Calls and Effects
Very chirpy today, largely because someone phoned me at 1.30am and stayed on the phone for half an hour.
No, I'm not being sarcastic.
Some of you may recall the friend of mine who could usually be relied on to email regularly (even when she was travelling the world solo and roughing it in all kinds of dodgy countries) yet who dropped off the face of the earth around 18 months ago. Well, she was the late-night caller, who had finally got one of the messages I'd left and who instantly got on the blower to me (miscalculating the time difference horribly).
She had, coincidentally, been trying to find me for over a year (cos we moved from Sydney, didn't we?).
Long story short, she's safe and she's well, and I'm absolutely overjoyed. I was really very worried there for a while. Better yet, she'll be in London in January.
As will I.
Yup, the final obstacle to the family trip to the UK was hurdled the other day, when I got the little bit of paper stuck in my passport that allows me to return to Australia, should I ever leave.
I'd started looking into getting my visa renewed a few weeks ago, getting on the phone and being told by a helpful woman that it was the easiest single task you could perform at the immigration office. Just rock up with your passport, fork over some cash and bosh, new visa.
Then I found out there were a few checks that needed to be made. Nothing serious, just confirmation of my residency and the like. I could fast-track this by filling in all the forms online, apparently. Doing that was, I was informed, faster than queuing up at the passport office with all the forms and getting them assessed on the spot.
Which means that the average queuing time at the passport office must exceed NINE DAYS - no wonder everyone there looked so bloody miserable.
Anyway, that's how long I had to wait before getting the email saying it was all fixed up, and that I could pick up my magic passport sticker from the local immigration office.
So long as I was alright waiting for another hour to be served.
[Aren't British people supposed to be good a queuing? I've definitely gone native ...]
So if you're one of the people I've been trying to set up visits/meetings/drinks with, drop me a line and bag a time now, or hang on a couple of days and I'll get in touch.
Either way, we're now definitely on.
No, I'm not being sarcastic.
Some of you may recall the friend of mine who could usually be relied on to email regularly (even when she was travelling the world solo and roughing it in all kinds of dodgy countries) yet who dropped off the face of the earth around 18 months ago. Well, she was the late-night caller, who had finally got one of the messages I'd left and who instantly got on the blower to me (miscalculating the time difference horribly).
She had, coincidentally, been trying to find me for over a year (cos we moved from Sydney, didn't we?).
Long story short, she's safe and she's well, and I'm absolutely overjoyed. I was really very worried there for a while. Better yet, she'll be in London in January.
As will I.
Yup, the final obstacle to the family trip to the UK was hurdled the other day, when I got the little bit of paper stuck in my passport that allows me to return to Australia, should I ever leave.
I'd started looking into getting my visa renewed a few weeks ago, getting on the phone and being told by a helpful woman that it was the easiest single task you could perform at the immigration office. Just rock up with your passport, fork over some cash and bosh, new visa.
Then I found out there were a few checks that needed to be made. Nothing serious, just confirmation of my residency and the like. I could fast-track this by filling in all the forms online, apparently. Doing that was, I was informed, faster than queuing up at the passport office with all the forms and getting them assessed on the spot.
Which means that the average queuing time at the passport office must exceed NINE DAYS - no wonder everyone there looked so bloody miserable.
Anyway, that's how long I had to wait before getting the email saying it was all fixed up, and that I could pick up my magic passport sticker from the local immigration office.
So long as I was alright waiting for another hour to be served.
[Aren't British people supposed to be good a queuing? I've definitely gone native ...]
So if you're one of the people I've been trying to set up visits/meetings/drinks with, drop me a line and bag a time now, or hang on a couple of days and I'll get in touch.
Either way, we're now definitely on.
posted by Pete Kempshall at 8:53 PM
1 Comments:
BOOYAH!
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