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July 07, 2005
Plans Delayed
Well, I had been planning a house hunting trip to London next week but recent events have put rather a bump in that road. Heard the news while I was driving into the office this morning. At first I wondered whether I was hearing anniversary coverage of some years old attack like the Canary Wharf bombing. But it wasn’t long before it was all too clear that this was a current, possibly ongoing attack.
While I’m not particularly worried from a safety standpoint – I imagine that there will be such a strong security presence that the tubes will seldom be safer – but after consulting with our people here, it was decided that the last thing London will need next week is yet another clueless Yank wobbling about the underground looking for the line to Richmond. The system will probably be under enough stress without me to help. Inconvenient in some ways but I don’t think that my convenience matters a whole lot in the context.
The knotty bit of the problem is that in order to move the work permit process forward, I need to ship my passport, along with the spouse’s and the offspring’s, up to the U.K. consulate in New York for a couple of weeks. Any small delay in my house hunting trip translates directly to a delay in the ultimate date that the permit is issued and I can actually start work. So, we’ve decided start the permit process now and push the scouting trip off until the permit is approved. This’ll mean about a three week delay.
If this all pans out, I’ll have the permit when I go over to look for a place to live so why not just stay at that point. It means getting all the crap I plan to take together in less time but since my concept has been to travel light for these two years, this shouldn’t be an issue.
Filed under Relocating to London.
Posted by eric at July 7, 2005 12:24 PM