It's Official!

So, there we have it. Our shiny new visa's fresh and warm from the Canadian Embassy today. Hurrah!

We snuck the children out of school under the cover of playtime and darted to the train station to head up to 'town' for our ceremonial descent on the Embassy. Both were wary of our motives and tried to negotiate sweet treats or trips to the London Aquarium... Tom even said he wasn't interested in going unless we were travelling into 'Bond Street' tube station (still somewhat fanatical about 007...). It just so happened that we were, so, one down one to go...

Anyway, Amelie's first train ride ever started with huge excitement, which lasted ooh, about 3 minutes. Then we start with the 'are we there yet's' It really does happen doesn't it.. very odd.

Big brave grown up Tom took charge of his ticket and showed us all how it worked up there...

Well, long story short we did arrive in plenty of time to the same loooooong queues as a fortnight ago. That time I was alone, this time I had family buffers. It was great. Even saw the people I was chatting to last time, huge camaraderie, I love it. Us against the... well, I don't really know what we were against, uh-oh the Canadian passivist attitude has kicked in already; we're not against anything together, we're in it together, especially those of us that have been in the 'system' for upwards of three years. Those three monthers - pah. The patience we have had to learn, the highs and lows of three years of limbo...

And we have our brown envelope with '93' in the corner, loaded to the hilt with official documentation to take with us, Andy took charge of the bag - containing the envelope and I overheard him saying to Amelie (who thought she was being funny by opening & closing the bag zip) "Leave the zip alone Ams, there's three years of my life in that bag.."

So we have it. We have the photo, if there had been a Canadian stall outside the embassy selling the biggest load of tat I'd have cleared their decks for them today - WE'RE ONLY FLAMIN' IN!!! Whoop Whoop de Whoop!

I love my visa, if I look hard enough I can see the blood, sweat and bucket loads of tears etched through it amongst it's watermark....

So there you have it. We're officially Permanent Residents of Canada. We couldn't be happier! This means we can go on our terms, when we want. They've said we fit the bill - the Canadians want us to go so that's alright then, we'll go!

Oh - and did I mention we booked our flights? We're packin' up and movin' on out on Wednesday 4th November...

Thanks for tuning in... until the next time :)

x

PS - Please feel free to leave us your comments below ♥