People & Places
Montoya's Australian Blog July '07
The Montoyas bring you up to date with what's been going on in their lives recently, during what has been a difficult time for them personally
G'Day again! Well what's happened since May?
Well, it's the middle of winter now over here and the middle of summer in the UK. The Gold Coast is Sunny and 21oC, quite warm, and the UK is… 20ish, grey and wet. Say no more! I think we are going to be a lot warmer this year in Queensland than we were in New South Wales last Year. Apparently it does not drop too much below 20oC here in the Winter. How we miss the UK… Not!
We still see that more and more Brit's are leaving the UK in search of a new life Down Under, and why not? But what you may not know is that a lot of interstate moving goes on too, lots of people from Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia have moved to south-east Queensland recently.
In total we have now been in Australia 22 months with a couple of incidents on the way (see earlier articles). We seemed to survive these and realise that Australia is still the place we want to be. So what else could be more testing for us to come? Well, how about the worst thing you would ever want - a death in the family. Yes, sadly July saw the passing away of my father-in-law. After the grieving from my wife and I, not to mention the kids, the big question was do we go back to the UK for the funeral? The answer, you would think is a simple yes. However, throw in the fact that the average return flight at this time of year is AUS$3,000 each to fly adults, and not much less for kids, with six of us in a family this idea soon became impossible (AUS$15,000 = impossible).
So, after much deliberation (and lack of funds), we decided that just my Wife Linda would go back, after all it was her father. It's times like these you realise that you really are the other side of the world and how expensive it would be to get back in an emergency. The next hurdle awaiting us greeted us less than 48 hour after we had decided that Linda alone would go to the UK - our visa had expired. We came out here for a holiday over five years ago, which gave us four years for us to come and live over here - which we did 22 months ago. However, the rules state that to leave Australia and then come back again you must serve two out of these five years in the country. We had just 22 months so the visa had expired. We got an appointment with the Australian immigration department as soon as possible to sort this out. All was dealt with quite quickly by them and another three-month extension was added to Linda's visa at a cost of AUS$120. The circumstances of a death in the family seemed to get us the extension without any real problems. With all that in hand, it was home to pack and onward to Brisbane International Airport, pronto!
We all took Linda to the airport and said our farewells for the next couple of weeks, the kids were a complete mess. It was like our leaving bash two-years ago and the farewell to my sister's recent visit. However, Lin was coming back, she better do - I have all the kids and a job to contend with! That's where we are for now, the funeral is today as I write, I hope and pray that all goes well for the family in the UK and Linda has a safe return home to Australia!
One thing I will point out is that Linda, within 24-hours of landing in the UK had decided she missed nothing about the UK except family. She remembers exactly why we left in the first place, which is a good thing as opposed to, 'I want to come back.' In fact, things had got worse over there! All I can say is that I sympathise for any one else that has gone through this or has to go through this, it is not a nice or pleasant experience as you can imagine.
That's it for now, will let you know how it all went next month and give you the full UK visit verdict.
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