The horrors of red tape

It's finally the weekend and I can relax in the knowledge that I won't be receiving any more e-mails with attachments needing urgent completion. Last week seems to have been lost under a flurry of a paperwork. I'm sure there was never this much paperwork for our previous moves. Is that because the US is more difficult to get into, or is it that the people involved in the move are just better organised? There have been forms to set up bank accounts, forms for medicals, registration forms for Alfie's school, insurance forms, and horrendous forms for Abigail's visa.

I have filled in the same form for Abigail's visa 3 times now, made two visits to the US embassy, spoken to the rudest people, broke down in tears and still have no visa for her. The rest of us already have visas from our last trip there, so we're ok. Abigail was born after we were there, so she doesn't have a visa. We followed the advice we were given from the appropriate people in my husband's company, turned up at the embassy and were turned away for not having the correct paperwork. This happened twice. We were then told that the system had changed and we now needed a special package. (Two other families have only just obtained visas to work in the US, has it really changed so suddenly? Why did this person not know the system since she is paid to be an immigration specialist?) Anyway, we now await the company to forward the appropriate completed forms for us to take to the embassy. They were promised 3 days ago and still have not arrived. We then have to wait for the embassy to call us for interview (current wait time 3 weeks). It doesn't seem promising that we will have the visa in time for our move on 5 January.

There have been lots of steps forwards this week but a huge step backwards, which could potentially delay our move.

Back to the here and now! Here in Trinidad it's 0730. The sun is up and it looks like it is going to be a beautiful day. We've got friends coming by later. We'll probably have a dip in the pool followed by a few ice-cold Caribs whilst we bbq. We've got to make the most of our beautiful garden whilst we can!