Passport-less of Greatham :)

What a bizarre experience that was. Flew to the train station after a last-minute change of mind regarding routes up to London... long story.... juggling keys and train tickets, handbags and 'light reading' (Culture-wise Canada..) dropping my apple (didn't know they exploded like that) and clinging on to our precious passports, the passport request letter from the embassy and photos - 2 more of them each, the photography shop knows our faces so well they could probably sketch us in their sleep...

Anyway, sauntering across Bond Street, sucking in the London atmos for one of the last times I slowly made my way to the Embassy. The Canadian Embassy. I can hardly believe that for all these years in this immigration process and all those times I've been up to town that this was the first time I had actually seen this place in the flesh, as it were.

I don't know what I expected, maybe a little band outside, some ticker-tape, bunting perhaps...

But there it was, a commanding Georgian building with an enormous flag wafting around in the wind. I don't mind admitting that I was quite moved to see it. The building I mean. I know it sounds very odd, but for three years this place has been synonymous with power, with angst, anger even, frustration, despair, infuriation at times. This building has been built up in my mind to house robotic box-ticking personnel, surrounded by dank grey walls and piles of dull brown cardboard boxes. They have no art on the walls, they all wear 'beige'. There are no phone lines in, or out of the building. They have to book time at the computer and be guarded while they use it to ensure they only correspond using bureaucratic speak, phraseology that would fit in a council office drawer quite well....

This of course is not how it is at all. This is just how my schema has it. My psychological schema has created it's own virtual world and, just like when you meet someone for the first time having had a telephone relationship for years, it wouldn't be long before the 'face' of the embassy would return to being that in my mind rather than that of reality. That lovely French lady who smiled so warmly at me when I finally reached the end of the 'line', who laughed about how there wouldn't be any English people left in England soon, that lovely colourful lady would soon, again be beige in my mind. Poor thing.

The queues. I wasn't expecting the queues. Sorry, I should be calling them 'line up's' now eh? I don't think I was really up on what to expect was I? Yep, it stands to reason that if the Embassy (still can't kick that capitalisation habit, respect, see), if the Embassy is only open for dropping off or collecting passports between 2 & 3 o'clock on a Thursday then the world and his guide-dog would be waiting. How naive I was.

So, I joined the line, choked back a tear or two, soppy mare, wished Andy was with me to share this moment and waited my turn. Three years waiting and finally I'm handing over our passports for them to heat-seal a pretty Canadian Permanent Residence Visa into each one ... only they don't actually do that bit yet for real because we have to actually 'land' in Canada before we become residents, these documents will just say we are allowed to become residents...

So. The final wait begins. Fourteen days and we'll be up there to collect the documents. Back in the same line up but this time I'll go right instead of left. This time we'll be one of the new Canadians coming out of that door trying to stifle the desire to lift our shirts above our heads and whoop-whoop down the street.... This time, it really will all be over. It'll be our destiny in our hands, not anyone else's hands, we'll be in control of our new future.

So, back to the hum of the computer, and the two piles of 'to do', the 'work like you're not just about to turn your lives upside down' pile and the 'prepare for Canada' pile. Can you guess which one is bigger.....?

See you soon :)