40 days to tell me what I already know...

I knew that one of the recurring themes of this blog would be bureaucracy. It's just as well I checked how long it would take to get a note from the police to say that I've never done anything wrong in my life, ever. 40 days. FORTY days. By the time it comes through I'll have already submitted my application form and (hopefully) be well on the way to having my Visa granted. But if I hadn't checked up front I would have been waiting a lot longer.

Oh, and I went into Ealing Town Hall yesterday lunchtime and apparently they can't witness my documents. That's stupid too.

Photos and Forms

Yesterday afternoon I started filling in my form, and came up with the following list of things that Zoe needs to send me:

• certified copy of her birth cirtificate.
• certified copy of her Passport
• full names & dates of birth of all of her immediate family. (Not sure why, but it's on my form that I need to fill in. I know that her Mum's middle name is Edna, but I can't remember the exact dates of everyone's birthdays.)
  
• 2 passport-sized photos.
• A separate written statement/stat dec, detailing "the history of our relationship (for example, when and how you first met, when you started living together, joint activities, significant events in the relationship etc)".
  
• Print-outs of any emails, and copies of your parents phone bills where there are calls to me, to prove we've stayed in touch and all that.
• Print-outs of booking confirmations when we've booked to gone away for weekends together etc

This afternoon I wandered down and got the passport photos I need to provide when I submit the application done. And now I'm worried that I might be showing just a little bit too much tooth for it to be permissable as a Visa photo. But then a certain person takes the piss out of me for not showing my teeth when I smile...

Oh, and I emailed the Australian Immigration lot the other day, and the latest is that the application processing time could take anything between 3 and 12 weeks. I reckon our application will tend towards the lower end of that range, what with us already having had the equivilent Visa over here, but it'll be a case of waiting to see what they say until we get the form in.

The Campest Australian TV Chef with two kids?

I'm planning on having a lazy weekend, going through all the forms, working out exactly what everyone involved needs to do, and then writing a great big list. But right now I just finished watching Bills Food on BBC1, which aside from being really badly punctuated, provides me with a weekly taste of Australia. I know that all these cookery shows are selling you a lifestyle as much as showing you have to make nice food, but this is one lifestyle that I quite fancy thank-you-very-much.

I'm still a little disappointed that we didn't make it to one of his places for breakfast when we had our quick trip to Sydney in December 2005, but I'm hoping there will be plenty of other opportunities. For now, I think I might settle for making Sweetcorn Cakes with Avocado Salsa this weekend. Must go out and buy the ingredients today.

Visas, Forms and Documentation, Part 1

The Visa I'm going to be applying for is the snappily-named Spouse Visa: Offshore Temporary and Permanent (or Subclass 309 and 100 to its friends.) The blurb says:

This visa allows you to enter or remain in Australia on the basis of your married or de-facto relationship with your partner:

• on a temporary visa (usually for a waiting period of approximately two (2) years from the date you applied for the visa)
• on a permanent visa if, after the waiting period (if applicable), your partner relationship still exists and you are still eligible for this visa.

It costs AU$1340, or about £550. I have a big form to fill in, so does Zoe, and there's a whole load of other criteria which I'll probably talk about individually as I come to them. For now, I have a print-out of the forms which I keep reading and re-reading, waiting for Zoe to fill in her form and send it over by post. I'm impatient. Now that this is all starting to happen, I want to happen yesterday.

One of the things we know we definitely need are testimonies from two Australian citizens who aren't related to either of us, detailing the "social context" of our relationship. We didn't have to do that for Zoe's equivalent visa in the UK, but then we had to provide two years worth of paperwork compared to the one years worth we need this time. For these testmonies I will be eternally greatful to Vic and Anna.

And so it begins...

On my way home from work today it occured to me that moving to Australia is probably a pretty big deal, so I thought I'd start writing about it. I don't have the best record when it comes to keeping this sort of thing up to date, but this time, I'm going to make a real effort. I already know that I'll have to throw myself into everything (work, social life, relationship) with nothing less than full committment when I get over there, so I'll do the same with this blog.

Some people (family, some friends) know my plans already, and there are plenty of others who I want to tell, but that'll have to wait a month or two yet. So for now, I'll write this away from prying eyes. You'll all see it eventually.

Is it weird that right now, I'm not scared of, or phased by, this whole thing? I'm nothing but extremely excited. If I didn't do this, it'd be the single biggest regret of my entire life...