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Whilst we were on our research trip to Egypt we were contacted by our immigration case officer (Monday 20th March to be exact). We have 70 days to provide:

Police Clearance Certificates (PCC)
Medical Examination
X-ray
Capital Investment in Australia

The 70 days expires 29 May. This may sound like a lot of time, but we lost one week by being away (I was determined not to check my mail for a whole week!) – and there are other problems too. I wasn’t expecting to have to provide the capital investment for several months and was even considering re-mortgaging to take the pressure off financially, but we don’t have time for this now! Some of the investments I am having to call in are in notice accounts – and still registered at my old address. None of the investments can be operated online, so this means writing (yeah, letters, stamps etc.) to the banks and building societies, which can take a week to get a response. Already we are down to 55 days!

Medical exam and x-ray’s are booked for the 20th & 21st of this month, so hopefully everything will go OK with them & we can get them sent off in time.

Police clearance forms were posted today, but they can take up to 40 days to be returned.

Oh, and the immigration want certified copies of documents, not originals, so it is yet another appointment with the solicitor!

I will be really glad when this lot is done!

Laura phoned this morning & got us out of bed (probably about time too as it was 10am!). Her & Stu are planning to travel up from Bris to Cairns in about 4 weeks, stopping in at the Whitsundays and a few other spots on the way. After working the dry season in Cairns they are planning to travel over to Canada, then visit the UK at some point. Think Stu wants to work in London for a while. Depending on the timing of our visa we could miss seeing them here or in Oz!

This got me thinking about our application, so I have checked out a couple of things. I registered with the excellent Austimeline and put in some of our information. I had a hunt around the site, and noticed that many of the applicants had sent their police & health clearances prior to being asked for them – to speed up the process. Going to have a think about this. The other potential problem is that the $100k bond/investment is requested prior to visa grant, which I think we knew but had never thought of. Time to scratch up some money!

I have been talking with my new pal Pete (whom I recently bought a certain health site from) about working together. I am constantly pushed for time, what with the full time job too, and it seems that Pete has become disillusioned with the affiliate/adsense business, so I am paying him a fixed fee to produce a site for me. Hopefully this will blossom into a long lasting working relationship & help me build the business to a level where I can rely on it as my main income. Although I haven’t made any new years resolutions this year, one ‘goal’ for 2006 is to have a strong online business (in whatever form) by the end of the year, to enable us to live in Australia (or wherever) for the English winter.

Receipt came yesterday – maybe no more horrid, horrid winters in the UK. I am driving up and down the M6, M61 & M60 all week to Sale, Manchester to learn CATIA V5. Not a nice commute in this weather. In the news yesterday 400 cars were stuck in 4-6 inches of snow in the Glossop area. How pathetic.

Anne finally posted our emigration application on Tuesday. What a relief. Maybe only 14 more cold wet months to go.