Immigration woes...

So what do you write about on a very lazy Sunday afternoon when the weather is inclement? Does that mean that you can have clement weather too? Hmm ah, yes you can, but have you ever heard anyone say ‘My goodness isn’t the weather very clement today’? Clement weather is pleasant because it is neither very hot nor very cold

OK enough rambling.

We came back from a short cruise recently, nothing unusual there I hear you say. Well read on and you will see where I am going with this one. No. Not another travelogue, keep reading.

Passports at the ready I sailed through the border control, well mine is a British one isn’t it. The chap at the border took one look inside The Man’s NZ passport and with a beckoning finger took him off out of my sight to another office. ‘Go and wait over there for him love’ said the other border chappie, ‘He won’t be long.’

It did seem to be rather a long time until The Man was directed back to me.

So what was the problem?  Hmmmmmmmm

Seems that his entry into the UK has expired!!!!! And technically he is overstaying.

But, and thankfully there was a but. As the border control in Belgium, our last cruise port, had allowed him both in and out they would too. Not sure of the reasoning behind that one, but that was what The Man said they told him.

I was sure that his multiple entry visa was for three years and that it would need renewing in March 2013, how wrong was that? After the internal panic died down, mine  not the immigration folks, we checked out the UK Border website.

Seems The Man needed to fill in some forms, organise the right sort of ID and make an appointment at a local office. Easy.

NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Appointments have to be made online. Well I guess that can’t be hard, can it?

Guess again.

Standard type of webpage where you fill in the dates you might be available, The Man put ‘all’ for both time and date, hit the enter key….. And Hello, no available appointments. The date frame available runs for just three months, and not a day longer. Must have entered something wrong, try again, same result. Hmmmmmmmm. He tried that for a couple of days, thinking that perhaps the website was having problems. Several days later, with a rising frustration level things had not changed.

Nothing for it, I said to The Man, but to take all your paperwork and turn up in person, and hope that things can be sorted out face to face. How wrong could I be?

Chap behind the counter took one look at The Man’s passport and in a fairly rude tone said, ‘You should be arrested and in jail, for overstaying’ Same rude man wouldn’t even look at the paperwork. Gave my man the number of a form to complete and told him to fill it in and them make an appointment online. Now my bloke kept his cool, and said that he had tried for several days to make an online appointment but there were none available. Answer was, ‘Go online at midnight, and just keep refreshing the page until you get one.’  I wonder how you would get on if you relied on the free computer at your local library or worse still were not at all computer savvy?

There is quite a lot more to this saga, but to keep you in suspense I will write about it another day.

On a nicer note, The Man and I are off again, yes again.

 Tomorrow morning we will be on a bus heading north. You’ll have to come back tomorrow and find out where to.  :)

Campers and churches

Really nice not being woken up by the beeping alarm clock.  OK, so I was out of bed by 8am, but today it was MY choice.  Nice to have a bit of free time. The Man and I spent a very pleasant hour or two looking at the pictures we took at the motor van show yesterday. Mulling over their features and dimensions. And still thinking that the one we decided on yesterday is the right one. 

 We are so looking forward to being able to go back to the gypsy lifestyle we had in NZ when we lived in our caravan for two years. Apparently there is a bit of gypsy in my ancestry which might account for the fact that I love to travel.

This afternoon The Man and I did our usual stroll to the supermarket, granny trolley in tow. Overheard the afro-carribean woman in front of me saying to the cashier, ‘May god keep you and bless you’, not something you expect to hear every day in the supermarket. The cashier, herself afro-carribean said to me when the first customer had gone ‘poor thing, she has altzheiemrs you know’

It is quite usual to see people reading their bible, or Koran, in public; generally speaking they are afro-carribean or similar ethnic back ground, though not always. 

There is an ethnic church in the grove opposite us and on Sundays congregation arrive clad in long white, satin looking, gowns, all of them the men, women and the children to. The men and children are bareheaded, but the women wear what that looks like old fashioned bakers hat. All of them are barefoot.  The stark contrast between the optically white robes and the often very dark skin is something to see. I would love to take a picture of them, but feel it might be considered rude if I did.

