Episode 69: Expats Worldwide: Navigating Repatriation: Liz's Life After Hong Kong

Paula: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Truly Expat Podcast. I'm Paula and with me is Rachel. And today we're chatting with Liz Nettleton, who has a fascinating story to share about repatriating to Australia after living in Hong Kong. Liz has firsthand experience of the repatriation journey, and she's here to talk about the challenges and surprises that came with moving back to Australia after years abroad.

Paula: From an accidental move home to reconnecting with family and friends, liz will give us an inside look at what it really is like to make the return home. Whether you're considering repatriation yourself or just curious about the process, this episode is packed with helpful hints.

Paula: Let's dive in. Welcome Liz. Welcome. Nice to have you. 

Liz: Yeah. It's good to be here. 

Paula: Um, so Liz, uh, I've known Liz for a while, but everybody else hasn't, so let's get stuck in. So Liz, I want to know a little bit about you, [00:01:00] a little bit about the move. Um, so how did it all start? 

Liz: Uh, how did it all start? So as you said, we made an accidental move.

Liz: So my kids are grown up. I've got, uh, one who's 26, a son who's 26, and a daughter who's 23. And we moved during COVID. So I hadn't seen Charlie for two years and Ellie for 18 months. And we, We had a bit of a sense that things weren't going well for Ellie. Um, she just needed a bit of parenting and I was between jobs because the one that I was going to start was delayed due to COVID.

Liz: So I managed to get a flight out of Hong Kong and came back to Sydney, uh, where we have a holiday home and Ellie was living there with one of her girlfriends. And that was lovely. Did my two weeks in quarantine. Got back. I literally landed the day that they said, and by the way, there's no more quarantine from two weeks onwards.

Liz: Oh, I didn't realize that. [00:02:00] Yeah, so I did my quarantine. Um, and then, and then Don came over for Christmas that year. And, and the, uh, while he was here, the Hong Kong government shut the border to It was like Australia and Pakistan and the UK and New Zealand. And to, to return to Hong Kong, he had to do, I think, what was it?

Liz: Two weeks in a non naughty eight country and then three weeks of quarantine in a, in Hong Kong. So it was a five week process to get home. And he said, I'm not going back. 

Paula: Yeah. 

Liz: So he got a job in Australia. Um, so, so we never actually went back. It was. Wow. 

Paula: Wow. Wow. 

Liz: Then 12 months later, that the, all the restrictions lifted enough and I could get some time that I, um, went back to Hong Kong and moved us out of our flat.

Paula: Wow. So how long have you been in Australia now then? 

Liz: So three and a bit years. 

Paula: That's [00:03:00] quicker. 

Liz: Wow. No, it didn't go quickly. It was tough. Yeah. Yeah. 

Rachel: And how long were you living in Hong Kong for? About I was 

Liz: in Hong Kong for 17 years and I was in the UK before that just for 12 months. 

Rachel: 18 years is 

Liz: a long 

Rachel: time to be away, right?

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was. To adjust. So what were your biggest challenges coming back? You said that wasn't easy. It 

Liz: wasn't easy. I found it really tough. I didn't want to come home. So I think part of it was that I wasn't, although my husband was I was, I had been ready for years to come back to Australia. I wasn't.

Liz: I was never going to be ready to come back to Australia. 

Paula: Yeah. 

Liz: Um, so I suddenly found myself here and, and I'm very community driven. I go, I need a community around me to sort of feel settled. Um, but of course. When we moved overseas, we had young kids, whether we went to the UK or we went to Hong Kong, we had young kids.

Liz: It's easy to form a community [00:04:00] when you've got children and school, but I've come back without, without any of that. Um, and I had to, to find my space, I suppose, um, get to know people. 

Paula: But I know in Hong Kong, you're a big part of the community, right? So, um, the community is only small in where we were living, but you are a massive part of the community.

Paula: So coming back to almost nothing without little kids was hard, right? 

