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.