Welcome to the first of the forthcoming plethora of ramblings spouted directly from my mind cavity which have been carefully tailored to keep you fully up to date with the "thrilling" adventures of myself and my wiley life colleague The Gemmatron.
As many of you will know, Gemma hails from the sordid and dysfunctional part of the world which many refer to as "The Land Down Udder" or something similar (presumably because it hangs from the nether regions of the Earth like a lady cow's milk orbs). Having spent nearly four years in the luxuriant Northern hemisphere she is likely to eventually become eager to return to the Motherland for a while to regail her kind with tales of "Marmite" and the sheer thrill of using toilets situated inside the house.
After literally months spent putting the thing together, last week we finally submitted our very bulky and complex application for a partner visa so that we can enjoy this trip together. Since then, the Australian Government has thoughtfully deducted £1350 from my bank account for processing fees so the application is now officially pending with their embassy in London. Hopefully, it will be granted in January/February next year, and after we've activated it we'll have five years to head over - dates for blast-off are therefore flexible at this stage. If you have any exciting events planned for the future please let us know now so we can factor these in.
Unless you've been through a similar process, you might be surprised just exactly how much paperwork is required for such an application. To give you an idea - the pile of paper we eventually submitted was 8 inches high and postage to the embassy in London cost a smidgen under £25. However, I guess that for many people the process can be seen as a fast track for citizenship so it makes sense that the DIAC (Department for Immigration and Citizenship) wants to ensure all applications are genuine.
The application looks at a number of factors - mainly regarding the length and nature of our relationship. We had to submit extensive evidence that we had been living together as a genuine couple for a period of 12 months or more. Gemma moved in with me back in October 2009 so we had quite a lot of general admin-style stuff to hand such as joint bank accounts, insurance policies, photos etc as well as the various application forms completed by both of us. On top of this we've had to collect legal declarations from a selection of friends and family to confirm our situation is as we have stated and that we ain't lying nor nuffink niver. Most of these had to be from Australian citizens so it's been a bit of a mission tracking down various Aussies we know here in the UK as well as posting forms over there for Gemma's family to complete and return to us. All of these declarations had to be countersigned by a solicitor with the author of the declaration also present - so that was a bit of a logistical nightmare (huge thanks to all those involved).
Now the waiting game starts - the money's been taken so any day now we should hopefully be assigned a case officer who'll let us know if they need any other evidence or information from us. If not, I'll then need to go for a medical to ensure I haven't got TB (does that even exist here any more?) and get some police checks done (I'm pretty clean I think - I'm sure they won't hold that speeding ticket I got back in 1998 against me) and then it's normally a 3-4 month wait for it all to be finalised and granted. Then we'll have to make some plans about when to set sail for Antipodean waters.
Once we're over there I'll happily keep you fully updated with my intellectual finds and discoveries - mainly pictures of toilets, supermarkets and breakfast cereals I imagine. Things are very different over there - did you know they call them Rice Bubbles instead of Rice Krispies? The mind boggles.
More to follow if/when I can be bothered and/or something interesting occurs...
