Week 3, The River and Work

Hello again to all of our faithful followers! I hope you aren't getting sick of my boring ramblings. We've had another week of doing some more of the same. :) 

We are still very much enjoying our time in London, and are so pleased that we took this leap. It has been a learning process figuring out how things work around here. The trick is to set up a bank account, to do that you need proof of residence. Not just one, but two. Getting a proof of residence is harder than you'd think... A letter from the Government Jobcenter with one's National Insurance number is one way, but all other options don't apply to us yet. (One way, we we're told by the sincere bank assistance, is to use a bank statement from another UK bank account...Clearly that isn't going to work for us.) 

Last week we went into central London and as we were walking around, we came across The Monument. It is a tall strucutre built between 1671 and 1677 to commemorate the Great Fire of London (which occurred in 1666). We had some time so we paid for our tickets and started the climb. There are 311 steps in a tight spiral up the inside of the column of the structure. It was exhausting going up but the views were really beautiful once we got to the top. The walk down was tricky and we held on tight to the rail so as not to tumble forwards down the tight stairway! Below is a picture of The Monument (disclaimer: I didn't take this photo as the camera on my phone is average to crap. This is just the first image you get when you search for The Monument on Google and happens to be a lovely picture) From the top you can see quite far, the second picture is a view down the Thames and Tower Bridge. 

After that we wandered over London Bridge, which is the first bridge in London and also was the only bridge across the Thames until 1729. Seeing that London has been the site of human settlement for about 2000 years, it is quite amazing that for 1700 years there was only one way across the river. There are now at least 33 bridges crossing the Thames. The river is really huge, and despite its thick, muddy colour, really majestic. I have loved the chance to walk along beside it or even just cross the river in the train. This was our second chance to wander along the banks of the river this week. We spotted the HMS Belfast docked in the river and went to have a peek. We decided we not to go on board as we weren't willing to pay for another admission ticket! But the sun had come out and the views with tower bridge in the background were quite beautiful. Frans even managed to coax a pretty picture out of his phone.

Earlier in the week we took a trip to Canary Wharf to the east of London. This is the area where the original docklands were and historically an area of poverty. Now it is home to the headquarters of many big banks and is a booming business industry. The buildings here are mostly modern and made of glass. This is contrasted to the old town of central London City where the buildings are much older, made of stone or brick and have elaborate detail carved into the walls and pillars. In Canary Wharf, there are building sites everywhere and the development in the area is charging ahead. We wandered along the river for a bit, but eventually we got too cold and had to go home!

Below is a picture from Canary Wharf of three of the iconic tall buildings in The London skyline. They are known as The Walkie Talkie, the Cheese Grater and The Gherkin. We are pretty sure those aren't their real names, but they're pretty descriptive, hey? 

I start work on tomorrow (Monday) and am really looking forward to it. I have been on holiday for quite a while and I'm excited to get started with something again (I'm sure I will be regretting those words next week when I am super tired and not coping with the work load!) As I've said, I'll be dealing with a long commute of 1 hour and 40 minutes or so... I'm still coming to terms with that! 

Same, same but different

Its been two weeks since we got here to London. And everything is the same as South Africa but DIFFERENT. Here's a list of all the things that are Same Same but Different:

1. Same: shopping in supermarkets. Different: getting a handle on the currency. We're getting pretty good at multiplying everything by 23 or so to figure out if something is expensive. But then you realise that with an exchange rate like that, EVERYTHING  is expensive. But we're slowly working out how much stuff costs and what we can afford. It has taken a few slow trips around the shop figuring things out. Finding stuff on the shelves is also tough, all the brands are different, and things aren't displayed in the same way. 

2. Same: Having to commute to work. Different: the commute itself is VASTLY different. I walk to the station, catch a train, change to an underground train, change to another underground train, change again and then walk 10 minutes to work. My drive in South Africa was 15 minutes long. FIFTEEN MINUTES. Frans says its payback because its not normal to have a 15 minute commute when you live in Joburg. 

3. Same: watching TV. Different: all the channels, all the free channels, all the channels on the internet. 

4. Same: running Parkrun. Different: it's freezing cold and very muddy! The first time we ran Parkrun, we misjudged the bus times and arrived an hour early! It was freezing and we weren't properly dressed for the cold. Eventually we had to start running in circles just to keep warm! 

Things that are not different to how they were in South Africa: sleeping in a bed, washing my face... um... Yep, that's all.

