It’s
a while since we’ve been to Greenwich, and it isn’t that far away so it was a
good choice and easy to get to
On
the overground to New Cross gate and then hop on a bus to Greenwich.
We
had a wander around an outside street market selling all sorts of bric-a-brac,
Ok so it was mostly junk. Around the corner was the covered market which is a slightly
smaller version of Covent Garden Market.
I waked past a stall that had a sign
saying ‘Going Home’ and next to that was a fluffy to Kiwi.
I couldn’t
resist asking the stall holder where home was. New Zealand of course. Only 46 days
to go, she told us.
Seems
that in January they had applied for an extension to their ancestry visa, just
one day late. Yes that’s right just a day late and they were given their
marching orders. Passports confiscated not to be returned until they are on the
plane out of the country.
A few
weeks ago they were told that they had just a few weeks to leave.
Trouble
is they have loved here for many years and own their own house here. The border
agency wouldn’t take that into account. Not only that they had to go back to
the border agency to get a photocopy of their passports so that they could book their tickets out of
the country.
With
family in the US and Australia they booked a trip home via those two countries.
When they took their tickets in to prove that they were going the response of
the counter staff at the border agency was, ‘you can’t do that you have to go straight
back to NZ’ The kiwi’s response was ‘no I don’t’. Then the counter person said ‘researched
it have you?’ and yes she had.
Like us
she was very disenchanted with the service from the border agency.
We are
still waiting after almost exactly 6 months.
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