Some good news!

On a couple of occasions last night the wind bashed Waiouru around waking both of us and causing me to think we might have acquired an unwanted temporary crew member!  This morning I was again able to trick Jan into getting up first and turning on the central heating.  Being on the “far side” of the bed does have at least one advantage.

Jan had to make a decision about the scraps from yesterday’s blackberry jam and the wrinkled elderly apples in the fruit bowl.  Bin or compost?  In the end she came up with a more worthy idea and baked me a blackberry and apple loaf.  Sorry swans….. you missed again!

The left loaf is my moist blackberry & apple whilst the right is a lemon drizzle cake. <burp>  Why have they been baked as a loaf?  The boat is rectangular and room is at a premium.  No round cakes on this boat!

The second piece of good news was identified by Jan when she read Ariel Castro, the sex slave kidnapper of three young girls was found hanged in his cell.  He was only 30 days into his “life plus 1000 year” sentence.  The article suggested it was some type of self-sex act as he was found hanging from his bed sheet with his trousers and underpants around his ankles.  I thought only conservative members of parliament did this?  A reader had left a comment “He probably thought he was going to come…… But he actually departed!”

The third piece of good news was in an email to me from the UK Home Office.  My visa application has been approved and it only took two months.  I attribute this to one; or all; of the following reasons.

• Political pressure to clear the backlog of applications
• Restructuring of the UKBA resulting in acceleration of the processing
• The effort we went to in presenting the application and supporting data along with the use of the UK Settlement Service.

My identity card Biometric Residency Permit (BIP) will be sent to me shortly.  The BIP carries my:

name, and and place of birth); 

'biometric information' (fingerprints and facial image); and

immigration status and entitlements.

I guess I should carry it on me should I be “profiled” and my residence status is checked by the authorities at railway stations or randomly on the street. LOL

It’s been an expensive exercise, but now I no longer have to dive into the cabin each time we see a CRT enforcement officer!