“Have you got me a visa yet?” I inquired of my better half just last week.

“Oh,” Chris pondered for a second before the look on his face confirmed what I had been thinking, “no!”

My Aussie passport had expired in March and Chris had told me very confidently that I need not worry about applying for a new one until we’re actually in Australia – ” no point in going up to London when it’s so easy to nip into a post office over there” – and I could travel over on a visa, as Chris does. Being an agreeable and dutiful wife, I went along with this idea, even though it rather went against the grain; it’s a bit strange having to obtain a visa to enter one’s own homeland.

It seemed a bit odd, too, when I couldn’t enter my citizenship of Australia on the E-visa application form. My computer didn’t like it either and it played up all the long while that I filled out the form and filled out the form again… several times.

Apparently Chris’s visa had taken only a matter of hours to appear (months ago… when he had applied and forgot about me!). I waited and waited for the good news. In the evening of the second day I received the email – “Terribly sorry but we don’t give our citizens visas; they have to renew their passports.” (Or something like that.)  But I’m supposed to be going in less than three weeks! Or perhaps not?

“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?” my beloved asked bringing in our morning cups of tea. 

The look of horror on my face was not to be borne and Chris hurriedly explained. Passport applications normally require up to four weeks to process… Oh no! But it should be alright because they have a priority service. Thank God! Good old Australia house!”

No doubt feeling guilty, Chris had been up for hours ahead of me finding out all the information I needed from the Internet. However, I was still feeling sick to my stomach with anxiety.

“How can I help you?” came the reassuring voice of a middle-aged lady with a familiar sing-song accent.

I must have been the first person to call her; it was one second past nine in the morning.  From that first moment I knew that I was in safe hands and I could breathe more easily.

So tomorrow I shall be off early on the train to Brighton to see my darling Penelope Sweet Pea (now over six months old) and on Wednesday I’ll break the journey home by calling into Australia House on The Strand ( or is it Memory Lane – I used to be an accounts clerk at Strand Palace Hotel when I was seventeen). You have to make an appointment and apply in person. Getting an Australian Passport in England is strictly “Vis-a-vis”! But, hopefully, there will be no unpleasant confrontation. And Chris avoided that by arranging my whole trip beautifully. Bless him!

And here are some photographs of my friend Reuben’s new gallery in Teignmouth where I did a bit of drawing last week…