Winter Holiday in Sutton

It's been almost a week since we arrived in the UK and it's kind of felt as if we are on holiday. Although Frans is trawling through job sites and phoning recruiters a lot of the time, we have been able to do a fair amount of relaxing and local sightseeing. Sutton (where we're staying with our friends Kyle and Kelly) is a sweet suburban town south of London and really has everything you need; large supermarkets, banks, train station and a high street with phone shops, pharmacies and clothing shops.
We've been trying to take a different route each day when we go for our run so that we can see more of the area. Most of the houses are really pretty with a little front garden. On Tuesday, we ran to Carshalton which is a tiny village a few Ks away. There is a beautiful park there and some ponds or small lakes. On Thursday we walked to Cheam for a pub lunch and a visit to a Tudor period wattle-and-daub building called Whitehall.
Wednesday was a trip into central London for meetings with recruiters for Frans. It was very exciting to be in London and we really felt like this was why we had come. The buildings are so grand and detailed, all the pavements are so wide and filled with people bustling everywhere. The smell of coffee as you pass a cafe on almost every corner offsets the miserable weather; grey with a bit of rain now and then.
So part of our plan is to hit the ground running, and join a Parkrun on our first Saturday here. Kelly took us to a beautiful park called Nonsuch in Cheam, the neighbouring town. It was very chilly this morning and we were caught out by the bus journey; we calculated that we needed to leave the house at 7.45 to catch the correct bus to Cheam. But once we arrived in Cheam, we realised that the journey was only 10 minutes and we had almost an hour to kill before the race started at 9am! We didn't have a car to sit in, or warm clothes as we were going to be running. So we shivered our way through 45 minutes and then joined the "warm up" gang running in circles before the race started.
Tomorrow we're going to Brixton (another suburb of London, a little more central than where we are now) to go to a Mexican Carnival. We are meeting Paddy and Kerry there which we are really looking forward to!

We have arrived in London

We're here and we made it to London! We're staying in a little town called Sutton in Surrey, south of London with our lovely friends Kyle and Kelly. Our flights went really smoothly and we got to catch up on a lot of movies we've been wanting to see. :)

Today, our first day here, we've been setting our selves up with phone sim cards, bank accounts and national insurance numbers. The weather at the moment is very mild for mid-winter. Its chilly, sure, but not nearly as cold as we were expecting. Its overcast and grey, but not raining at the moment.

A lot of people have been asking us what our reasons are for moving to London and what we plan to do here. I know a few of you already know our plans, if you do, this is one of those times that you're not obliged to read further.

Both Frans and I have been wanting to do quite a bit of travelling, and have felt like it would be interesting to live in another country for a while. After discussing the options and discovering that we qualified for an Ancestry visa to the UK, we thought that living for a few years in London sounded like a good idea. I've explained in a previous post why Frans is suited to working in London. And with me being a teacher, I can pretty much work any where.

I have secured a job for a few months at a Catholic school in West London. I'll be covering a maternity leave and so its a fixed term contract. Frans has been in touch with recruiters and hopes to secure a contracting position doing pretty much what he was doing in SA.

We're so excited to be here and looking forward to the new adventures and learning curves.

How to do a visa application

We have received our visas for the UK. After a lot of worrying and sleepless nights, we have those pretty little additions to our passports. I promised in a previous post, that I would write a post outlining how I did our visa application, in the hope that it would help anyone else who is trying to do the same thing. If you are not thinking of applying for an Ancestry Visa for the UK, I suggest you stop reading now. It will be intensely boring!

Before I start, I must be clear, I am NOT qualified to give advice on visa applications, and the gov.uk site clearly states that all applications are different and, therefore, should require different sets of supporting documents. This is simply a record of how we approached our visa application and answers to questions that I had at the beginning of the process which I now know the answers to.

First up, are the costs involved. After that, I'll give an overview of the visa process and what supporting documents we gave, then answer what were my burning questions and finally offer some advice on the pitfalls that we faced!

Costs involved
The Visa itself costs around GBP300 per person (for accurate costs see the gov.uk website). This translates into around R7500 per person.

But, please also remember that you will have to pay the Health Surcharge, don't think you are exempt from it, you are not! This costs GBP100 per person, per year of your visa. So for a 5-year ancestry visa, you will have to pay GBP1000 per person. For us, this was R22 500 each.

This brought the total cost of our visa right up to R60 000. If you decide to use an agent (I would recommend this although we didn't use one), you can expect to pay about R3000 - R5000 per person applying.

Visa application overview
We were applying for an Ancestry Visa (for me) with a Dependant Visa (for my husband). To qualify for an Ancestry Visa, you must be a citizen of a commonwealth country and have a grandparent born in the UK. For more details of this, visit the gov.uk website.

The first part of the visa application process is sourcing the documentation that you will need to prove ancestry. This means proving, using birth and marriage certificates, that your grandparent was born in the UK, and that he/she was your parent's parent, and that your parent is your parent. Make sure to get marriage/divorce certificates where there was a change of name. I included a simple family tree diagram in our application to show the relationship between myself, my mother and grandfather, as well as the marriages that resulted in changed names (my mother and my own).

