UK HSMP Visa Renewal

You know, our friends and family often say, ‘you all are so lucky — goodness it’s just meant to be’. And to be fair, we have been very fortunate over the years and have had our share of good luck. But this week has reminded us that often things work out because of hard work and preparation rather than luck alone.

A few things that have been on our ‘to do list’ just won’t go away. Every time we think they were licked, back they come as if a boomerang.

First, many of you will remember that we traveled to Lake Como in Italy in late May. G loved a large glass panel there and we decided to buy it and have it shipped to our home in London. Despite their careful packing the huge plank of glass broke into many pieces along the way and over the months we’ve suffered the perils of the language barrier and credit card’s red tape in getting our money back. I believe G’s finally been able to find a way out of the red tape… but only time will tell. Lesson learned: Don’t buy and ship glass art in a foreign country (or at all :)).

Second, we renewed our lease in early September so that we can stay in our homey flat for another year. As part of the negotiation, our landlord agreed to send a cleaning crew in to deep clean the place to save me doing it. I’m great at keeping surfaces clear and clean and in keeping the place generally orderly, but I hate scouring over bathrooms and deep cleaning the baseboards and was happy that G negotiated this treat. The cleaners were in on Thursday and we were disappointed to find the flat in much the same condition we had left it before. The furniture and our things had been moved about, but the floors weren’t mopped, the bath wasn’t scoured, the baseboards were still dusty and there was a pile of dirt beneath G’s desk. Back to the drawing board.

And finally, many of you will remember that we’ve been homebound for the couple last months (since Paris) as our visas have been out for renewal. For 9 weeks mid-summer, we’ve been stuck. We’ve enjoyed being locals, but I like my options… and I don’t like being so tied down. Also, we’ll set off for Tanzania for a Safari with G’s parents later this week, so when we STILL hadn’t received our passports last Friday (5th September), G and I began to panic and develop alternate plans. A. B. and C. We called the UK Border Agency Home Office, but they would not share any information on our visa status except to say that they still held our passports. It wasn’t looking pretty.

Plan A. Submit a letter requesting Urgent Treatment for our visa renewal making them aware of our situation and begging for an expedited process (avg. processing time is 5-6 weeks…they had at that time possessed our passports for 8 weeks.). Chances were slim as they would generally require a work related reason (holiday doesn’t generally suffice) to expedite.

Plan B. Go to the US Embassy and beg our case on Monday morning. See if they would issue us an emergency passport to get us to Tanzania. Getting back into the UK might prove tricky though as we would not have visas. But at least we’d be able to travel to Tanzania and perhaps have our original passports with visas shipped to Tanzania to get back in (assuming they were complete by our return date: 3 October). Again, our chances were slim as a holiday is not generally thought to be a valid reason for issue.

Plan C. If Plan A and Plan B did not fruit results by Wednesday, we were set to do the unthinkable. This is a big trip for us and G’s parents are traveling with us — with this in mind, G and I would withdraw our application for Visa renewal in order to receive our passports back in time for the trip. This would then require us to leave the UK (not sure if they would let us in to get our things or not), pay another hefty fee and submit the visa applications all over again from outside the country. I would likely have worked from my firm’s NY office… and G could have worked from wherever he wished (probably NY though to be with me :)). Of course, this was a last resort.

So, last weekend G worked mightily to draft the letter for Plan A and the applications for emergency passports for Plan B. We ventured out to get a few US sized Passport photos and completed the apps… We had an appointment at the Embassy for 8:30 am Monday and we both cleared being late for work with our firms. We walked in, spoke with a nice, friendly lady who asked that we fill in a written statement regarding our situation. We did and were told to join an alternate queue to resubmit (rather than standing in the queue with newcomers). Well — G stood in the alternate queue alone (it was a queue of one) and I joined the back of the queue of newcomers for fear that the single window wouldn’t take well to having two queue. After the gentleman behind the window finished with the person he was helping, G approached the window. And it wasn’t pretty. The gentleman behind the window appeared not to take kindly to G’s line of one. We feared that we would have no luck with our request as a result. But, after the gentleman took the next person in the newcomers’ line, we breathed a sigh of relief as he called G forward, we explained our situation and were relieved when he granted our wish. After paying a fee and waiting 20 minutes, we had temporary emergency passports in hand. We left the Embassy beaming and relieved that we would not have to resort to Plan C.

Yesterday, we received shiny new visas dated 3 September (last Wednesday) through the mail. While it’s a bit ironic that our visas had been issued before our panic set in, it does make for a good case study.

This makes us think back to the last time we submitted for visas… during the previous go within a week’s time, G graduated with his Master’s, I presented a big annual marketing plan to an important client, we submitted our paperwork for visas, put our house on the market, submitted my application for graduate school, and left for a 3 week holiday to Japan (that time our passports weren’t required for the first round). That, too, was a bit uncomfortable. But sometimes the rewards are worth the risk.

Some may call us ‘lucky’ — but this case study goes to support the old adage that ‘luck is when preparation meets opportunity’… and I’m sure prayer fits in there, as well. Optimism is critical in making things happen — the belief that it will all be okay even when things could go terribly wrong. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. And a person’s willingness to take that uncomfortable jump once in a while in order to make things happen.

We’ll leave on Thursday for Tanzania… please check back for updates from the road from Thursday until we return on 3 October. And expect stories and details from our trip upon our return to the London the weekend of 4 October.