Packing, Leaving and Visa

Sorry there has been a bit of a delay for this post. I attended a weekend conference in Manchester so that put me back a little and then there was a week of packing the contents of my room and gathering my few belongings from elsewhere. Following that I transferred all my earthly belongings (apart from the car and three massage tables) to the storage facilities of Britannia Squab near Leamington Spa.

The box is about 1½ by 2 metres and about 2½ metres tall and my estate doesn’t even fill half of it. But I am still looking to reduce my earthly footprint even further.

Now I have zoomed down to London where I am staying with my friend Sanjay in Stratford. And just to reiterate, that IS the Stratford in London and not the one I have just left.

And the visa  story is that when I applied for a 12 month tourist visa, they were going to charge £300! That seems excessive to me even allowing for administrative overheads. So I had a look at a 6 month option which would mean leaving in mid-November as I want to do a 4-week yoga course that ends in May.

But then I checked out the Employment visa option and discovered that it is much cheaper at only £92 for a 12 month visa. But I needed a founding document as well as an invitation letter. Sathyu was more than happy to provide both but as I contacted him was off to Italy to give some talks in the name of raising awareness and fund-raising. So it is only this week that I now have both and can get on with my application.

Then, as luck would have it, I have been suffering with a cold since Friday so have not done it yet.

Anyway, now I have started work on the next post about the factory standards, staffing and management which I will post over the next few days for the continuing story.