THE FIRST FEW DAYS: NOW WITH PHOTOS

We're about to head off to our first WWOOF host near Reigate/Redhill, south of London. We're there for about a week, then we head to Peacehaven, near Brighton, for another week. We're not sure if we'll have internet access while we're away. Hopefully we'll get back to blogging when we return to London. In the meantime, here are some photos from the flight over and from our first few days in the UK. You can see more on our Flickr.


Lake


Snow caps and Ararat?


Dolomites (we think!)


The view from our bedroom window in London.


Sloes - ready to be made into sloe gin, I think!


Big Wood

These are all from our walk around Totteridge/Mill Hill with D's parents.


The before picture!


My first blackberry!


Some kind of science-y research centre, which we thought looked like an old asylum.


The nursery




What a view! It's pretty great that this is still technically part of Greater London. Yay for green belts (Australia, take note).



By the way, we have a new mobile number - email us if we haven't sent it to you already.

CIDER

Yesterday we helped make cider! A more detailed post will come at some stage (with pics, I hope), but for now, YAY!

We picked apples, put them through the scratter, pressed them and then pasteurised some of the juice for drinking (we've been drinking it today!) and watched as J added the yeast and other bits to the rest of it to make it into cider.

What a super day! The sun was even shining...

PICS FROM EAST GIPPSLAND

We went down to East Gippsland in August for J's 60th birthday. Here are some photos!

Flowers and orchids and teeny tiny fungus:











Water and sand:









People:

HOLIDAYS!

It actually feels like we're on holidays, now! Yesterday we went for a lovely walk around Totteridge with D's parents. You can see the map here. Today we're heading to Bristol for the weekend. We're looking forward to seeing our friends and maybe having a day out in the countryside.

I'm still editing and uploading photos from July, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll start to upload photos from the UK.

HERE WE ARE!

Just a quick update to let you all know we arrived safely after a fairly uneventful flight. There was a lot of minor turbulence on the first leg, but otherwise fairly pleasant, with great views of lights over Australia and Sri Lanka, and then of the deserts, mountains, lakes and shorelines of the UAE, Iran, Turkey, Slovenia and Italy (there was one MASSIVE mountain on the horizon at one point - possibly Agri Dagi? (Great Ararat?) Not sure).

Yesterday we went for a bit of a walk around the local area - ate some tasty felafel in Golders Green and wandered through Big Wood and Little Wood, spotting squirrels. Today we're going to go for a walk up near Totteridge - in fact, we are going to leave now!

LAST DAY!

We've just woken up from our last sleep in our flat. We've been sleeping on the floor for the last week, as a friend bought the bed! Luckily some other friends have let us borrow some camp mattresses, and we have a bunch of fabric going to the opshop that includes a very thick curtain to use as a base layer!

I planned to write more here about the process of packing up the house and migrating, but in the end it's just been too busy. I submitted my PhD dissertation for examination just under two weeks ago; since then, it's been a whirlwind of packing, garage sale, moving things, catching up with friends, packing, cleaning, catching up with friends, visiting Melbourne's fine eateries, packing our storage container, packing, weighing our bags, sending boxes, packing, doing paperwork, packing, and so on. This has been much more stressful than finishing the PhD! I think I didn't (let myself) realise what a big thing it was not just to be moving house and going overseas, but to be vacating a house, putting things in storage, organising to rent the flat, moving to live overseas, etc. I'm thankful for all the things I did well in advance!

We have found a property manager to look after renting our flat while we're away - they come recommended by our financial adviser/power of attorney, so it is good to know they have a working relationship. The painter (friend's dad) is coming to finish off the painting and put up the blind, etc. tomorrow. The property manager will get the carpets steam cleaned, and hopefully everything will be ready to go for an inspection this weekend. I hope we get some tenants who like this flat as much as we do!

It's been sad saying goodbye to all our friends and family here - and to Melbourne itself, though I guess in a way I've been doing that for months. I think I've been pushing the bigness of it all aside, as I haven't had the time or space to do anything but organise, organise, organise. In fact, I think the fact we're leaving hasn't really sunk in at all - I didn't even have anxiety dreams last night. I'm also trying to be in the moment, to enjoy hanging out with friends when we do and give them lots of hugs, to listen to the distant sounds of trams turning the corner and birds calling in the day. Today we'll go for a quick walk along the creek and breathe the air. Tonight we'll see the lights of Melbourne spread out below as we take to the sky...

Tomorrow we'll be in London.

PLACES TO EAT (AT) BEFORE WE LEAVE

Several months ago we wrote a list of places we wanted to eat at before we left Melbourne. A few people have asked, so here's the list, divided into places we went, places we didn't go (yet) and places that closed before we got the chance. (Places one or both of us have never eaten/had never eaten before marked with an asterisk.)

