Visa Blues

First of all, a huge thank you to Mike for signing dozens of pieces of paper to give me the certified copies of everything that I needed for my visa application! He patiently sat with me this morning while I fussed around putting the last things together - including reprinting the last six pages of the form because I managed to lose them! So the Australian High Commission will shortly receive a lever arch file containing inches thick paperwork...

I've just taken it all to the Post Office and paid £7 each way to send it Special Delivery with a Special Delivery envelope included inside so that they can send it all back to me, and I do feel a palpable sense of relief now that it's gone! For starters, there's all the original paperwork that can now go back in the files.

The only thing I would say about the weighty process I've gone through is that is has felt weighty - serious, not trivial. It's a more than cosmetic exercise taking on the citizenship of another country than one's own, and it's interesting process thinking about it.

Tall Poppies

I had a day out in London today, ostensibly collecting the print that didn't make it into the Royal Academy Summer Show - don't they realise what they missed out on?! - but also to take a look around and relax a bit. I dropped into the Birkenstock shop to collect a new pair, and passed Stanfords map shop in Covent Garden and popped in there too. I bought a map of North Eastern New South Wales to give me more of an idea of the area around Coffs Harbour, but I also read a bit out of a patronising 'cultural adaptation' book about living in Australia that pissed me off no end.

There was the predictable 'Strine' dictionary, a simplistic discussion about the relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia, and a section on BBQ etiquette. But the interesting bit was a discussion about Tall Poppy Syndrome. The authors various national characteristics: Americans are aspirational and congratulate each other on their successes; the Brits outwardly; but Australians are envious and want to cut down anyone who grows into a 'tall poppy' back down to size. Since I've come home I've been talking to Michael about it, because it worries me a bit. I don't want to end up feeling ostracised a) because I'm a Pom and b) because I'm a snooty Pom who's a bit too big for her boots! But Michael says that Australians are a bit more materialistic and aspirational themselves these days and that the key to making friends for both of us will be to go about it quietly and modestly (not a word you're used to associating with me? Well I think I'm very modest!!); we need to be friendly without being flashy, and I guess that's the secret of making new friends anyway so I'll stop being silly...

There's an interesting article in Sydney Morning Herald about it: link here

Down with DIY!

It's a right pain, selling your house. First there's the whole thing about 'decluttering', turfing out half of your stuff and then frantically rearranging what's left so that it looks half tidy. But then there's the horrible realisation that there are cracks in the plaster, chips in all the door frames, and the window sills look terrible... and before you know it, you're half way up a ladder doing DIY.

I've just come down a ladder, having spent a beautiful sunny Sunday morning sanding and painting one wall in our bedroom. It's the wall adjoining the family bathroom, and the builder's exertions with a hammer when he was taking down tiles and tongue-and-groove panelling and the like caused cracking on the bedroom side of the wall. The trouble is, we have a water bed and you can't move water beds! Yesterday wasn't too bad because all the cracks were accessible, even if I was filling them at arms length from the penultimate step of the ladder. But today I had to repaint the whole wall, which at one point required me to stand on top of a pile made from two pillows and the two bedside tables on top of each other on the wobbly water bed, with Michael valiantly trying to keep the whole thing steady!

In case you're wondering, the whole wall needed repainting because the technician at the Dulux paint centre refused to make up paint specially for me using the sample I'd prised off the wall - or at least, he maintained that was what he had done until I'd paid for the bloody tin of paint (no refunds, you see). How I wish I'd taken the sample to the Crown paint centre in Fishponds, but after several visits already I was being lazy and didn't want to make the 10 mile round trip. It serves to remind me that laziness doesn't pay... When I got home and painted a sample patch it seemed to match, but it was a trick of the light: once I'd repainted a larger area on the wall adjoining the bathroom, which is opposite the window, it became clear that the paint I bought from Dulux is subtly different - slightly duller in colour. Not noticeable in a small area but jolly noticeable on the wall.

Anyway, now that's done all I have left on the list is replacing two bulbs in the bedroom light (which unfortunately means Michael holding a shorter ladder steady on the waterbed while I climb it to get to the light!), replacing some halogen bulbs recessed into the office ceiling, sanding, sealing and painting a damp patch in the guest bedroom, and oiling the remainder of our bedroom floor and the hallway. Hooray!

