7 weeks and counting...

been worried these last couple of weeks that my skills assessment had been "lost" in the post since I hadn't received any receipt notification... royal mail were unable to tell me anything useful (international signed for service... the point please?) and the skills assessment board weren't replying to my email.

Ended up ringing the assessment authority up directly. I can't tell you how relieved I was to find out that they HAVE received my application and it's being processed... the reason I hadn't received a receipt email from them was because they had recorded my email address incorrectly. Fills me full of confidence that does I tell ya!

Talking of incompetance, Phones4U are my current target of choice this week. Went into one of their shops on Saturday to just simply change my supplier and get a new phone... simple, yes? NO!!!!

As a consequence of my innocently walking into their store I was blantantly lied to and wasted multiple valuable hours of my life listening to BS. When I found out on Monday I stormed into one of their branches ready to tell every customer entering the shop not to use the company and generally cause merry hell.

When I arrived I dealt with what I will call a "rural" manager (being out in the sticks as I am) who had obviously never been on any kind of pissed-off-customer management course. After 15 minutes of him trying to tell me his colleagues hadn't lied I managed to get him to admit that in actual fact yes they had blatently lied to me. I was then told that it would take 20 minutes to sort everything out... 2 and a half hours later I was running back to work having completely gone over my lunch hour!!!!!!!!!!! They did end up giving me 70 quids worth of stuff to appease me but even still, it took the absolute piss.

Oh and I STILL don't have a new contract!!!

patience is a virtue...

a virtue I don't possess!

it's been 2 and a half weeks since I posted my skills assessment off. they should have received it about a week and a half ago and I've not heard anything yet, not even a polite thanks for the application, it made us laugh, now go back to your grey life in old blighty and don't bother us again!

but perhaps I'm being a tad too impatient.

so other things that have happened... I've been ill, mmmm nice. Went to the outdoors show at the b'ham NEC, which was fab and where I saw Ben Fogle mmmmmmm *drool*. I'm now planning the trips I want to do before I disappear down under. On the list is Iceland, the Arctic to go polar bear spotting, Italy, in particular Mont Blanc, Prague in December and Scotland for some curling lessons! Bit concerned about the amount of cold I'm going to be subjecting myself to here... perhaps I'm subconsciously trying to fit in a life time's worth of winters before I head to warmer climes!!!!

Would love to do Africa but the money is going to be tight even for these few trips, plus Africa is a viable jaunt from Oz anyways so plenty of time for cute and cuddly wild animals :o)

on with the wait......

ahhhhhh *contented sigh*

saw Mr Mraz last night at b'ham academy with Ian. Jason was amazing... of course!

still my favourite artist.

ahhhhhhhhhhhh

going to go listen to him and relive it all ... I suggest you all go do the same!

:o)

you know that fate thing....

knew I should have kept my mouth shut!

anyway, on to more important things.... I've sent my skills assessment off!!! :o) It was put in the post on Friday (3/3)
I reckon the package will be delivered in about a week's time which means that I should have a result by the 21st April at the latest (11 weeks from now).

I've already started having dreams about receiving the results letter... so far the dreams haven't been positive :o(

I'm going to give it a couple of weeks then start looking into what I need to do for the actual visa application so that, should the result be positive, I can send the application off as soon as I receive the result.

Gawd, I can't believe I'm actually doing this. All seems like a dream.

Me and caroline have already started planning what animals we're going to have once we're back in Oz. We're going to have a bassett hound called bruce and a cat called sylvester (Caro's nick name is tweety, I used to get called Pie... so tweetypie and sylvester!!) :oD

OK so we were under the influence when we came up with that one but hey it amuses us!

what a fab few days....

EKW have (finally!!) put my employer reference in the post, I managed to get tickets to see Jason Mraz in B'ham on 7th March, my mate paul has decided to come to cornwall with me at easter, I've managed to get a B&B for easter, Jo is having a b'day party in a couple of weeks, Luan is coming up to B'ham to visit, I have friday pm off work AND I'm going to Amsterdam for the weekend!!!! things are just going fabulously!

now I just need to make an appointment with a lawyer to get all my documents certified and then I can send my skills assessment off!!! Finally!!

:oD

Is it at this point I should start worrying about tempting fate?! ;o)

Mr A-Z is back!

WAHOO!!!

I've just found out that Jason Mraz is back touring in England!!!!!

He has to be my favourite artist of all time.
However the gigs that I can actually get to are all sold out! NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo!

:'o(

what is a girl to do?

I live in hope that more tickets will come available *fingers and legs crossed*

P.S. employer references are on their way! :oD

february blues...

....have well and truely set in.

still haven't got my job profiles from my ex-employers. Sent an email this morning to the relevant people to ask where things stood and I haven't even had a reply from either of them!

my mastercard is going to stop working tomorrow because the bank has a "backlog" of new chip and pin cards to issue... pah! I hope they lose millions and millions of pounds as a result. wonder what they said if I had a back log of bills to pay and they'd just have to wait until I got around to paying them?

and just to make it worse my probation period is over at work as of tomorrow, which means I'm incarcerated in this place. *HELP?!*

grumble grumble grumble.