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About a month ago I received an email from the Australian High Commission in London.  This was to ask for evidence from the last 2 years regarding the continuing nature of our marriage, so a decision can be made whether or not to grant me permanent residency.  I had to get statements from a few people, include photos, copies of bills & statements etc - this was all sent off to London last week (sent by courier service, as there are postal strikes happening in the UK!) which they received 2 days ago.

A short while ago this evening I receive an email from the person in London who is dealing with my case - my file has now been transferred to Melbourne.  Makes sense as we’re living there now, however when I received that email a month ago I replied asking if I should send my stuff to Melbourne as we had just moved there - and got no reply. Bit frustrating

A part of Australian immigration is the need to get police clearance certificates, showing whether or not you’ve been a bad boy - so in my evidence I included a UK police check.  The requirement is if you have spent a total of at least 12 months in the past 10 years in any country you need to provide a clearance from those countries.  I spent 8½ months on a working holiday in 99/2000, 1 month in 2005, 2 weeks in 2006, and have been in Australia the past 2½ months - making a total of 12½-13 months…I now need to provide an Australian police check! Doesn’t sound so bad, I know there isn’t any record - however I have to provide every address I’ve stayed at in Australia. This is the thing..during that 8½ month working holiday 8 years ago, I stayed entirely in youth hostels and travelled around a bit I can’t remember every place I stayed at, nor can I remember all the dates!

Maybe I’ll get permanent residency by Christmas..let’s hope we don’t have to leave another country because visa stuff doesn’t work out.

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When Dawn found a job, it was down to me to find a place for us to live! As I quickly found out, in Melbourne this is easier said than done. The rental market is quite a bit different to the UK, in that there are more people looking for places to rent than there are places available!

I began looking close to where Dawn is working, and places not too far away on public transport - but every time I went to an “open for inspection”, there were at least 10 sets of other people looking at the same place The competition was very fierce, even more so for us as we had just arrived in the country and had no history of renting in Australia. So after a few weeks of this, we decided to look further afield - about 25 miles outside of the city centre.

The first place I looked at in this new location, Dawn also accompanied me. There were only 2 other sets of people looking at the house on that day, and we both felt that we could live there so we put in an application the next morning! We knew it was slightly over-priced for the area, but we needed a place and it felt like the right place to be - and we were successful in our application! I’ve got to say, the financial costs are lower in Australia when renting (no agency fees to pay, and also no council tax once you’re living in a place) but finding a place and being successful in getting it is much tougher.

We moved into this house 1 month ago - and have now managed to make this 3-bed house look not quite so empty with our belongings that were shipped from the UK, as well as some furniture from Brisbane. Now we also have a car! We looked around for a while, and were getting desperate for one as public transport isn’t so good. A week ago we took a likely car for a test drive, and bought it from the dealer - so now we also have a set of wheels!

The only thing left now is for me to find a job I did have one lined up through an agency, and attended a training day for this job. But it wasn’t due to start for a few days after the training day, and the day before I was going to start I received a call from the agency saying that the employer no longer needed us (it would have been a team of 8 people starting the following day for a 4-6 month contract). Dawn has been off work without pay the last 2 weeks because her boss was off, but returns to work this Monday.

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We were met at Melbourne’s Southern Cross station by our friends Lori and Josh (Lori being about 9½ months pregnant and looking fit to burst!). We were then whisked away for a very lavish dinner with the 2 families who were gathered and waiting expectantly for the arrival of the baby. We were to soon find out that the ‘lavish’ dinner with many desserts was actually quite normal! So we are now staying with Josh’s parents who have been so awesome in taking us in.

The job situation has been easier than I thought - after how difficult it was in the UK to find dental technician positions I was expecting a hard slog. However, after 2 weeks I had been offered two jobs! The first was in the laboratory of a dental prosthetist - I initially turned down the job to take a trial position elsewhere, as I just wasn’t sure how I would cope working with a prosthetist - unfamiliar territory and all. It became clear after a few days that the trial position wasn’t gonna be for me, so I called back the first guy and he said “come in on Monday”. Sorted! So the job has been great so far. Difficult of course, as is every new place - trying to remember how things are done and where stuff is kept etc. That all comes with time. My boss is totally mad - in a good way, so it’s quite fun, and there is never a dull moment!

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