PLACES WE WENT:
Trippy Taco
Thaila Thai
Thai Nee Cafe
Tiba's
i Carusi
Wood Spoon Kitchen
Disco Beans*
Jimmy Watson's
Hellenic Republic*
Gasometer*
The EBC
Sassy's*
Al Albero
Veggie Kitchen: Intention of Love
The Breakfast Club*
Moroccan Soup Bar
Yong Green Food*
Jackson Dodds*

PLACES WE DIDN'T MAKE IT TO (YET)
Alasya
Hu Tong Dumplings*
Lentil as Anything (or does this go in the next list?)
Friends of the Earth
Las Vegan*
Misty's Diner*
White Lotus
Philhellene*

PLACES THAT CLOSED:
Mr Nice Guy (cafe - they still wholesale the cupcakes!)*

There are also several places that aren't on the list because we go there all the time - A Minor Place, Pearl Oyster and Ceres are probably the most obvious, but there's also Munsterhaus, Tiamo 2, and other places. We went to a few places not on this list for the first time, too - but I can only think of Cumulus Inc at the moment!

SPRING

It’s spring in Melbourne. It crept up softly, gradually; then in the last few days, suddenly, noisily, with the burst of flowers, the sprout of leaves, an explosion of birdlife and nest building. The sky has been blue, the sun warm – perfect for strolling along the creek, if you have the inclination and the time. And I do have the inclination, and I’ve been making as much time as I can in between packing, getting the house painted and, most of all, working feverishly on my dissertation, which is due just a week or two before we leave. Today, after two hours solid work at a local café, I walked back along the creek (slowly, slowly) and watched two glossy ravens hop from rock to rock around a large puddle before finally jumping in and splashing around (after I’d moved on a bit – they’re clearly modest!). They were later chased out of a nearby tree by two wattlebirds – perhaps protecting a nest, or perhaps just being pernickety and territorial, as wattlebirds are wont to be. A pair of magpie larks pottered quietly and calmly in the long grass. I said hello to some of my tree friends, and noticed again how much they’d grown since we moved here just over five years ago. They really are established trees, now, rather than saplings – big enough to cast shade for a picnic. I thought about how much more literate I am in terms of being able to ‘read’ this landscape, how I could sit there for hours listening to the stories it tells. I kind of wanted to lie face-down on the ground and soak everything up, or be absorbed.

I am so glad that we are here for this part of spring. I will miss my little bit of Melbourne when we’re living overseas.

JUNE. ALSO MONTHS AGO!

It was my birthday in June, so we had a mini-break. We really enjoyed our stay at Glenview Retreat in Emerald last July (for our anniversary walk), so we decided to repeat the experience. Once again, we walked there from Belgrave, though this time we took a slightly different route. We stayed two nights, giving us the chance to properly relax, read a book, and wander around Emerald Lake Park. We walked all the way back to Belgrave, this time (no trespassing and encountering bulls in paddocks, this time!). You can see a map of our walk here. You can see all photos here, but I'll post a selection below (you can click on the images to see a bigger size and more commentary).

Day One:








Day Two:




Day Three:

APRIL. IT WAS MONTHS AGO!

I've been so busy with uni that I haven't had time to edit and upload the photos from our last trip to East Gippsland in April. But now I have! You can find them on Flickr, but here are a few of my faves. Click through to see comments on Flickr.


On the way there: picnic lunch at Bairnsdale and bushfire regrowth on the Princes Hwy.


A dog we met when we went on a walk. She was super friendly!


Everything was so green and lush. Lovely, after years of drought.


The grape leaves were just turning.


We went for walks and saw cool things (check that fungus)!


It was E's 60th, and she had a cardigan-themed party!


I got to watch the sun rise. My favourite time.


J, E, E & J. (Photo by D.)

Soon we'll be off again, this time for J's 60th! It will most likely be our last visit before we head to the UK, so it'll be slightly bittersweet.

PACKING BOXES OF BOOKS

Oof. I'd forgotten how long it takes to pack up a house. I'm glad we've started early. We've boxed almost all the books (except my uni books). Last time we put things in storage it was for a bit over 6 months, and when we got back there was a lot of stuff we thought we should have got rid of in the garage sale we had before we left. This time we're trying to be more ruthless! But still . . .

I've packed 15 boxes of books so far - and there's probably another 2-3 to go! We've also got a shelf and a half (and counting) of books we want to take with us. However, we've sorted out about 6 shelves of books to sell at our garage sale this time. We just have a lot of books.

(I'm not even starting to think about the video tapes, DVDs and - worse! - the CDs!)

BRISTOL / SAVING MONEY

We're going to head to Bristol on our first weekend in the UK to see a couple of friends who are moving to Australia soon after we arrive. (That makes 3 friends vacating the UK just in time for our arrival. Is there something you're not telling us about? Other than your screwed up government?)