Liz: Yeah. Yeah. I called myself a serial volunteer. And it's how I

Liz: ended up working is it's how I ended up working in associations. I started off in membership and I moved into a sort of broader role with events and stuff, but, um, yeah, it was, and they're very much community based, um, it's a very community based role. You know, you're working with volunteers all the time.

Liz: So I think that that was, yeah, but it was hard. It's like, [00:05:00] it is hard. You just sort of. And it's weird when you come back, like you have these expectations that this group of friends is going to wrap their arms around you and look after you and, and involve you in everything that they're doing. But actually the reality is they're busy and, and I lived in a different suburb to all of them.

Liz: So they kind of forgot me. Um, and it was, it was my school chums that really picked up. Um, but also. Shout out to aussie expats online. Oh, Aussie expats returning home. Yeah. Cause that was, that was such a wonderful source of.

Liz: Um, comfort, I suppose, to hear that other people were having similar experiences, to know that there were made up groups for you, um, in Sydney, to, to, there was some practical knowledge in there that was really helpful when I came back. Um, and there were people [00:06:00] going, it takes you a while to learn to be Australian again.

Liz: Um, and that was my biggest lesson. So what does that mean? What do you reckon? I reckon. Right. I think that we change, don't we? When we live overseas, like we were, you know, 20 years ago when I left, I was, I was a young mom. I, um, I, I'd lived in the U S for a year as an exchange student. But other than that, I'd just gone on holidays overseas.

Liz: I was really a little bit culturally unaware. Um, and after living overseas for so many years and then doing that extra bit of travel and, and doing so much of my adult, like I really did my adulting. In an expat environment, learned how to be a grown up in an expat environment. So it was hard to come back and I don't know, share different experiences with people and, and, and learn how to, um, I don't know, fit into that sort of space again.

Liz: Um, cause I wasn't the same [00:07:00] person I was when I left. So. So true. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. But we got there and it was, it was tumultuous as well. When we came back, like Eleanor was really sick 

Paula: and then 

Liz: we renovated and then we, my mother in law had a fall and she ended up in a nursing home and with dementia and that.

Liz: Presented a whole new range of challenges that we had to work with. So, yeah, there was a lot of change over that, that three years since we've been back. Oh, and, um, Don, my husband. Got a great job. Yeah. But whilst I was Sydney based, he was Melbourne based. Very nice. Loved it.

Liz: I really enjoyed having four nights a week with just me, watching whatever I wanted on TV and eating the food that I liked. But it was also quite challenging, you know, trying to, to manage that time and manage [00:08:00] him because he, I'd always been the commuter and he suddenly became the commuter and it was tough.

Liz: Like he found it much, he found it really tough, so. And I guess too this time, I was being a bit cranky. I didn't try and settle Don in this time. I left him, I went, you're in Melbourne. You go and make your own connections. Yeah. I, I actually just don't have the, I don't know. 

Paula: The capacity to do it, right?

Paula: Because you're, you're struggling on your own. Yeah, I was 

Liz: so busy trying to just, to make it okay for me that I just didn't have it, I didn't have the capacity to make it okay for him. So it was tough for him as well. 

Paula: Because I can't imagine. Yeah, like, I mean, he's gone, he's repatriating but not repatriating home.

Paula: So it's that, I mean, that's even a trickier, uh, avenue to you. Well, he was repatriating home, but, 

Liz: oh yeah, yes, you're right. He wasn't repatriating back to our house house. Yeah. Now he is. Yeah. He's here full time. And 

Paula: that's. 

Liz: We're learning. 

Paula: You don't need to [00:09:00] say 

Liz: anything else. I do. I mean, we're lucky, right?

Liz: It's been 30 years, over 30 years since we've been married. So. Yeah. We've, you know, we're, we're, we're good. But yeah. It was fun. But yeah, learning how to be Australian. I, I, I found it tough. And it's all those silly little things like finding a doctor, a female doctor. Um, finding, you know, finding the hairdresser and all those silly little things.