I used a LOT of forums to assist me in the process. Most of the questions I had had been asked by someone else previously which meant that I had instant answers. The best forums were http://www.expatforum.com/ and http://www.immigrationboards.com/

South Africans must get a TB clearance certificate. This is valid for 6 months, so get it as soon as you can, so long as you give yourself 6 months to get your visa and leave the country. The TB certificate is necessary for your application as part of your supporting documents, but must still be valid when you enter the UK. You must also have your certificate in your hand luggage when you enter the UK.

Once you have that documentation, you can start the application process. We had to complete an application form online at https://www.visa4uk.fco.gov.uk/ It is fairly straight forward and the most difficult part was selecting the visa that we were applying for, and I'll explain the details later in "Pitfalls". You need to start separate applications for each person applying, (i.e. one application for the main applicant, and one for the dependent). Once you have created the applications, you can keep revisiting the pages and making your way through the application at your own pace. There is no time constraint and the website is laid out quite clearly. || UPDATE: If you are applying for a UK visa from South Africa, you will be redirected to this site. You can click on the link directly from the Visa4UK site. HOWEVER, if, like my brother David, you are a South African but you are applying for a UK visa from another country (Vietnam for example) then you still need to use the Visa4UK site ||

Make your way through the process step by step. You must allocate the Post Office where you will be collecting your BRP from. Choose one close to where you will be staying when you arrive. The BRP is a Biometric Residence Permit, necessary to allow you to stay in the country and you collect this once you arrive.

After making your way through the self-explanatory process of filling in the application form, you are redirected to another website to pay for the IHS (Immigration Health Surcharge). The BIG one! Get your sturdiest credit card out and get ready to pay up, GULP! You are redirected to another site (different from visa4uk) where you make your payment - follow the prompts. The one major difficulty was answering the questions on the site. It is imperative you do this correctly, or else you will have to start your application again, the whole thing, from the start! I will explain how we got it right a little later in the pitfalls section.

Following this, you pay for the actual visa. Again you are redirected to another site to make the payment.

Now it is time to print your application and book your appointment. The appointment takes place with a private company (In South Africa is is called Teleperformance UK but it is run by TSLContact. This all can become a little confusing, but just go with it!) DO print your application, you need to take it to the appointment. And you will also need to take a colour passport sized photograph. At the appointment, you hand in your application form and your supporting documentation (more on that later). You also have to give your fingerprints, have more photos taken, sign things and so on.

When your appointment is over, you go home and wait for a few weeks for your passport to be returned to the place where you had your appointment and you can collect it!

Supporting documentation
I included a covering letter which also contained a summary of what supporting documents we used.
We had supporting documents in the following categories.

• 1.       Documentation to prove the line of ancestry/Documentation to prove Marriage to Ancestry visa applicant
• Birth certificates, marriage certificates
• 2.       TB Clearance certificate
• 3.       Documentation to prove Intention to work (secured job)
• Signed Job offer, emails between prospective employers, job adverts and applications. You don't need a job offer or work permit, but you do need to show that you are looking for a job
• 4.       Documentation to prove ability to support myself financially
• Bank account statements, 3 months. These must have enough money to support yourself when you get to the UK. Plus, minus GBP1000. Maybe more depending on your situation. 
• Explanations of large sums of money into or out of the accounts. 
• These statements must be from accessible accounts with no waiting period (eg 30-day notice accounts)
• 5.       Documentation to prove address in the UK
• We had letters from the people we were staying with, as well as a copy of their council tax bill and a copy of their passports. 

It is necessary to present your supporting documents in a coherent way. I put mine in a flip-file sleeve file with each document in a separate sleeve.  I used one file for both applicants, and this was fine, or you can used 2 files, one per applicant. I attached a "label" to each document explaining what it was. TIPS: make your labels small 10x5cm, so that you can see the document behind them. Print them on coloured paper or in blue/red ink, so they can be clearly seen against the document. Attach the labels to the documents using paper clips. Make 5 dividing pages for each category of documentation. (None of this is necessary, but makes your life easier when you are at the appointment)

My burning questions answered
Disclaimer: I am not qualified to answer these questions! This was just from my experience of applying. Please do not use this advice without doing your own research as well.