Anyway! I had been trying to wade through all the train/bus and hotel/hostel/b&b sites with little joy and much confusion, until I clicked a random link to Money Saving Expert. YES, I KNOW. But it's actually quite a good starting point to navigate this ocean of [insert nautical allusion here] information. I now know, for example, that booking intercity train tickets starting 12 weeks in advance in the UK is the thing to do to get cheap fares. And that they're searchable using The Train Line. And that Megabus offers super-cheap alternatives for some routes. Plus, I got a pretty good deal on a hotel for the weekend (not as nice as a B&B, but really, we'll only be sleeping there). I AM CLEARLY A CONVERT!

I've updated our 'Handy Links' section on the sidebar of this blog to include some of these sites.

I'd update more, but I'm too busy trying to finish this PhD!

WWOOFING: IT BEGINS!

Yesterday we bought our WWOOF membership! Now it's time to start seriously thinking about where we'd like to go and what we'd like to do. Have you done any WWOOFing, friends? What did you like/dislike? Any tips for finding, booking, and getting on with hosts? Any suggestions about dealing with your personal requirements (e.g. diet) or avoiding people who don't like your kind (e.g. queers)? I'M EXCITED! :D

VISA: I HAS ONE!

Today I went and picked up a package from the Post Office. Inside was pretty much all the paperwork I sent for my visa application (they kept copies of only a few key documents) and my passport with a brand new visa inside! It's valid from the end of September 2011 to December 2013, multiple entries allowed, no recourse to public funds. It unfortunately lists me as "Sex: F", but then, that's what matches my passport. I'm just pleased to have it in my possession!

VISA APPLICATION: HARD COPY

A couple of people have privately asked about what you need to submit for a UK settlement visa application. I thought I'd record what we've sent off to give others an idea. Here is the (slightly abridged) list of the forms and docs we sent.

*

1. Application forms: VAF4A and passport-sized photograph; VAF4A Annex (ELT).

2. Identification: My current and previous passports; my current birth certificate; copies of DB's passports.

3. Personal statements and letters of support: Personal statements from me and DB, outlining the history and meaningfulness of our relationship and some of our plans for the future; Supporting letters from two friends and my parents vouching for the sincerity and longevity of our relationship.

4. Details of joint commitments: Title and homeloan details for our flat; joint and bank statements going back to 2004 (one per year); copies of our wills made out to each other (& our families).

5. Evidence of cohabitation: Copies of both our drivers licences showing the same current address; Bills, invoices and receipts linking us to the same address going back to 2005 (one per year).

6. Details of our financial situation, accommodation and potential for employment in the UK: Financial plan drawn up by our financial adviser; Statements for our joint and individual bank accounts for each of the past 6 months; Both our payslips for the last 3 months; Evidence of enrollment letter from my uni; Both our CVs; Letter of invitation from DB's parents for us to stay with them (including photos of the room); Proof that DB's parents own the house in which we will stay.

7. Further supporting evidence that we have been in a relationship akin to marriage and have been cohabiting since 2002: Copies of photographs of us together with explanations of where we were and what we were doing; Photocopies of postcards, wedding invitation and thank-you cards addressed to us both.

*

You are meant to send in the original and a photocopy of every piece of evidence you submit. I sent my parcel off yesterday - it weighed over 1.3kg! I used Australia Post's Platinum Express (the visa people don't accept registered post), which cost me about $30 (including self-addressed return bag). I used the tracker this morning to see it safely delivered to the Sydney GPO Box Centre. Now it all gets shipped off to Manila to be processed.

And we wait . . . eep!

ONLINE VISA APPLICATION

Well, I've submitted the online component of the visa application for settlement in the UK. It's been a very long time in the planning - finding out how much it would cost, when to apply, what documents we'd need as supporting evidence, and then getting everything together, making photocopies of the original docs we'd need to send off for our records (and having just done the application I realise we need ANOTHER photocopy of EVERYTHING we're sending so they can keep a copy, too).

I have an appointment in the city for them to collect my 'biometric data' on Monday, then I need to send everything off to get processed (it goes to a PO Box in Sydney, and they take it to the regional processing centre in Manila). Hopefully I will then have a visa!

(Processing times vary. this site says, "Settlement and Certificate of Entitlement to the Right of Abode are currently being dealt within 6 weeks." On the link, however, it says that, in March, 100% of the 97 applications for settlement were processed within 90 working days (plus 3-4 working days each way for postage and shipping). That's . . . FIVE MONTHS! However, 95% were processed within 10 working days, so let's hope mine goes smoothly.)

They can post-date the visa for up to 3 months from date of processing (i.e. if they approve my application on 20th June, the visa can start any time up to 20th September). I know my travel might be outside that date, but it's better to get in early in case my application takes longer (which it might, since I'm trans and who knows what they'll think of that).

I'm a bit adrenaline-y at the moment!

If you want to know more about the process, let me know and I'll type out a bit more.