Liz: Um, but also just learning how to find a community. And for me, it came down to buying a dog. Okay. And, and that was quite confronting for me in many ways, but particularly because I became that stereotype of that person I always thought was a loser and, and, and went to the dog park because I didn't, because it was a, it was a great way to help sort of socialize and train a dog.

Liz: And that ironically was. was my school. It was where I [00:10:00] found my community. You found your doggy mums. I found my doggy mums and dads. And I also love that, I don't know, it's, I found that, I found a variety of people down there. So they came from all different walks of life and, and different socioeconomic status.

Liz: And And I really got a buzz out of that having lived as an expat for so long. I think that that was something that was really important to me. 

Paula: So how long do you think it took you to, you know, start to feel like it's home again or feel like it's comfortable? I 

Liz: think the first 12 months were really hard.

Liz: Then the second year we were focused on Um, we had to focus on, um, sorting out my mother in law and that was, that was quite traumatic. Um, one from that guilt perspective of having to put a parent into a nursing home, but also because 60 years of hoarding, um, plus another [00:11:00] 60 years of her mother's hoarding.

Liz: So the first Yeah, so I used to go into her apartment and open up cupboards. It was a big apartment with a lot of storage and a double garage downstairs. And we'd open up cupboards and close them and just not know where to start. Um, totally overwhelming. There was every single, uh, Um, every single pin bulletin ever produced from 1916.

Liz: Stuff. She, she's an amazing woman. She, um, did school of the air cause she lived very remotely. Oh wow. And she had all of her notebooks from when she was a child. Oh my God. 

Rachel: Yeah. 

Liz: Not like, not her, not her textbooks. Can you explain 

Rachel: to a non Aussie what school of the air is? School of the air. School of the air.

Rachel: I think she sounded like she was becoming a pilot. So 

Liz: she's really cool. There's so many cool things about my mother in law. [00:12:00] She grew up in a tiny little village in western New South Wales called Byron Junction. And there wasn't really a school at that time. So at whatever time it was, and you still have this in Outback Australia, but at that time she would be gathered up into the school classroom, which was her parents lounge room or something.

Liz: Um, and they did. Um, school over the air, like over the radio radio somehow. I'm not quite sure how exactly the process was, but she did that for several years. And then, then she was sent down to Sydney to boarding school and she really struggled to settle in because it turned out that it was the very first time in her life she'd stepped foot in a classroom, let alone her parents.

Paula: Oh my God, how old would she be? Oh my gosh, okay, that's quite, it's very different now, right? Because those type of kids are on the internet from [00:13:00] a very early age, so they see people in some sort of environment, but just hearing people would have been a very different ballgame, right? 

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. And just having been close quarters and growing up in a town where you could just run free without any shoes on or whatever, you know what I mean?

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. And then suddenly having to deal with, um, Angsty teenage girls. Like it would have been incredibly hard. 

Liz: Just the discipline of having to, I mean, just the discipline of having to put on a school uniform, which she never had and go to class every day and then to play sport. And she loves, like she, there's a lot she talks about that she loved about boarding school, particularly sleeping on the veranda.

Liz: Yes. I think that was more like being at home. 

Paula: Yeah, 

Liz: I mean, bit of a culture shock. Yeah, yeah, but putting a parent into sort of like sort of going back putting a parent into. Um, and, and managing the aged care system in Australia was, and learning how [00:14:00] to sort of how to manage it was, was pretty full on. Um, so it sort of took us like, we were just, we didn't really have time to focus on us at that point or me or.

Liz: Yeah. So, but at the same time I was going down to that dog park every afternoon. Yeah. Slowly building friendships. And then my school chums kicked in and they were incredible. And then Sydney's got a really strong, um, Hong Kong, ex Hong Kong network. They do. Yeah. So those girls were fantastic. And yeah, and you just, it's slowly built, it's slowly built up and.

