I'm now on holiday in Oz - more about this later. This post is just to say that we finally got the Visa!!!!! We checked our e-mail while we was in Singapore and we've got an e-mail to say the visa has been granted. What a relief! After 18 months of hassle we can finally put the house up for sale and make serious plans for leaving.
Of course the added bonus is that while we're here on holiday we can do a proper recce knowing we're actually going to be living here.
Finally, we're all packed and ready to go. Just waiting for our lift to the airport hotel. We're staying in a hotel near Manchester Airport tonight. We're going to check-in early and make use of the leisure facilities to have a fun and relaxing afternoon. We'll then go out for a meal tonight before flying tomorrow morning.
Why is packing so stressful? I'm not too bad but Rachelle always stresses before we leave, worried that we're taking too much, not taking enough, worried that we'll forget something.
Lauren bless her hasn't really got a clue what's to come. It's a 13 hour flight to Singapore, where we're having a 2 day stopover, but I'm sure she'll be fine. Singapore Airlines is really good with kids apparently and there's movies on demand, games, etc. In fact, I'm quite looking forward to the flight after the stress of the last few weeks.
VERY EXCITED !!!!
One day of work left before my hols! It's been crazy this week trying to get tasks ticked off before I go. Problem with my job is I can't really just pass work on while I'm away, it will all be waiting for me when I return.
I got a phone call right out of the blue yesterday from a recruitment agency we use at work to recruit people for my team. It started like this: "Daryl, can we talk confidentially?". Immediately I thought it would be about my boss who's recently resigned but in fact, he told me a job had come up with another company which he thought I was perfect for. Now if it wasn't for the fact that I am actually pissed off with where I work now I would have thought this was a bit of a conflict of interest. My company pays them to find excellent candidates to work for us, not poach our employees away. I guess that's business.
Anyway the position he wants to put me forward for is for a well-know global IT company and the salary is double what I'm on now. I told him I'm planning to emigrate early next year but he said so what, earn some extra dosh before you leave. One side of me is thinking yes, get in there, earn as much dosh as possible before leaving. The other side is saying you really don't need the stress. My current job is flexible, I get to work from home a lot and I manage my own workload. I could easily see out the rest of the year where I work and have plenty of time to deal with selling the house and all the other things I need to do to prepare to emigrate. The other thing is I'm jointly running a business on the side which I've committed to. We have big plans for the business (at least until I emigrate anyway) but there's no saying it will actually make any money. Do I really want to start a new highly paid job, which will obviously mean long hours and lots of stress to earn the money, whilst running a separate business and preparing to emigrate? I'm going to send them my CV. Nothing may come of it but I've learnt that you always need to leave your options open.
You wouldn't believe how much organising this Oz trip has taken (a bit different to a weekend in Skegness!). I dread to think what it will be like when/if we actually emigrate.
I think I've made a bit of a screw-up. I've booked day flights which I thought would be best but now it's dawned on me that the flight to Singapore gets in at 7am and we can't check in to the hotel until 2pm (after a 17 hour flight!). I've sent an e-mail to the hotel to see if there's any chance we can get an early check-in. I really don't want to have to pay for another night just for those few hours in the morning. We might be ok, we may be able to sleep on the flight. I think it would be a first for me if I did, without alcohol involved anyway. I don't think getting rat-arsed is a good idea on a 17 hour flight, I'm far too sensible these days! I suppose we could always sleep by the pool when we get there. I'm more worried about the return leg when we get into Singapore even earlier at 5:45. I haven't booked a hotel for the return leg yet as I thought I'd see what it's like on our stopover on the way out first.
Listen to me, it's usually the missus who does all the worrying, I'm the laid back one supposedly!
This is the first post of what will hopefully be many describing an amazing journey we are about to take (subject to the visa being granted of course). The 'we' is me Daryl, my partner Rachelle (pronounced Rachel (blame her mum) ) and our 4 year old daughter Lauren.
I can't really remember when it was exactly that we decided we want to emigrate to Australia. We were thinking about it for a while and it was after we visited an OZ migration Expo in London in Nov/Dec 2004 I think that we committed to going for it.
We started the application process in January 2005 and now finally, in March 2006, we've done everything we can to secure the Visa and are now just waiting on a decision. Anyone who thinks it's easy to get into Australia - think again! It's been a long drawn out, expensive process.
While we're awaiting the decision we will be shortly taking a 3-week holiday/recce to Oz. Having never visited Oz before we thought it would be wise to actually see if we liked it first before we emigrated. I know it sounds obvious but you wouldn't believe the amount of people that emigrate without ever having visited the place.
It's now 10 days to go until we jet off on what will hopefully be a holiday of a lifetime!
