of others when you are relatively content with life. I live in the UK and having found a beautiful area to settle am happy here. I don't personally know anyone struggling to find work, in fact our youngest recently received three job offers after sending out a speculative CV. I also see the mob violence on TV but give as much weight, if not more, to the thousands of ordinary people who peacefully took to the streets in opposition of the anger and vitriol they too had witnessed.

The UK is far from perfect, after years of austerity and public service underfunding there are many social and economic issues but it is home, where we choose to live and where we are happiest.  Horses for courses, and all that. T x

[Cheery Thistle]

58 minutes ago, tea4too said:

I think it is easy to find fault with a place when your heart is not there, just as it's easy to be oblivious to the niggles of others when you are relatively content with life. I live in the UK and having found a beautiful area to settle am happy here. I don't personally know anyone struggling to find work, in fact our youngest recently received three job offers after sending out a speculative CV. I also see the mob violence on TV but give as much weight, if not more, to the thousands of ordinary people who peacefully took to the streets in opposition of the anger and vitriol they too had witnessed.

The UK is far from perfect, after years of austerity and public service underfunding there are many social and economic issues but it is home, where we choose to live and where we are happiest.  Horses for courses, and all that. T x

Absolutely. I’m not making it up about the jobs though, perhaps it’s worse in Scotland or maybe certain affluent pockets are more insulated from it than the rest of the country (I suspect more so the latter than the former). 
I think I’m just fed up of living in a pressure cooker where this kind of tension is a daily thing. Where people are on the streets up and down the country looting and fighting. Where, as you say, there is such under investment that the environment is scruffy and depressing and services are totally struggling. The sentiment that there’s just ‘no money’.

I’m really genuinely happy for people who are happy here. 

The thing is, the authorities may have cracked down on the current unrest, but the issues are still all there simmering beneath the surface and there’s no easy solution to the problems.  Every single person we have told we are going has basically said they would do the same if they could. I have the opportunity so I’m lifting myself out of it and going to try and plant a seed elsewhere. I have effectively given up on things improving, having watched the UK shoot itself In the foot painfully and repeatedly. I can’t stay around and watch the continued decline. I’m out. 

[Blue Manna]

8 hours ago, Cheery Thistle said:

We move in November….leave here in October for a wee holiday on the way over. 
 

Yes they are both developed countries but Aus doesn’t have extensive and widespread rioting and people getting shot and stabbed on a daily basis.  3 teens shot in London yesterday.

I am hearing of a LOT of people struggling to get work in the UK at the moment too, and I mean a lot. A lady at my work is at the end of her contract, experienced, successful established career etc and has been trying for 6 months to get something….nada. Qualified teachers can’t get a post, my niece has been qualified 2 years and is moving from temp contract to temp contract. Nurses now saying the same. Young people literally applying for jobs for more than a year before finally getting a part time job in McDonald’s. 

Saw this post on my local community page yesterday - a lot of parents saying their young adult children can’t get work. 
 

I had a wobble last night about leaving my dad but honestly I know I’m doing the right thing for my 11 year old and that is vastly more important. Anyone bringing their kids back to this tension needs their head read (sorry in advance to upset people as I know it will, but it’s true, the tension is actually palpable). 
 

 

 

It is strange as there's supposed to be a shortage of qualified people, at least they keep telling us, but my sons have many friends who have recently qualified in IT and are working in Tesco's. One of my sons recently graduated in economics, but after failing to get work decided to do a masters. I'm guessing they can bring experienced people in from India easier now after Brexit, and it's preferable to take them rather than graduates who they'll need to babysit for a year.

[tea4too]

57 minutes ago, Cheery Thistle said:

Absolutely. I’m not making it up about the jobs though, perhaps it’s worse in Scotland or maybe certain affluent pockets are more insulated from it than the rest of the country (I suspect more so the latter than the former). 
I think I’m just fed up of living in a pressure cooker where this kind of tension is a daily thing. Where people are on the streets up and down the country looting and fighting. Where, as you say, there is such under investment that the environment is scruffy and depressing and services are totally struggling. The sentiment that there’s just ‘no money’.

I’m really genuinely happy for people who are happy here. 