Liz: And then I got my cat back after three years of trying to get him out thanks to COVID and it was almost like the final piece of the puzzle where I had my family all back together again. And then Charlie moved to Melbourne.

Paula: So I think a lot of people [00:15:00] assume because you're going home that you don't need help, right? 

Liz: I think so, yeah. And I think I assume that. I think that I assume that. Oh, I've been commuting back and forth from Australia for years and, and I'll just slot in and it'll be really cruisy and it wasn't. Um, yeah, absolutely.

Liz: And I'd had my wings clipped, like I, you know, being married to a pilot, I was used to just using an airplane, like a bus to wherever I needed to go that night and all of a sudden You couldn't do that, um, because there's so many more responsibilities when you live in Australia than I had overseas. Yeah.

Liz: Just running a garden, looking after elderly parents, which I didn't have. Um, you know, we couldn't really be that hands on with those elderly parents when we were in Hong Kong. We certainly didn't have a garden. Got a dog, but, you know, it didn't have the helper that came with the dog. Yeah. Getting [00:16:00] away for a weekend became 

Paula: more challenging.

Paula: The domestic, domestic helper thing is something that I'm really going to struggle with when I'm repatriate, I think. 

Liz: Yeah, I think so. I think so. That's a, but I think, yeah. 

Rachel: And there's definitely great stuff 

Liz: about Australia. Sorry. 

Rachel: Sorry. Um, so how did you, what were the key things you had to organize before making a move back?

Rachel: I 

Liz: really did that badly because it wasn't intentional. Yeah. I didn't really organize anything. Um, for various reasons. We had already done two ships. We shipped furniture back to Australia twice. Um, so when I first got back to Australia, it was chaos in this house. Ellie was sick. She had a flatmate living here who was gorgeous.

Liz: I loved her, but they weren't very good at cleaning. And we'd had this big delivery of stuff [00:17:00] from Hong Kong and they hadn't unpacked any of it. So, yeah. I spent the first four weeks being, of being back just cleaning my house and trying to sort through all of that stuff that I'd shipped back from Hong Kong.

Liz: Um, and then when I went back 12 months later, I, I sort of did it all over again. Um, but yeah, it was also silly little things like. I forgot to do my MPF. I haven't got my MPF or my superannuation out of Hong Kong yet because my signature changed over 18 years. Oh. And I can't get my signature to match up so I have to physically go in and spend a few hours at HSBC to try and match my signature up.

Paula: Oh 

Rachel: my gosh. 

Liz: Yeah. 

Paula: Good old HSBC. 

Rachel: Wow. I didn't know that, that people even did that. I mean, the, my signature changes every day. It's 

Liz: Asia, but a little bit more particular about matching the signature. [00:18:00] I thought I had it all done. I spent six hours at HSBC one day and thought I had it sorted and then apparently didn't.

Liz: So, we'll get back to that. Going back the second time, like that last time when I moved out. Was that 

Paula: sad? No. Or were you done?

Liz: I struggled to not, I struggled to come home back to Australia. Yeah. There was a part of me that thought, I work remotely, I could actually just stay here. Um. Yeah. Yeah, I, and I loved my apartment in Hong Kong. Yeah. We put so much love into renovating that and yeah, I did. I, I did think about not coming back.

Liz: no. The law of my husband and my children, did, did bring me back in the end 

Paula: because I think a lot of times people just, I mean, I. I think, I don't even know when I'm going to go home, but I'm, I'm like you, right? [00:19:00] So I go back all the time. But when I got stuck there for six months, two years in a row, it's very different.

Paula: It's very different to going back for the weekend and everyone wants to see you and you know, you catch up with your friends or even if you stay for a week and you go see everyone and everyone wants to hang out with you. When you're there for six months, people get on with their lives. And all of a sudden, the 

Rachel: novelty wears off.

