[Lara Croft]

I know it sounds a bit James Bond-ish, but is anyone else keeping their migration plans under wraps until they are more concrete?

I have told immediate family & close friends, but only a couple of people at work, and hardly anyone else in our social circle. It's just that everything is so up in the air, will we get a job offer, will we have to wait until next year and start all over again, will we migrate before / after Xmas...

It's not that I don't want to tell anyone, it's just that I don't really have anything to tell yet! And when you do tell someone, it all sounds so vague that you can see them wondering what you are getting so excited about!

I just feel as though there is this 'other' me, plotting and planning away, while the 'normal' me sits at my desk and makes plans for Christmas, and work plans for next year etc. And when someone says to me, "what did you do at the weekend?", I just smile and say, "oh the usual stuff"... when in reality I probably spent it surfing SEEK, sending out dozens of CV's, spending hours on Google Earth looking at possible areas to live, packing up boxes for storage, going to the Expo and so on.

Also, a small part of me worries about "jinxing" it, if I tell too many people.

Jane

[Woolfie]

I know exactly what you mean, it's like an addition, a bit like this forum. Once you start to think about it, it takes over your life. Your right about people's responses, if your not going tommorrow then their interest just wanes into disbelief. I'm in a dilema where i have received the contracts from the company, they are pushing for me to start next march/april, but we havent sold our house, just south of northwich, yet. I can't afford to go without the house being sold!!!!

I have to ignore the new zealand plans for now, because of the housing situation. If i think about it i can't sleep at night. So close yet so far.....

I'm sure that in the grand scheme of things we'll all get there eventually and look back at this time and say, what was all the worrying for. Because when you get the go ahead you wont have time to think. Its the calm before the storm.

Woolfie

[Mickstim]

I am fed up with talking about it because I left work in June ready to sell the house and pack up and people keep saying 'Are you still here? What happened?' and am I tired of telling people the house hasn't sold and everything is on hold until it does. And then there are very dear family members asking me why we don't just go and live in Europe instead and I am tired of telling them that we don't WANT to live in Europe. So I've become a semi recluse to avoid the topic and the explanations. It would have been so much easier if we had never mentioned it in the first place :mad:

[vixxann]

oh I so get you on this one :yes

I made mistake of telling last employer when we put our house up for sale back in May - I then didn't get my contract renewed at end of August as they knew our long term plans (even though we are still here waiting for house to sell)

So I now have new job (temp contract until 31/3/08) and I am NOT telling anyone there at all. If we sell before contract up then I'll deal with that then but for now I'm here and figure best not to tell them.

Am also sick of comments from people that do know our plans ... are you still here?
No actually I'm not :roll

[RamblingPaddies]

we're exactly the same - can't wait till its all over n done with

[blearyjane]

Nice to hear other's experiences.

We have decided not to tell ANYONE until we have either PR or WTR - but then again, we are not a close family. We have already put the house on the market even though we are only at the start of the process, but have fibbed and said it is because we want a different school catchment area....

Sue, Keith, Adam (10), Tommy (9).

[Georgebulldog]

It's nice to hear that 'm not the only one, I find that if I say something then questions are asked & like you say you sound a bit vague & get strange looks. OH family have been great but my family aren't speaking to me, we've had a tough couple of years losing both my parents & they feel it's all to soon but we have an opportunity & it's not one to turn down. I also think if I talk too much about it I'll jinx it plus peoples reactions are funny, they are amazed because it's so far away, I don't see it as that far, only 1 day away & the price of a 2 week holiday to Spain
Anyway enough of my rambing, I'm just happy today :laugh

[aberdian]

We haven't told anyone, family or work yet as we haven't made a concrete decision. Come the the day, we'll be off down to see the wrinklies for a day of tears and recriminations! A secret life indeed......

[james the mechanic]

Take my advice. If you haven’t told people, don’t.
No, I’m not excited about it; I’m actually rather bored with the whole process. Yes it’s a big adventure but the novelty has rather worn off.
I think I might just go and live on a deserted desert island so that I don’t have to answer stupid questions from well meaning idiots, who will ask me all the same questions all over again when they see me tomorrow. But still it will not penetrate their vacuumous voids that it is a little more complicated than just phoning Lunn Polly and Pickford’s, hence their tedious ‘you still here?’
So if you value your sanity, please I beg you keep quite.:D

[lockstock]

The most exciting bit was when we were keeping it a secret. More and more people know now and they seem more excited than wse are. They're all booking holidays. More worrying is the number of friend with kids at uni who are booking up Gap year visits! One has even asked to stay the whole year! Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!

[BkyMonster]

Ha. :( Yes.

