WestHamFan1

The wife has recently met a new lady at work who works part time at one of the local wineries. Her job is to sell off the wine as you enter the cellar door, she basically plies the clients with glasses of wine and explains the different types of grapes. (You can tell my knowledge of wine is zero) Anyway, at the close of business she has numerous bottle of wine left over with only a small taster being poured. The winery doesn't want them, she is fed up with the stuff so she brings the bottles into work and hands them over to my wife. I am now slowly becoming an expert on Margaret River plonk, i just need to make friends with someone who makes cheese and biscuits and i'll be sorted! can anyone do better than this?

Hi Rob, I'm a carpenter by trade but ended up a Quantity surveyor, I was on a roof one day and it was a plumber who told me you could make more money with a pen than a tool kit so i went back to Uni and qualified as a QS. That's how i got out here, a QS is on the skilled migration list. However, work for quantity surveyors has gone really quiet so i'm now back on the tools, more job satisfaction but not as well paid. The Perth Construction trade compared to the UK is pretty much the same but a heck of a lot smaller. The guy I work for has been here for 40 years and there's not many people in the industry that he doesn't know. The Aussies are good to work alongside on site, plenty of kiwis here as well. Certain nationalities do certain trades out here, on my last job the ceiling fixers were all Chinese, the tilers Indonesian and the plasterers were all from Afghanistan. M & E trades tend to be Aussie though as they have the correct certification. Good luck with coming out here soon, i had copious amounts of factor 50 on today and still burnt my arms! it is great seeing that blue sky finally return for summer. Cheers

Don't shed any tears for my client, his Dad is on the list of top ten wealthiest people in Hong Kong. The biggest problem they have at the moment is that the Chinese Government is clamping down on the amounts of money that they can take out of the country, oh to have that problem eh As far as they are concerned it has gone from a short term business plan to a long term one, no problem!

Hi Rob, The apartment / new build has died a bit of a death at the moment with oversupply, we've just finished 100 nr 2 bed units in south Perth and the client has not sold a single one. Construction work is still happening but work has definitely slowed down. The good news is you have a trade so should be able to pull in some work, however without the correct certificates it may be hard going. Just a thought but you should come out here for a couple of weeks on your own and walk round some building sites, line up some interviews, start answering some ads (it's a heck of a lot easier getting an interview when you are out here rather than calling from the UK, get a cheap mobile with an aussie number to get you started) All it will cost is the air fare and a few weeks rent. It worked for me. I've been here 4 years now and do not regret the move one bit. I've four kids 15 to 21 over here so bit older that yours but they absolutely love it. The school the two boys go is private but £5k a year for both of them so miles cheaper than the UK and they actually enjoy going there. There kids at school are all pleasant, polite and whilst the school is very strict, the kids still have a great deal of respect for the teachers which is great to see. In my experience we are so glad we have bought our kids over here, they had a rotten time in the UK with a terrible school and the eldest ones had no chance of finding work. All 4 of the are now working out here ( boys part time in KFC) it's great to see them developing and enjoying going out with some money in their pockets. Yes there are plenty of their mates that stay in on the computers all weekend, my sons included but then that is your job to then pull them away from that and get them involved in other activities. I recently joined the local yacht club ( £250 a year full membership and use of the training dinghy's) and we take the boys sailing every Sunday morning, they are taught by local kids their age who take them out. That would never of happened in uk ever, the opportunity just wasn't there. It is hard but i walk the dog on the beach with my wife most evenings so there are some consolations. Hope the above helps Cheers