gaining acceptance

It's been an incredibly busy 24hours, but our application for residence in New Zealand has finally been accepted. In now-typical fashion the wording - 'Approval in Principle' doesn't make it seem as though we're finally there, but the following paragraphs makes it more clear;

'Approval in Principle' means that you have almost successfully satisfied all criteria under the Skilled Migrant Category. Now all you need to do is complete these last few steps and I will be able to confirm final approval of your application for residence.

We need to send our passports and a Migrant Levy of £450 to complete the process. The passports will be returned with shiny new visas inside, and then we're done!

Not content with shelling out another load of money, I spent a fair few hours on the phone to various agents trying to secure 5 seats on flights from Manchester to Christchurch on December 20th/21st. I knew this would be difficult, but it was more time-consuming, stress-inducing and hideously-expensive than I expected. But it's now done after a number of games of brinkmanship, and Cathay Pacific won the tender to fly us to our new home by virtue of the fact that no-one else could match the dates. I've never been to Hong Kong before, and I'm looking forward to our 90minute stay there!

Finally, we've booked the removal people to come on December 10th and 11th to ship all our stuff away in a sea-bound container. This gives us a week to clean up before our new tenants move in, but does mean that we'll be possession free until some time in late January / early February. No matter how it was planned this was always going to happen. Luckily t-shirts, shorts and jandals are de rigeur at my new office...

finally there. finally here

It's been a while (as per usual), but that's because things have finally started moving, and - at long last - I'm in New Zealand.

I've started doing some training at my new workplace in preparation for a start date of January 5th 2009 and all appears to be going well so far. There's plenty to learn and investigate, and it's vital preparation for when I start work proper. It also doesn't hurt to meet my future colleagues and attempt to integrate into the work environment. Anyway, so far so good, and everyone has gone out of their way to be friendly and helpful.

This has been interspersed with living in a bach, sussing out Sumner and Redcliffs (where we're hoping to live), searching for accomodation for when we all finally get over here, and checking out the local schools. Oh, and getting as much local knowledge as possible.

Of course, things can't be totally perfect, and we (as a family) still aren't completely sorted with regards to our residency. NZIS as *still* stalling over Maddie's medicals, and we're having to harras the already over-helpful and appreciative-of-our-plight consultants at York Hospital for even more information.

I've had to come over on a work permit rather than residency, so as ever we're nearly there, but as ever not quite there yet.

Video Skype has been my salvation in the lonely weeks that I've been away, but I'm desperately looking forward to getting back home on the 30th October and giving the girls a long and well-missed cuddle.