Ashley's story

today i lodged my application for a UK Tier 1 Highly Skilled, Points Based System Visa in Canberra, after staying with my cousin Michael and his wife Nicole and dogs Roger and Pauline.

I'd driven down yesterday - Wednesday, and done a full dry run out to the UK consulate, out near the Canberra Airport. There's a heap of construction going on out there, the Business Park which is home to the consulate is brand new and there's a lot of road works going on out there too...

anyhow, it was really, really hot on the drive down...no airconditioning didn't help :(

i've been fighting a bug for the past week, which morphed from general lethargy, to headache, sneezing, coughing, runny nose...not great at the best of times, but the heat made it really uncomfortable...

all this is a prelude to my "appointment" at the consulate. i gave myself plenty of time to get there...so i thought...got there in time to find out that the appointments weren't valid and there were 2 other people waiting in front of me.

my thinking on the way there was that things tend to go well if you give yourself plenty of time and are well organised...my visa application feels pretty well spot on. so, even arriving there and finding out that the appointments had been stuffed up, i fell ok about the situation.

Ashley was doing it tough. He was there with his mum. He'd flown back from the UK the day before. He has a job over there and a flat...and an ex girlfriend, who had him on a spousal visa, which didn't hold up when they split up. So, he was back in Aus applying for the same visa as me. He seemed pretty jetlagged and a bit out of it, turns out he was expecting the application to go through a lot quicker than the UK consulate can actually do it - Ashley thought 2 weeks, he was told minimum 8 weeks, which is the same thing they told me. So, my travel plans are now that I leave oz for India around early April to give the visa plenty of time to get through... i hope

then a hot drive back and a short practise to settle things down again

and some more steak for dinner (had one last night too), to get myself pepped up again, been lacking some pep lately

this was all after the docs arrived back from my UK visa agent on tuesday at about 1030...not exactly sure why i went through the agent, needless to say i won't be doing it again, if possible

and enjoyed a chinese new years eve meal with our vietnamese neighbours and watched jelena dokic win her fourth round australian open match...

catchup blogging...