1. How much money will we need for two people? How much is “Sufficient”? 
• Cost of visa R60000
• Have about R25000 per person available in the account(s)
2. Does it help if we both prove we will be working?
• Yes, main applicant and dependent should both prove they will be working (if they are of working age), although I don't think it is a requirement that the dependent works
3. When must we prove we have sufficient money? When applying for the visa, or entering the country?
• When applying for the visa
4. When must we have the TB scan? When applying for the visa or when entering the country?
• When applying for the visa and have the certificate on hand when entering the country
5. Do we need to have flights booked to prove travel arrangements? Or is a letter and proof of residence from our host enough?
• No, don't book flights, letter from host and proof of their address is enough
6. If we apply around Christmas-time (e.g. 21^st December) will the visa application be delayed?
• No, It should take 3 weeks (15 working days) from the appointment date
7. TLScontact v Teleperformance?
• Essentially the same thing
8. Dependent: Vault copy of the birth certificate? Just passport?
• No birth certificate necessary for the dependent, just a valid passport
9. Parents and applicants: Unabridged birth certificate versus vault copy?
• Either one is fine. 
10. Are payslips necessary?
• No, payslips were not necessary for my application

Pitfalls
I used forums to help me figure which visa to select. The main applicant (me): Work > Non-Points Based working visa > UK Ancestry. The dependent: Work > Non-Points Based working visa > Dependent more than 6 months.

For the IHS payment, answering the questions is a little tricky and not the same as the visa4uk site. You are required to confirm your details, and then answer some questions based on your application. For the main applicant, this was straight forward, but when it came to doing this for the dependent, we tripped up. There is a question which states: "Are you joining someone already in the UK?" Even if you are applying for the main applicant and the dependent at the same time (i.e. the main applicant is not ALREADY in the UK), you must select YES for this. It then asks you when their visa expires. This confused us because I (main applicant) did not yet have a visa. So we had to choose a date 5 years from then which resulted in them quoting an amount of GBP1000. This took some trial an error. DON'T use the payment site for your trial and error as you will have to re-fill an application form for each error that you make. Rather go to https://www.immigration-health-surcharge.service.gov.uk/checker/type and figure out the date you need to use. It is important that you pay the correct amount (GBP1000 per person) or else your visa will not be successful.

Visas

Applying for Visas is a strenuous process on many levels. You are required to lay yourself at the feet of some of the most bureaucratic processes in the world. And these processes decide your future; in our case, a fairly large portion of our future! People who roll around with British and US passports do not, I don't think, fully understand the energy that must be sunk into the process.

Research begins when you are a child. Youngsters, aged 10 and up are overheard at braais and dinner parties discussing the merits of applying for a Schengen visa through French or Swedish routes. "Plan your trip to start in Stockholm," they say, "the Swedish embassy is much easier to deal with." Stories of South Africans who were awarded 10-year, multiple entry visas to Europe blaze through social circles. People who have been successful in their applications are interrogated relentlessly: "How do you qualify for an Ancestry visa for the UK?", "Why is it easier for a partner to get a dependent visa on an ancestry application than a British passport?" "Must we be married?" "What's the difference between a Tier-2 working visa and a Points-Based Settlement Visa?" And on and on it goes!

Once I had established through word of mouth informants that I qualified for an Ancestry Visa (due to my grandparents being born in the UK), I began the next phase of the process: making sense of the Gov.uk website and the various visas that are available. It must be added at this point, that no visa research is complete without hours and hours spent on forum sites. In fact, once the preliminary work had been done on the official sites, I reverted almost entirely to forums.

We decided to save money and apply for our visa without using an agent. I would not recommend this route to my worst enemy. I made up for that money that we saved by spending every waking moment worrying about the supporting documents I needed to have, figuring out which forms to fill in, making sense of the different costs that needed to be paid and phoning friends for advice.

BUT for anyone stupid enough to decide to take on applying for an Ancestry Visa application without an agent, I am going to write a post about how I did it. Since we are still waiting on a decision, I will only publish my personal "how to" guide, if we are successful in our application - hold thumbs please!

Moving is Admin!

Moving countries is an exciting but nerve-wracking process. But no one can prepare you for the amount of PURE ADMINISTRATION involved! From Visas to job applications to accommodation hunting and flights! It just never ends.

The process started out with the beginning of our Visa applications. My grandparents were born in the UK and this means that I qualify for an Ancestry Visa. Since Frans is my husband, he qualifies for a dependent visa. This means we need to source: my grandfathers original birth certificate, my mothers birth certificate, my parents marriage certificate, my birth certificate, my marriage certificate, proof of our finances, proof that we will work when we get there, a TB free certificate each... there is more but this is boring you! We need to fill in a really, really long online form and pay a lot of money too! We have spoken to everyone we know who has even thought of applying for a UK Visa, and people have been so kind and helpful. We are so grateful.

But it doesn't end there. When a teacher applies for jobs in the UK, you need to get a police clearance certificate, three letters of reference from contactable referees, fill out countless forms. All of this to prove your reliability when working around children. We still haven't officially applied for our visas, and haven't booked our flights yet! We need to sort out all of our things this side too. Rent our flat out, pack up all our special things, throw a lot away, prepare for Christmas!