Doing the decorating has served a purpose in my own mind: it's given me a sense of distance from the house. I feel less as if I'm clinging on with my fingernails and more like I'm polishing something up to give to someone else. It's been a useful way to learn to let go.

More perspective

Oh dear, my last post sounded a bit sad - it's difficult to know what to do about it. I don't want to start self-censoring, so this will probably be a bit of an up-and-down blog, which is a reflection of my up-and-down self! You'll just have to bear with me and wait for happier posts further down the line...

Perspective

I've had to tell lots of people that we're going to Australia, to live, for good, in September, and for the most part the reaction has been, 'Whoaaa! How do you feel about that?' and it's a hard question to answer because it depends what kind of night's sleep I had, what the kids are doing, what side of bed I got out of, and how much hassle I'm having with the dratted forms. So one of the answers is, 'I don't know how I feel about it', and truthfully I don't know how I feel...

Twenty years ago I think I would have embraced the idea without a second thought: ooh, how exciting! Yes, I'd love to move the other side of the world because what have I got to lose? What do I have here? But aged forty, with two children (even if one of them is large enough not to count as a child any more - I'm not commenting on his biological age!), a garden, three allotments, one third of an MA, and several arts-admin activities going on, I am not so sure. Hence the ambivalence.

I bought an Orange Pippin apple tree on M9 dwarfing root stock; old fashioned red gooseberries and the red and white currants that my mother loved and I love too. I'm tucking into a bowl of home-grown strawberries (Honeoye, Florence and Hapil), and the artichokes that I've nurtured from seed for the last two years are setting their first chokes and I need to look up what to do with them now. I've literally and figuratively been putting down roots, and now I need to pull them up again, and just like a plant it may take me a few seasons to recover.

I haven't achieved that Buddhist acceptance of the transience of material things. Many of my material possessions have indeed been with me only transiently - witness what happened to all of my things when I was with Andy! I don't fear that any more, but big changes still feel as if they are being ripped out of me rather than being a willing renunciation of things present and a hopeful adoption of a changed future.

Maybe it's just a question of perspective: close up the mountain that we have to climb seems huge. Perhaps if I achieved a bit more detachment and could feel further away from it, it would then seem smaller? I'm trying.

Gardening Leave

Yesterday I decided I'd had enough of form filling and went off to the allotment for the day! I've been letting things slide because I've been so upset at leaving it after all the work I've put in over the last five years... But I've begun to come to terms to leaving it, and I've decided to enjoy all the summer fruit and give up the allotment in September. So all I have to do is to keep the weeds down sufficiently to avoid an eviction notice from my friendly site representative and I'll be able to eat strawberries, black currants, red currants and white currants all summer long! In fact, I may even manage to eat some of my lovely autumn-fruiting raspberries and pumpkins if they get their act into gear.

Today, of course, I've got back ache because I rather over-did things up there, but it was just good to get away. I saw my friend Charles up there, who had retreated up there to get away from the stress of recent invasive medical examinations, and we were talking about our neighbour Jeff whose wife is dying, and how he's coming up there to find a little bit of peace in the middle of his darkness. We concluded that all of us use the allotment for escape, and it's true. With all the stresses and strains of the last few years: Mum dying, Ella's birth, problems with the kids, my health problems, going up to my allotment has been a saving grace. I know I'll be able to have a bigger garden in Australia, but will I find the same social gardening? I don't know!

Captain's Blog, 22nd June

Do you know, it took me 6 HOURS to fill in one stupid four page form yesterday, and it almost reduced me to tears. It was Form 80, titled, "Personal Particulars for Character Assessment" i.e. lots of details about my life that will be checked on in addition to the Police Check I will also require...

So here's a quiz: how long would it take you to assemble the names and addresses of all of your previous employers, together with evidence that you worked for them, and the exact dates of your employment since you left school? How would you be able to prove what you did in between jobs, if there's a gap? Can you remember the addresses of all the places you've lived for longer than 12 months in the last 10 years (well, this might be easy for some of you but I've moved around an awful lot in my life! Luckily for me it is only 4 addresses in the last decade). What about all the countries you've visited in the last 5 years? You need to be able to state the exact dates of your visit, the purpose of your visit and work out the exact duration of your visit in days. Then all you have to do is provide the inside leg measurement of your father and your mother's dress size and intimate personal details and you're done! If you've got the evidence to back it up, of course.

