So Christmas has officially begun for the Vallentine household. The Christmas season had begun for the Horn-turned-Vallentine contingent way back at Thanksgiving, but proper Christmas - the actual "doing" of Christmas - started this weekend.
Friday evening we picked up Mark's sister Sarah and her boyfriend Tim from the Weston-super-Mare train station on the way into Brean and stayed at his mum's place over the weekend. Sarah is planning to stay down here until the day after Boxing Day (no, it doesn't have a name), but Tim is spending Christmas Day with his family, so he's actually taking the train up to Hull (that's in the North) today. That meant that this weekend was the only time when everyone was going to be there, so we tried to be extra festive, and hence, kicked off the Christmas party early.
All that really meant is we started upping the quantities of food eaten per meal, played some games (including the Wii, which was, as expected, a big hit), and then last night sat around and watched while Tim opened his presents in front of us.
But the main thing that tells me that Christmas is here (and the reason for this post, as you might have guessed) is that the raisins have arrived.
I think I've probably ranted about this in front of all of you before, but let's recap. Pretty much all the traditional British dishes/foods eaten at Christmastime involve raisins or sultanas in some fashion. All the stuff that everyone only eats during the holiday, which everyone gets excited about contain raisins. Mince pies, christmas cake (which sounds great but is, in fact, fruitcake), christmas pudding (which isn't pudding at all for an American, but a raisin-flavored, raisin filled booby trap) have all gone to the dark side. Normally I'm ok for the actual Christmas dinner, but I have in fact seen brussel sprouts and stuffing each with raisins in. It's pretty tragic.
This year I'm making the stuffing (just in case) and hoping to make a pecan pie to create a small non-raisin safe haven for myself. I think my British citizenship may be held up by the fact that I don't accept raisins, since it seems to be a national pasttime over here (it's not restricted just to Christmas - oh no sireee).
But as you tuck in to your apple pies and tree-shaped sugar cookies this year, spare a small thought for me, a lone ex-pat in a sea of sultanas, trying to celebrate a raisin-free Christmas.
(...and Jenny, if you post a comment about how raisins are good for me and I just need to think myself out of this problem, so help me, Christmas or no Christmas...)
:)
Monday, December 24, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Step number 523, complete.
Yesterday, I drove an hour and a half to Newton Abbot, a town in Devon. It's a nice little place, and is on the way to Torquay, which is one of the sort of old British resort towns on the South coast of Devon.
Newton Abbot's local authority (sort of the equivalent of a town council) is the only place in the South West of England that does the Nationality Checking Service (NCS). The NCS basically means that if you pay £35 they look at your application for naturalisation (see it's working, notice the "s") and make sure that you've filled everything in properly and you've included all the documents you need.
The most important bit is that they make official photocopies of all of your documents so you don't have to send the originals into the national office that considers the applications. Normally, if you just mail in the application, you have to send in your passport, your spouse's passport (if you are applying on the basis of marriage, like me), your marriage certificate and some other paperwork. Which means that there are lots of chances of it being lost, or being kept for a long period of time (months, or in one case I've heard of, 2 years!). I don't like the idea of not being able to travel at all for however long it takes them to do the paperwork, so it's definitely worth it to drive the distance and pay the money to be able to keep our passports!
It was all a very quick process - it took all of about 15 minutes. There was a bit of a panic because they asked for lots of documents that I didn't bring because I had already showed them to the people when I got my indefinite leave. They said that it's a different office that is considering this application (Home Office rather than Passport Control), so they ask to see it. But they said that it's not really required, they just ask to see if it people bring it. I kept asking again and again if they thought I should come back, but they assured me that if the Home Office did need to see some more proof or identification they would contact me and ask for it, rather than just reject my application outright. Which is good, since if they reject your application, you don't get your £655 back!
They also submit your application by secure post, and so it was meant to arrive in Liverpool today at 1pm GMT. Apparently, the Home Office will get in touch in the next couple of weeks just to let me know they received it, and then it will probably take a couple to a few months to hear the response.
It's nice that it's all done, and now I just wait and see!
Newton Abbot's local authority (sort of the equivalent of a town council) is the only place in the South West of England that does the Nationality Checking Service (NCS). The NCS basically means that if you pay £35 they look at your application for naturalisation (see it's working, notice the "s") and make sure that you've filled everything in properly and you've included all the documents you need.
The most important bit is that they make official photocopies of all of your documents so you don't have to send the originals into the national office that considers the applications. Normally, if you just mail in the application, you have to send in your passport, your spouse's passport (if you are applying on the basis of marriage, like me), your marriage certificate and some other paperwork. Which means that there are lots of chances of it being lost, or being kept for a long period of time (months, or in one case I've heard of, 2 years!). I don't like the idea of not being able to travel at all for however long it takes them to do the paperwork, so it's definitely worth it to drive the distance and pay the money to be able to keep our passports!
It was all a very quick process - it took all of about 15 minutes. There was a bit of a panic because they asked for lots of documents that I didn't bring because I had already showed them to the people when I got my indefinite leave. They said that it's a different office that is considering this application (Home Office rather than Passport Control), so they ask to see it. But they said that it's not really required, they just ask to see if it people bring it. I kept asking again and again if they thought I should come back, but they assured me that if the Home Office did need to see some more proof or identification they would contact me and ask for it, rather than just reject my application outright. Which is good, since if they reject your application, you don't get your £655 back!
They also submit your application by secure post, and so it was meant to arrive in Liverpool today at 1pm GMT. Apparently, the Home Office will get in touch in the next couple of weeks just to let me know they received it, and then it will probably take a couple to a few months to hear the response.
It's nice that it's all done, and now I just wait and see!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)