The thing is, the authorities may have cracked down on the current unrest, but the issues are still all there simmering beneath the surface and there’s no easy solution to the problems.  Every single person we have told we are going has basically said they would do the same if they could. I have the opportunity so I’m lifting myself out of it and going to try and plant a seed elsewhere. I have effectively given up on things improving, having watched the UK shoot itself In the foot painfully and repeatedly. I can’t stay around and watch the continued decline. I’m out. 

I understand where you are coming from, and from your posts elsewhere on the forum appreciate your determination to embrace a new start and a new life. However in this area of the forum in particular it is maybe helpful to those thinking of making a return to the UK to know that it is still possible to live here happily. Where people return to, what they value and what grinds their gears are all relevant, but then I guess similar criteria could be applied to moves the other way, so sharing personal experience is not a bad thing, and hopefully it is helpful to know that one person's view may not be shared by another. T x

[Cheery Thistle]

54 minutes ago, tea4too said:

I understand where you are coming from, and from your posts elsewhere on the forum appreciate your determination to embrace a new start and a new life. However in this area of the forum in particular it is maybe helpful to those thinking of making a return to the UK to know that it is still possible to live here happily. Where people return to, what they value and what grinds their gears are all relevant, but then I guess similar criteria could be applied to moves the other way, so sharing personal experience is not a bad thing, and hopefully it is helpful to know that one person's view may not be shared by another. T x

Whilst that is very politely put, you are still telling me to be quiet which, to be honest, since I’m not being offensive, I don’t appreciate. Whilst people come here looking for reassurance, I also think it’s important for them to know the potential downsides of a move back. Indeed, you do often get people who ping pong when they realise life in the UK isn’t for them after all! 
Everyone needs to have their own journey. 
Conversely, since I first appeared on the forum I was strongly discouraged and put off even applying for the visa, told I probably wouldn’t even get one at my age and then repeatedly told how life in Aus isn’t all roses etc etc like I am not a grown up, professional and reasonably well-informed adult who can make my own decisions. Not many people have ‘jumped in’ on my behalf to tell people to stop being so negative and back off, however when I tell my truth people don’t seem to like it and feel like they can try to shush me. 
I have started this journey the way I intend to finish it - by proving all the naysayers wrong! Getting my 189 in 6 months start to finish may have just been luck but I do think what’s for you won’t go by you. 
Anyway I’m off to watch the athletics and have a wee glass of wine. This isn’t getting anyone anywhere! 
 

[Blue Manna]

12 minutes ago, Cheery Thistle said:

Whilst that is very politely put, you are still telling me to be quiet which, to be honest, since I’m not being offensive, I don’t appreciate. Whilst people come here looking for reassurance, I also think it’s important for them to know the potential downsides of a move back. Indeed, you do often get people who ping pong when they realise life in the UK isn’t for them after all! 
Everyone needs to have their own journey. 
Conversely, since I first appeared on the forum I was strongly discouraged and put off even applying for the visa, told I probably wouldn’t even get one at my age and then repeatedly told how life in Aus isn’t all roses etc etc like I am not a grown up, professional and reasonably well-informed adult who can make my own decisions. Not many people have ‘jumped in’ on my behalf to tell people to stop being so negative and back off, however when I tell my truth people don’t seem to like it and feel like they can try to shush me. 
I have started this journey the way I intend to finish it - by proving all the naysayers wrong! Getting my 189 in 6 months start to finish may have just been luck but I do think what’s for you won’t go by you. 
Anyway I’m off to watch the athletics and have a wee glass of wine. This isn’t getting anyone anywhere! 
 

I know exactly what you are saying, and whilst I do still think there's a lot of good still in the UK, I think anyone who left 10 or 20 years ago probably wouldn't recognise it as the same country. A lot of hope has been destroyed.

[Cheery Thistle]

12 minutes ago, Blue Manna said:

I know exactly what you are saying, and whilst I do still think there's a lot of good still in the UK, I think anyone who left 10 or 20 years ago probably wouldn't recognise it as the same country. A lot of hope has been destroyed.

Couldn’t agree more. We loved our life here 10 years ago and just feel it’s changed beyond all recognition. Loss after loss - facilities, wealth, EU rights, hope for the future. Puff of smoke. 
Lots of good - innovation, proximity to Europe, outward looking (or we used to be). But not enough to keep us here.