Let's go to a land Down Under...

My Australia obsession is at an all-time high at the moment. It's a fatal combination of rotten weather in Glasgow (it snowed last week. In the middle of March), a boyfriend living in London, a jobless (not to mention penniless) existence and the fact that everything out there was just simple.

When I lived in Darwin I had the following:
A gorgeous house I lived in with my man and some pretty awesome housemates, a dog, two rabbits and a sea turtle. And a snake called Monty.
A job. That paid me money. I didn't particularly LOVE it but it was a well-paying, fairly relaxed, enjoyable job.
A car. It wasn't exactly a Rolls Royce but it was wheels.
A social life - I could actually afford to go out.

Now that I'm back in Glasgow I have the following:
My old bedroom at my mum and dad's house.
A long-distance relationship with Stiggy Pop, who works exceptionally unsociable hours in an area where his mobile phone reception is crap to say the least.
A severely moneyrexic bank account.
A fortnightly date at my most favourite place in the world - the JobCentre where they never fail to make me feel good about myself.
Upteem job rejection emails because I just don't "fully match the criteria my client is looking for" despite the fact that one particular job spec required an entry level account exec with journalism experience and a degree preferably in Politics. Which is exactly what I have.

I'm definitely struggling to find a PRO among that Glasgow list.

In the same breath I'm struggling to find a CON for the Australia list. I thought once I'd come home that would be me, happily settled in the fact that I did the travelling for the 18 months and got the Australia bug out of my system. But four months down the line I'm still at loggerheads over whether or not we made the right decision.

Here's the thing - partly the decision was already made for us. Stan's visa expired mid-November last year and (in a typically male fashion) he wasn't proactive enough to secure his sponsorship visa with the government because of his degree, and his work kept on saying they would sponsor him but never quite got round to it until it was too late. So, in a nutshell, he had to come home. My visa on the other hand, is still active until 19th June this year so I could quite easily have stayed. But risking my relationship just to stay in Australia for another six months wasn't worth it. And I'm still in that frame of mind. But part of me can't help but think we could have done more to secure sponsorship for the boy. Where there's a will there's a way and I'm pretty certain had we pushed his work a little bit more, the sponsorship papers could have been rushed through and we would still be enjoying our happy little lives in Darwin.

I've been looking through all my photos from my travels recently and I'm yearning to go back. The diversty, climate and relaxed atmosphere of Darwin really did make it my ideal home. The lusciousness of Bali - just a hop, skip and a jump from Darwin - where you could live like a king for very little money was the perfect holiday destination. The frantic energy and vibrance of Melbourne, Perth and Sydney would make any city dweller feel truly at home - and the stretch of golden sands all the way up the Queensland Coast are enough to make anyone fall in love with the beach over and over again.

And I know I've still not seen or done it all yet. I didn't visit the Whitsunday Islands. I didn't voluntarily throw myself out of a plane at 14,000 ft, I didn't risk life and limb by diving into the shark infested surf at Bondi Beach. There's so much more that I want to do and the fact that I've got all this spare time to sit around and think about it makes it all the more prolific.

Maybe things will change when (I have to say when, I have to keep some level of positivity in my aura) I get a job. In fact I'm pretty sure they will. My outlook will be focused on building a career at home and putting funds away for the future - but at the moment it's difficult to see beyond the tantalising lure of Darwin's sun drenched beaches, tropical storms and lush green national parks.

Find me a job I love before Australia finds me again!

All images are my own except the first two which are from Google and We Heart It respectively xx