catherine.c

That's fantastic news, congratulations x

I have flown with both. Personally I felt that singapore air was vastly superior and would not fly Malaysian again

ELCM you say you did not post to 'rant and rave', however in my book 'spleen well and truly vented' = rant. Thats fine, we all need to rant at times

Tyke, does he do renovation / extension work too? We are looking for a few quotes for work in our house and some decking.

Andrew I have been hearing rumours that 30 contributory years may not now be enough to claim a full UK pension and that if you retire after 2016 that you will need 35 contributory years. Can you enlighten us about this? Thanks Catherine

The problem is that there is an expected shortfall of nurses in the next 10 years or so, so they are training thousands of RNs here but do not have, nor ever have had the amount of grad positions required to give them all jobs. If there were not so many international RN's (I am one of them) then there would be more positions but it would be a very unskilled work force. International nurses are also often the main breadwinner - especially those from India and China. They work full time and go back full time after having children. Traditionally the Australian workforce either leave or work casual / part time after starting their families so this has had an impact on the workforce. Movement of the workforce has also slowed as many jobs are now casual. Who would want to leave a permanent position for a casual one in the current economic climate? I work in a private hospital that sponsored me but they have not sponsored anyone for several years now. The team on the ward have mostly been there for more than 5 years which is not usual in nursing! The only new staff are enrolled nurses who are cheaper to employ. I have pointed out that EN's are only cheaper in the short term as research shows that the higher qualified the staff, the shorter stay in hospital, hence cost less. Unfortunately this has fallen on deaf ears

It was the only visa I could come in on and I have had no problems with it. Now I'm a citizen and it is just water under the bridge

For what it's worth I spoke to an agent before I began the process and they gave me information which I believed was wrong. I checked it on the immigration site and yes, it was wrong. This made me realise that nobody will look after your dreams as well as you would yourselves.

Remember the whole of SA is considered 'regional'

My own experience has been that I see a GP who sometimes bills me and sometimes does not, depending on reason for visit - was bulk billed for prescriptions / receiving results / very short appointments, but paid a gap for investigation of a dodgy knee. The X ray I had to pay part of but then the private consultant and public MRI were bulk billed. When I was unable to get an appointment with my GP I went to an open all hours bulk billing GP and the waiting period (2 hours) and subsequent care was sub standard to my normal GP. Waiting periods for some things are ridiculously long, my daughter is still waiting for a public appointment with an ENT specialist 3 years after having her tonsils out privately - obviously they do not know that she has had them out, I am just interested to see how long they will take to give her an appointment! This is despite her GP writing at the time that she was an urgent case - they told us then that her wait would be at least 2 years (hence paid privately). However, after a trip to Flinders (public) ED, my husband has found the follow on appointments and care to be excellent. Around 50% of people in Australia have private health cover, I think the system would be as broke as the NHS if we all stayed in the public sector and with SA health really struggling to make ends meet I can only see the public sector suffering. I am writing this after a 12 hour night shift (in a private hospital) so it probably makes no sense .... Nite all zzzzz

My daughter bought a car from his garage - went ok but when she tried to part exchange it, turned out it was 2 cars joined together! Consequently scrap value only

Where did you find the Sarsons?

We used wallspan, good price and came down with a bit of haggling. Finished product looks great and the installation was quick and painless!

Currently, international students are not allowed to apply for public hospital graduate positions as there are not enough jobs for their 'home grown' graduates. The private hospital I work for, unofficially does not employ international grads, not sure about the others. Also, employers do not need to sponsor international registered nurses because of the glut so sponsored visas are getting very hard to come by.

Google gardenate, they give you a month by month list of what you can plant. Just make sure you select the temperate climate