Paula: Yeah, it's like, yeah, this, I'm not a shiny brand new toy anymore. And you know, people are like, well, I'm busy, but I'm not because my family's grown up. 

Liz: Yeah. I found the pace in Hong Kong. Or at the pace in Australia, really much slower as well. So even though like you're so busy cleaning your house and organizing your garden and driving everywhere and I don't know working.

Liz: Um, it was, it was a lot less social than Hong Kong was to start with. And of course, I didn't have that community around me as well, but I'd. [00:20:00] I felt like, uh, the little suburb I live in lacked a pulse and I initially looked for somewhere else to go and live, um, so that I could find something that was a little bit more like Hong Kong, but 

Paula: yeah.

Liz: For a whole range of reasons, we never got around to moving and now 

Liz: it will actually 

Liz: drag me out of my sleepy little suburb. So that was the 

Paula: suburb you were in before you moved away? 

Liz: Oh, God, yeah. We're still in the same house that we bought when we were in our twenties. One day we will leave this house.

Liz: It's not the prettiest house you've ever seen, but you know, it's really interesting. We left when the kids were really young, but we took the house back when holiday family home when Ellie started boarding school. Um, so it became the family gathering space. And then when Charlie left school first, he moved in with one of [00:21:00] his mates.

Liz: And so it became his home and then. Ellie moved in, um, Ellie moved in and did the same thing. And so when we actually did start talking seriously about selling, both of the kids said, please don't, this is our home. Um, which was a nice change from the, Oh my God, Mum, why do we have to live in such a shithole when all of our friends live in nice 

Paula: houses?

Paula: Um, yeah, or even just like the suburb itself, right? Because going to boarding school, you've got kids living all around the place. So, you know, it's not like You've got friends, or you might have friends across the road, but generally speaking, they're so spread out that, like, same with my kids. When we moved, well, we haven't moved, but when we had our place, um, they're like, well, you're so far away from everything because, you know, we're not living in a city where it's, it's fun and upbeat.

Paula: And yeah, that's my biggest concern. 

Liz: Yeah. I get that. I still get that with my [00:22:00] kids. 

Paula: Yeah. 

Liz: Um, yeah, I still get that with Ellie, particularly because You know, her boyfriend, so we're in Hunters Hill, but her boyfriend's over in the Northern Beaches. Yeah. And it's inconvenient to drive over there. She says it's a lovely place for the weekend, but that's about all it's lovely for.

Liz: Yeah. It's so far away compared to where we are, where it's 20 minutes into town on the bus. Yeah. It's not far at all. Or, and we're so central. It's 20 minutes into town. She's at uni in Strathfield and North Sydney. So it's 20 minutes. To both of those places. She works for the Parramatta Eels. It's 20 minutes.

Liz: Well, actually it's about 40 minutes because she's at the Kellyville site. But 

Paula: yeah, 

Liz: you know, um, yeah, it's, it's very central now. It's really central where we are and that's what the kids enjoyed about it.

Paula: Is there any advice you you would give someone who is considering moving home? Just do it.

Liz: I think that [00:23:00] the, the, the hardest part about moving is that it's not fun. Um, and every time that we've moved, when we went to the UK, when we went to the Hong Kong and even when we came back to Australia, it was, it was done really quickly without a lot of thought. And I think that even though it's like crazy busy while you're, you're trying to, to manage everything and, and you sort of, You're a bit of a duck, you know, you're peddling really, really hard underwater.

Liz: Um, you just, you don't have time to overthink everything that way. And so. You do just sort of get on with it. I think. Um, yeah, and I think the other thing that I would say I years and years ago, I had really good advice from a buyer's agent. Um, we were, we were actually talking about my in laws moving the country back down to the city and he said, rent for 12 months before you buy rent in the region that you think that you want [00:24:00] to move to.