Luckily I've always been the sort of anal retentive who files their paperwork so in fact I have, stashed away, the payslips I received for my first official job as a Grade C Counter Assistant at Butlins in Bognor Regis, when I was 18 years old! I seem to remember trying to learn New Testament Greek in my lunchbreak whilst trying to fend off the unwanted attentions of a sleazy manager who was likely to stick his hand up your skirt if you stood still for too long...

AAAAARGH!

Documentary Evidence part 2

Here's what I have to provide with my visa application:

Michael and I have to write a statement detailing how, when and where we first met; how our relationship developed; when we decided to 'get serious'; how/when/where we decided to get married, our domestic arrangements - how we support each other financially, physically and emotionally and when this level of commitment began; when and why we have ever been separated and proof of how we maintained our relationship during this time; and our future plans.

We then need to provide four categories of supporting evidence:

financial (evidence of joint ownership of property and major assets; evidence of joint bank accounts; any evidence of loans in joint names; evidence of sharing of household bills; legal commitments such as wills);

"nature of the household" (evidence of shared household responsibilities; evidence of shared living arrangements; evidence of joint responsibility for the care of any children; correspondence addressed to us both at our home);

"the social context of our relationship" (evidence that we are generally regarded as a couple by our friends and family; statutory declarations about the nature of our relationship by our friends and family; evidence of joint membership of groups and organisations; evidence of joint participation in sporting, cultural or social activities; joint travel);

"the nature of our commitment to each other" (evidence of knowledge of each other's personal circumstances; the terms of our wills; correspondence and itemised telephone bills to show that contact was maintained during any periods of separation).

And, as if that wasn't enough, there's note:
"The lists (above) are only a guide and are neither all inclusive or exclusive. You may be asked to provide additional information during the processing of your application."

BLIMEY! I've put together so much information thus far that it fills a lever-arch file, and I haven't dug it all out yet! Nor have I filled out forms 47SP or 40SP or 1071P or 47P... I'm exhausted!

Documentary Evidence

Thanks to Nimmi, Joan, Christian and Mike who have very kindly - at great risk to their reputations! - made statements in support of my Spouse Visa application! And a big thank you to Michael as well for saying the sweetest things in his Sponsor forms...

Captain's Log, 20th June 2006

The situation so far: we've decided to move back to Australia, which is where Michael and Patrick came from, and even Ella's got citizenship. One set of grandparents, my three brothers-in-law and two sisters-in-law and their sixteen children, our nephews and nieces, live there, plus various other relatives. The only Pom in the ointment is me! So I'm applying for my Spouse visa at the moment, sponsored by Michael.

While I'm trying to complete the saga-of-my-life which is the Spouse Visa Application form, we're also trying to sell the house and live as normal a life as one can when one is in the middle of selling up and moving half way around the world. When we first started on this caper it was a bit like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle that may (or may not) contain several pictures. You don't know if you've got all the pieces, you can't find the edges, and you're not sure if it's even the right way up... several weeks later I'm now fairly sure what the picture looks like, I've found most of the pieces, and the straight edges are sorting themselves out, so things are better than they were.

It's exhausting, though, just thinking about it, especially when you're also trying to sort out exporting the dog, making a living, chosing a shipping consultant and being a step/mother! Poor old Patrick's had a rotten week: he's spent the whole weekend in Southmead Hospital with acute tonsillitis and glandular fever, hooked up to an antibiotic drip and feeling lousy. It has ruined his revision and consequently his A Levels - we're just relieved that he's been examined in enough modules to mean that the Examination Boards will be able to give him a predictive mark based on course work and previous exams, otherwise he'd be leaving school with ungraded A Levels, and I can't see that working out well for him when it comes to finding a University place. The sight of Patrick with a drip in his arm scared Ella and she wouldn't even give him a hug while he was in hospital. Today's his first full day home, and apart from remembering to keep to a complex drugs regimen, all he has to do is play Nintendo games with her, so they're both downstairs in the guest bedroom with Patrick's Nintendo plugged into the spare TV. I knew there was a reason why we kept hold of it!