Last couple of weeks of June ..... And what a month its been

As you can imagine we were on such a high after signing contracts on the new house on the 15th, but then reality set in and panic really, that we didn’t have that long to get ourselves organised and also the extra cash we needed for the house as well as what we need for our visa.

Sam has a school trip on the 17th, he had a great day out at an activity centre, he came home exhausted and full of himself after completing most of the activities. The 18th we were in the city for our visa medicals, it was a long day and left us a lot lighter cash wise, well the medicals were $1200 and car parking $42.00, then lunch and petrol etc.

Friday 19th we had a quiet night, a much needed one after a busy week, we have recently changed internet providers and we sat and emailed everyone our new email address. We received a reply from the estate agent advising that they had been contacted by a lady who was moving from Scotland back to the area and wanted to know if we would be interested in renting out the house. What was meant to be an early night turned out to be a late one, as we were trying to ring this woman, eventually Jason spoke to her just after 1.00 and we passed on dad’s number so that she could view the house on Sunday.

Saturday we had a lovely evening with Peppa, Owen, Chris, Claire, Di and Mic. Peppa cooked courgette and parmesan soup, I did beef bourguignon, Potatoes Dauphinoise and French beans, and Claire did a Tiramisu for desert. It was all delicious, but we were soo full after eating it all.

We got up on Monday morning to en email saying the couple wanted to rent the house and move in on the 10th July, would we make arrangements to get an agreement drawn and also an invoice as his company were paying for some of the relocation expenses and initial rent. So we have had a busy week looking at insurance, tenancy agreements, notifying the mortgage, changing bills, mail redirection and anything else we could think of. It was a relief when it was the weekend again, Friday Jason went out with Mic and Owen for a few drinks and I had a night in with Peppa which was lovely.

Saturday we helped Katya and Mark move into their new house, it is brand new and beautiful, that night we were at Hayley and Pauls, Hayley cooked a lovely chilli and rice and we really enjoyed it after a hard day moving. Jason was already streaming with cold and I felt as though I was starting, so not good, think it is all the stress we have had recently.

Sunday was a quiet pyjama day, Jason popped out to get Owen to witness our signatures on the tenancy agreement so we could post that back to the Uk, and also pick up some boxes in preparation for our move. He also produced an invoice as requested. I cooked; I did sweet chilli prawns, Chinese crispy skin belly pork and a roast beef.

And that’s it, nearly at the end of June, I cannot believe how quickly this year is going, we are concentrating on getting everything sorted to rent out the house at the moment. For the visa we are still waiting to hear from the ACS, but they will have had it 10 weeks on Monday 29th June and the website states that you will hear from them within 10 to 12 weeks, so hopefully we should hear from them within the next 2 weeks, we should have our police checks back from the UK within the next 2 weeks and also the medicals should have been processed within the next 2 weeks. So all being well our visa application should be going in middle of July sometime and they are taking anything from 1 to 4 weeks to come back, so all being well we should have our residency by the middle of August.