Rachel: Um, 

Liz: and do that 12 months before you buy, because you might find that it doesn't really suit you. It's not meeting your needs. Um, and the cost of selling and then rebuying is a lot higher than the cost of your rent during that period. So, um, yeah. Yeah, even when we were looking at moving to a different region when we were looking at moving to a different part of Sydney, that was something that I was seriously considering was, okay, I want to rent over here first.

Liz: I want to make sure I want my safety net of where I know that I will eventually 

Liz: settle. And 

Liz: I want to be able to move over here and see if it is what I think it's going to be. Um, and then I 

Paula: mean, even in your own suburb that you use, like, how would you feel, Rach, if you move back to like Auckland? Like it'd be so weird to repatriate to somewhere where you haven't lived for 20 years, right?[00:25:00]

Rachel: Yeah. Um, I don't know how I would feel about that. Um, I, every time that I tried to move back to New Zealand, um, I found that Like you say, Liz, I felt like my wings were clipped, like it's so remote from everything else. Um, from usually being able just to go like two hours in a plane to Italy or Germany.

Rachel: And because I, I spent a lot of time in Europe. Um. And then suddenly having to take, if I wanted to go anywhere, it would be at least three hours and it would be to Sydney or, um, you know, I could go to the islands and things like that. But even though they hold so much beauty and stuff that doesn't have that buzz of life, whereas Auckland's a lot faster now and it's got like lots of things going on.

Rachel: Uh, but yeah, I would, I would. I would struggle going back for sure. It's, um, because you, you're right. Like finding friends [00:26:00] and even though most of my friends. I know from being overseas anyway, the Kiwis that have gone home, um, they have adapted back to home and perhaps they're a bit more settled than, than I would be.

Rachel: And it takes a while to get into that sort of thing. Oh yeah. We're not going anywhere, you know, in the next couple of weeks kind of thing. You know, we just take a drive rather than like flying somewhere. I don't know. It's. It's, it is a complete slowdown of everything, but I mean, the more and more I turn, I return, I think, gosh, compared to most countries, New Zealand's got it pretty good.

Rachel: Yeah. You know, living and, and food and even though it's expensive to, to settle down there, it's still like, you know, we don't have to worry too much about like threats from other countries or, you know, like. You know, people fighting internally and things like that. So we're pretty, pretty lucky with that.

Rachel: So, yeah, I don't [00:27:00] know. Who knows? 

Liz: There's definitely stuff that I've loved about Australia, actually, like the fresh food and going to the supermarket without having to have three menu plans, because you didn't know you were going to be able to get the 

Paula: ingredients. Yeah. I think, yeah, so what, yeah, so I guess that's the next question, right?

Paula: So what are some of the things in Australia that you're happy to come back to? 

Liz: Definitely my friends, like, even though I, I honestly thought they were bitches when I first came back. 

Rachel: I'm probably so jealous. 

Liz: They were just busy. I just didn't appreciate that they were busy living their lives. So we just come back and you know, when we come back where, where their center of attention and, and we weren't when I, I wasn't, when I came back permanently.

Liz: Um, so that took me a little while to get used to, but they're there now. And I think that That aged care system has been fantastic. Once we learned how to navigate [00:28:00] it. The aged care system in Australia is really fantastic. And my mother in law is in the most sensational nursing home. Um, but for me, and I know we didn't really talk about this.

Liz: Um, for me, probably the big thing was I was diagnosed last year, year three was shit. There was nothing good about year three, really. I was diagnosed with early stage triple negative breast cancer, which is quite an aggressive form of breast cancer. So I had to do, Um, chemo, six months of chemo and then have surgery and then do radiation.

Liz: And what I really loved about Australia through all of that, there were quite a few things that I loved about Australia during all of that. One was the fact that Australia is at the cutting edge of cancer treatment. Um, yeah. And that really scary experience of first being diagnosed before you staged and you don't know whether you just don't know what it's going to be like.

