We have agonised over this question for two or three years now and finally having just sold our house we now have to decide. All our family is in Australia but returning there is out of the question due to cost of living spiralling and housing off the clock as is the rental market too. So do we stay or do we return to the country of our birth. We have decided good or bad to return to the uk. We have no family there and only a few friends but at our age we are running scared of being left in a country where we do not speak the language fluently.
There is no transport in our village to take us to town and the taxi fare euros 70 each way. I don't drive so if it's me that's left then more problems. Many more reasons but you get the gist of our thinking.
We both have loved our time here and are grateful for it. Medical service has been brilliant and both of us have been in hospital several times. We feel the doctors are sympathetic and certainly give you the time of day which in my husband's case is sometimes nearly an hour!
We have little money to buy a house in England but "how long have as got"! to be worried about that.As long as it's comfortable which we will make it so life will be what we put into it. We are paid an aus pension so we will not be entitled to any benefits and neither would we expect any. We will have to cut our cloth accodingly.
We know others of our age whose thinking along the same lines and many hours spent debating. There is no easy answer especially as one ages and energy decreases. Life is always swings and roundabouts and there is no real satisfactory answer but you have to grab the nettle and get on with it. We're taking the attitude it's just another adventure and hold on tight bumpy though the road may be!