For a while it was secret. Years actually. We didn't tell any family since we didn't want a certain overbearing relative to find out. But now people know.
They are pretty supportive which is nice. A lot of people at work think I'm nuts and others are jealous that they feel their lives are so tied down they can't ever do anything like that.


...and now I lie to people all the time!:wah
I got tired of people treating me like I was mad (well it does sound crazy!) after saying we'd never been, we don't have jobs etc.
As crazy as it is we have been planning for a few years. Collecting funds, getting skills that might be useful.
So now we just let people assume we have jobs as it makes their lives easier. :no

People ask "what are you going to do there?" and I feel so flippant saying "Well, you know, the things we do here. Live, work, make a life."

I'm REALLY uncomfortable talking openly with people about why we are going in the first place. The "why NZ?" questions get another flippant "well, why not?"

[Perksy]

I sympathise totally. OH and I are both in the police (me civvy, him officer)We're applying off the back of my work experience and the ITA requires me to get references and evidence from work so I have had no choice but to tell my boss. OH works for the same force and same building but was awaiting a promotion board and didn't want to burn his bridges in case we decide not to go after our visit there in a few weeks, so he has had to keep it very quiet and my team and boss are all sworn to secrecy. Just to add to it my boss this week has announced she is leaving and various people in the organisation are already asking/assuming I will look to go for her job. AGGH!!!

[M&J]

We didn't tell anyone until we were definately going and the flights were all booked. We decided not to upset close family if it wasn't going to happen. It was hard work as it totally took over our lives and you couldn't talk about half the things we had been doing all week.

We broke the news 7 weeks before we left!!

[peebles16]

We eventually fessed up to all and sundry when house went on the market - am terrible liar so couldn't have keep pretence up for very long anyhow :) I do get sick of the questions although we didn't realise we'd still be here. I also resigned from my job a couple of months ago and although didn't give finish date I'm finding work quite hard and won't be up for extension of my contract am sure.
Also feel really bad for our 6 year old who keeps asking why we are't moving to New Zealand yet?? If I'd know what I do now I wouldn't have been so open...
Karen

[Rusty]

Firstly, completely agree on the jinx it feeling - weird isn't it.
People know we want to go, so no secrets - well mostly. But...only OH mum really talks about it because she is going in the new year.
Only close friends know about us being selected, but still do not understand fully.
The secret part is from my parents. They really don't like the idea at all - I understand we are taking 3 grandchildren away - but it is our life. I really want to talk about it a lot to friends and also explain to my parents why, but they don't want to know about it. My mum recently asked what we would do, how would we get jobs, etc. As if we hadn't been planning this for nearly 2 years.
So the secret agent part is based on wanting to talk to people about a really exiting part of my life and not being able to. I guess this is common?

[Lara Croft]

I think a part of me is also worried that someone will say: "you've never even been for a visit, you don't actually know anyone who lives there, and you still want to move half way round the world? Why?" Put like that, it's hard to explain.

So the easiest option is to say nothing.

I think harder than this, is the constant sense of being in limbo, of putting our lives on hold. Will we still be living here at Christmas? For New Year? For the next birthdays? It's hard to make plans...

I'm so glad I'm not the only one thinking all this!

Jane

[CjChris]

We kept it a secret for a long time, too, then when we told people, some looked at us like we had just told them we saw a UFO; others were genuinely happy, then some flat out told us we were nuts.

We also got the "you're still here?" questions even though we told them we weren't leaving until September. I tried to NOT get annoyed by some questions and comments, but it wasn't always easy to control my remarks when I was exhausted from all the NZ prep... the comment that annoyed me the most was something like this: "So, you went through this whole application process and now you are one of the 'chosen' ones...so why would you want to live in such an elitist society?" :uhoh

I never told anyone about this message board, because quite frankly, I didn't want them snooping in our business to that degree...and haven't told anyone just how long we worked on this process...I figured they'd be hurt or angry that we kept them in the dark so long.

Sheesh...glad we are here and that the secrecy is mostly over (shhh...my parents think we are here for only a year or so :p )

[Andy&Carol]

We told family and close friends we were THINKING about moving to NZ, everyone has been brilliant with comments like "If anyone can do it you can". We won't be moving without a (specific) job so we knew it would be a long wait and the only comments we get are "How are things going". We're still waiting for the job but inching closer...

My philosophy is that talking about it makes it real, and now we only ever talk in a positive way about it "When we go.." rather than "If we go..."

Incedentally since we've told a family member they've told us that they're looking into making the move too, and it's great to go mad talking about NZ with someone who knows what we're going through.

You can only do what feels right for you. All the best, Carol