The whole process of emigrating turned out to be less stressful than we had anticipated. Don’t get me wrong, there were still times when we thought: ‘Oh, no, what will they ask for next? How many more pieces of paper can the authorities want from us? Are we ever going to get there?’ And, of course, we had our moments of uncertainty. Once we found out from our initial interview with OE that we would be eligible to emigrate, and started the ball rolling, I was much more excited than Lesley. She felt that giving up everything and moving so far from our families was going to be a huge  wrench. Suddenly, we were doing something about emigrating rather than just talking about it, and for a while she found the idea overwhelming.

The whole process took 19 months, from initial interview to the visas landing on the doormat. Looking back on it, it all seemed to go remarkably smoothly, each stage following automatically from the last. The worst of it was the endless waiting; every week we seemed to be on tenterhooks as we waited for some document or other to come in the mail. As we were both working full-time we would have struggled to complete the process on our own, so the help and support of OE Visas in Edinburgh was essential. It gave us great peace of mind to know we could pick up the telephone and speak to friendly staff who would be able to answer our questions. And having a personal agent who was dealing with our case meant we didn’t have to repeat ourselves to everyone we talked to. 

We left Scotland in chilly February and landed in Australia in the middle of summer. Unlike many people who emigrate, we were moving to somewhere where we didn’t know anybody and had no family contacts, and initially life in Australia seemed very strange and new. However, we were absolutely determined to make our new life work. We had spent so much time, money and effort to come to this new country, and we couldn’t walk away easily from all of that.

We chose Perth because it’s one of the smaller cities in Australia, and we come from a small village in Scotland and had never lived in a city in before. Plus Western Australia has some of the best beaches, and I really liked it when I had been there before. We had no jobs lined up before we got here, as our plan was to have a holiday and see as much of Australia as we could before settling into our new lives. We got jobs within a couple of days – we knew our skills were in demand so that wasn’t really a worry for us.

Finding somewhere to live was a priority - we made a list of what we wanted, and the beach always came top of the list! We researched different suburbs of Perth, and once we had found the right area we bought the land to build our own house. Fortunately, we were able to rent a property in the same area, which turned out to be a great for building a network of friends. People who were already in the area were very helpful with information in advice, and living and working in the area has made us both feel we have put down roots. Our house, which is going to be a large single-storey house with plenty of garden for us to maintain and an outdoor spa, will be ready in the next few months. We can’t wait to have our first party there!

Of course we miss our family and friends in Scotland, but we haven’t really been homesick. We are determined to maintain close contact with everyone and luckily telephoning back home is very cheap; we also text and email our families regularly. We do miss real haggis, though – Burns Night wasn’t really the same this year! We are settled and happy in Australia; in fact, we feel we should have made the move years ago. We love it here, particularly the outdoors life and the barbecues. We’ve learned that it’s the guys who cook the BBQ, so I’ve had a few practice runs in the back garden. After a few burnt sausages I eventually got the hang of it, and I’m now King of the BBQs!

So to anyone who is thinking about emigrating, we’d say – don’t just sit at home talking about it, do it.