There is a Greek church around the corner near the supermarket, it looks very run down and mundane on the outside. Last ester we were able to have a look inside. Once our eyes accustomed themselves to the low light inside the interior glowed with gold icons and crowned statues. And hanging over it all was a huge glittering brass chandelier.

a ride on the train

How easy was that?  Getting to Birmingham and to the exhibition centre was a piece of cake. We got up about 15 minutes before our usual time and caught the slightly earlier train. We were quite early at Euston for the fast train to Birmingham so in retrospect we could have actually gotten up at our usual time, but if there had been any holdup we wold have missed our connection. So we had time for hot chocolate and a sit down before the train arrived. 

The further north we got the better the day became sunnier and a bit cooler. It seems odd to write about it getting cooler the further north we go, but then lots of things are topsy turvey here on this side of the world. It was nice to see the rural scenery, even if it did flash by in bit of a hurry. Nice to be able to let the eye wander into the distance, everything is close and cluttered in London What we do notice is the that lots and lots and the houses look very samey and without much colour. Just about everything is built of brick. And you get a bit tired of looking at the same colour all the time.

There was a shuttle bus from the station to the exhibition centre, which was unexpected and welcome, cos we were pretty sure we were going to be on our feet all day, and we were.

The camping and caravan show was excellent and very well worth going, and we did walk our feet off. We looked at so many campers, but ruled out lots pretty quickly because they didn’t have a permanent made up double bed in the rear of the van. Others we ruled out, even though they had the prerequisite bed, because the layout just wasn’t right. 

After a lot of looking we narrowed our selection down to three very nice ones, and from those three down to one. Which was, wouldn’t you know it, the most expensive one. But the layout was excellent and the finishing was top notch.

So did we buy one, no we didn’t, but boy it would have been good to have.

Late home tonight...

I think the blog will get no more than a perfunctory addition tonight. Why so? I’ll tell you if you give me a mo. Even though I should finish at 1700 it was just after 1900 before I was able to hit the off button on the computer and shut up shop. Fortunately I had The Man to keep me company; everyone else on my floor went home long ago. 

was no way I was going to start cooking tea when we got home just after 2000; good thing the local chippie was still open. I do enjoy  fresh chip sammies. 

I don’t think work is busier, but I was working on my own this afternoon and doing medicals to boot, not to mention trying to sort out some lab results and create travel information for clients.  The fact that I’m not at work tomorrow and am off all of next week too means that I had to finish EVERYTHING, and not leave some of the less important stuff for the next day. Then there was stock checking and ordering too which a bit time is consuming. But I did it. It is really great that The Man was with me. I think I am so fortunate that we are able to travel to and from work with each other; it makes the commute so much nicer.  

So tomorrow we will be making a different train journey, this time to a huge camping and caravan show up in Birmingham. Now it’s off to bed so we can get a good night’s sleep. 

soapbox time...

So what to write about today. This is one of those days when I really have no idea what twill come off the keyboard, and no I ‘m not going to cheat and use one I had prepared earlier, though I  am tempted. 

This morning I read on a friends Facebook page that the British Legion, The NZ equivalent of the RSA, will not be selling poppies for Remembrance Day, Like NZ’s ANZAC Day, in certain areas so as not to be culturally insensitive. 

 Is it true? I looked on the British legions’ website but could find not mention of it. But there is no smoke without fire they say.

 That is so daft and insensitive too. Not only is the sale of the poppies a fundraiser it is also a way, by wearing one,  to honour those who went to war in our names.

 My paternal grandfather served as  soldier in WWI as did my father in WWII. My maternal 

Paternal grandfather in Kitchiner Blue.There wasn't' enough khaki to make uniforms

My father

 grandfather was a merchant seaman during in WWI. 

The crew of the sunk Port Kembla, my grandfather was a stoker on this ship. 

Unlike many who served all these ancestors of mine survived. That doesn’t make me any less proud of them or make me want to support the poppy day appeal any less.  

I have a good idea of the nature of the groups who think it is insensitive to sell poppies in certain areas, but it would be u- PC of me to name them. Let me just say that I am pretty sure which ethnic groups think it is insensitive.

Being resident in a country has certain rights, of course it should, but it also has certain responsibilities too. And those responsibilities include respecting the culture of the country. I am sure some of those not wanting the poppies sold will be receiving some sort of government funding, be it as a benefit or simply in the form of a freedom pass. This pass give people over 60 free transport on most public transport.  When my kids were at primary school there was a substantial Greek community in the area, and these kids went to Greek School on weekends. Yes it is important to keep your culture alive, but not to the point where it affects people outside the cultural group.  OK I’ll get off my soap box now