It is said that moving house is one of the mose stressful things that you can do. I would like to add that moving country and NOT GETTING YOUR DBS CLEARANCE THROUGH in time is MORE STRESSFUL!!! Particularly when the visa application s dependent upon having it.

I submitted my online form to COBIS (Council of British Independent Schools) back in June then got all my documents verified at the post office, scanned them in and emailled them to the school as per instructions. I sat back and waited. Once it reached week 5 of not hearing anything I was feeling slightly panicky. I knew that staff at the school were on holiday but sent some ‘concerned’ emails anyway but got no reply. So I took matters into my own hands and contacted COBIS who informed me that my documents hadn’t arrived with them and my application had gone precisely nowhere. Panic set in. I sent my documents by courier to London but even so I was informed that there was no express DBS clearance  service and it would take 2-6 weeks for the certificate to come through. We had days left to apply for the visa so that wasnt going to work. More panic. I have to say that I wasn’t particularly pleasant to live with at this stage so all credit to Kevin for putting up with me.

Then the school got in contact with an alternative solution using ARCO a 4 day police checking system which will give sufficient detail for the visa and we will do the full DBS from Bangkok once we arrive (if it doesnt come in time)…

Phew! Relief and large gins all round. Panic wasn’t quite over though as the online submission had to be submitted that day but just my luck the electrician was in doing repairs to a (fatal) fault on a ring main which meant he had knocked off the router and so I had NO INTERNET!!! Thank God for Costa and their wifi. I squirrelled myself away with my surface and a cappucino and spend over an hours getting everything sorted.

All being well I should get the certificate this Saturday which means that we can do a consulate dash on Monday and get the visa then. It hasnt done my blood pressure any good I can tell you.

I have been encouraged to write a blog to document the adventure which Kevin and I are about to embark on. So here goes…

Redundancy has been a theoretical concept, once which I have been fully on board with until this week when we had our last day at work, had a farewell gift, card and party. Huge thanks to Carne for letting us join her leaving do.

Now the reality has hit home. We don’t have to go to bed early to get up for work the next morning. I don’t have to buy things for packed lunches in the weekly shop. We have technically joined the ranks of the unemployed!!! To be honest it all feels a bit surreal.

Thank goodness we have LOTS to do to keep us fully occupied

Packing

Painting

Sorting out

de-cluttering

packing…

But my dbs hasn’t yet arrived so I haven’t been able to apply for our visas. Stress. I have the plane ticket but NO VISA!!!

Year 3

The T Shirt Story

Reception

Year 3

Off to West End Primary to be an author (& to refresh my memory on how do to author talks) Thanks Anita for hosting my practice run. Had a lovely morning