Almost a year ago, we started the online application form to emigrate to New Zealand. At the end of April we submitted our application. In September we submitted all the forms, references, medical certs, etc. In November I had an assessment interview to dig a bit deeper into my understanding of NZ and why we wanted to settle there. I was good, and didn’t mention Hobbits or Orcs once.
On December 2nd, we were approved for Resident Visas.
This is a pretty exciting (and slightly scary) time for us. We’ve been given a year to turn up in NZ, so we’re going to take advantage of that and wait until next September before going down.
Jules finishes working here on Jan 20th 2006. I’m going to finish working in June. Then we’re heading to the Bahamas for our Tiger Shark trip before going home for a couple of months. It’s going to be strange. It’s kind of like the last time we’ll really be able to call Scotland “home”. Once we are residents in NZ, that will be our home. It’s not like being in Bermuda where you know you can never settle, so we always thought of Edinburgh as home, even though we thought less and less about settling back there. I’ve got a lot of jumbled thoughts in my head about this, as is probably apparent from my rambling…
The important thing now is to organise ourselves, and enjoy the next few months here before we leave for good.