Liz: They were phenomenal. I went to see [00:29:00] my surgeon and she was just like, you are going to be fine. You have a 98 percent chance of survive a 10 year survival. This is all going to be okay. Um, don't worry. And. And this was, you know, this was before I'd even been staged. Um, and they, they just reassured you every single step of the way.

Liz: And they, they encouraged you and then you get handed off and you get a nurse with your surgery. And then you, you go to your oncologist and you get another nurse that helps you through that side as well. And then, and then you go to your radiation stage and you've got another nurse who looks after you as well as your radiation oncologist.

Liz: And, and the whole process is. So structured that you, there was this incredible comfort in it. Um, and I just felt really privileged that, that I, I went through that in Australia, I think too, it was also the back end of that where the Australian, um, employment [00:30:00] laws support you. So I was able to, like, I was able to, um, cut my full time hours back to four half days.

Liz: Um, and so I was able to keep working while I was doing all of my treatment, which was, it made a really big difference to, to the, to my having a bit of breast cancer, not consuming me. I was able to then focus on something else. Um, so yeah, that was, that was really lovely. What else do I love about Australia?

Liz: I love being closer to mom and dad. Yeah. Even though they're a four hour drive away, I love being close to them. Something 

Rachel: about being in the same time zone, right? 

Liz: Yes. Yeah. Definitely. That's true. Definitely. Um, yeah. And I, I, I, yeah, I love being close to my school friends. Um, it's nice having, working remotely and having like the house is big enough that I have an office that's [00:31:00] just all about me.

Paula: Yeah. 

Liz: So 

Paula: yeah. I 

Liz: don't know. Now I'm settled. Like now I feel quite settled in Australia. I still resent that second leg to get anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I did make an agreement with my husband that at least once a year we would go overseas. Um, otherwise I wouldn't have come back from Hong Kong. Well, I hope you're stopping in 

Paula: Singapore.

Paula: Well, I hope you're stopping in Singapore on the way there. Yeah, we're going to be 

Liz: you. Yeah, we're going, we're going where the staff travel gods take us. So we 

Rachel: could end 

Liz: up anywhere.

Rachel: Fantastic. I love that. Staff travel gods. So, um, is there anything you wish that you had known before repatriating that might've made the process better or easier? Um.[00:32:00]

Liz: I think that I think that it was that Aussie expats returning home was such a fantastic forum to sort of start to get your head around coming home. Um, and, and also just that advice that I had from someone that. That said, give yourself a full 12 months, at least it's going to take you, it's going to take you at least that long to settle in.

Liz: Um, and even though I didn't believe them, I realized that that was, that was really sound advice. And, and I would probably extend that to two years because I think that if you don't have kids. Um, you've got to find that alternative way to, to find just, and, and working remotely as well. So I didn't have an office to go into, so you sort of, I had to find that alternative way to, to build a community.

Liz: I don't know, any other advice? Just do it. Yeah. [00:33:00] Actually just do it. Like don't overthink it. Just, just get on and do it. If you want to come home, come home. 

Paula: It's not as bad as you think it is. 

Liz: No, no. Once you get there, it's great. It's a new adventure, right? 

Rachel: It 

Liz: is a new adventure. It is absolutely a new adventure.

Liz: Um, yeah. And you've got to be really positive about it. I know I'm a very positive person and, you know, I'm always really positive. So, and I think that that was something that I found really shocking when I first came back was that I wasn't positive. I was really struggling to, to be positive. Um, and then, but.

Liz: Even when I wasn't being positive, I could still tell you about 10 things that were fabulous about my day. 

Paula: Yeah. 

Liz: Um, and, and I guess that by focusing on that, I was able to then find more and more positives about being at home. So that's good. 

Paula: Thank you so much for chatting to us today. It [00:34:00] was an amazing story, some fantastic tips.

Paula: So we appreciate you coming on. Thank you. 

Rachel: So very much for having 

Liz: me. Thank you. Thanks 

Rachel: for coming on. We loved it. Great to hear your story. Bye.