Take Off

Take Off
1st April 2008
Dear Ethel, Family & Friends,
Well today is take off day and it’s been a long time coming. We have spent 3 months packing the house and now have paying tenants. We also finished up with Australia Post at Easter time, a week ago now and have spent some quality time with Louise’s Mum in Bathurst. We travelled back from Bathurst only yesterday, taking an early morning bus to Central in Sydney, a train to the airport and a flight to the Gold Coast with Virgin. However the biggest problem to date has been obtaining my British visa.

Louise has a British Passport as her father was British as well as an Australian one, so I thought I’d apply for a British Residence visa to allow us to work and live as long as we wanted in the UK and Europe. So I went online to find out what was involved how long it would take etc. The cost alone $1250.00 was enough to make me ring the British High Commission (BHC) to get the facts from them as the information on the website was not clear. To phone them however costs money, $3 a minute and you guessed it they put you on hold.
I eventually talked to a consultant who said it should take only 14 working days. So I was assured by this and posted my Application, $1250 fee plus $20 return postage, my Passport and some other documents they would need.

I waited the 14 working days, and as I had no response from the BHC, and paying my $3 a minute got onto a consultant, who informed me they haven’t looked at my application yet but would do so over the next few days and that It sometimes takes up to 3 MONTHS to get a visa, (not the news I wanted to hear). So I waited... and got an email requesting more details including our original marriage certificate from Births, Deaths and Marriages not the one we were given when we were married, plus letters from Louise, and my Uncle in the UK all within 5 days or they couldn’t process my application. Well I was running out of time and certainly couldn’t get the marriage certificate as we never had a copy of it in the first place. As they do not respond to emails, I had to phone them again, asking what could be done as I was concerned about getting my passport back. I was told to put a letter in writing to cancel my application and forfeit my application fee and fax it to the BHC.

It was now about 6 working day before Easter on the Wednesday, so we quickly typed the letter and faxed it from a friends place and waited. I phoned the BHC the following day to make sure they had received my fax, they told me to phone back that afternoon to find out.? So I did as instructed, all the while paying my $3 a minute for the privilege and was told it could take 24 hours to find out if they had received my fax. “OK” I said, “If I phone you back this time tomorrow, can you let me know if you received my fax?”,” well you can try, but it may take up to 48 hours”, was my reply. Mmm, now I’ve seriously got steam coming out of my ears. But I restrain myself and thank her very much and faxed the letter again, just in case. Friday comes around and I phone in the morning and ask if there is any news, no phone back this afternoon. In the afternoon, still no news, So I say can you PLEASE phone THEM to find out, but no they can’t even phone THEM whoever THEM is?

Well long story cut short, we spent a long and sleepless weekend wondering if I’d ever get my passport back. Monday rolls around and a guy from BHC phones and says the passport is in the mail, but no application fee. Well that was a hard lesson learnt. The good news is I got it back with two days to spare and was able to leave the sunshine coast on East Sunday to join Louise. All I can say about the visa episode is that it was a very “Yes Minister” moment, and I can’t think of a more ridiculous way to run an embassy, but I guess that’s how they can afford to pay their staff and keep the riffraff out of their country. Well it worked, and we will have to re evaluate the Europe leg of our trip. We can stay in Europe for 6 months at a time, so we will see how that pans out.

Well I write this blog entry on the plane as we leave Australia behind us for who knows how long.
All the best for now
Ric & Louise