An elephant sat in Berkley Square

Now I know that this post isn't strictly about New Zealand or our adventures but whilst in London on our many trips there recently, we were lucky to be part of the Elephant Parade.

The Elephant Parade is ... billed as the biggest art event London has ever seen. Over 250 painted elephants appeared all over town to highlight the plight of the Asian elephant. Each elephant has been decorated by a different artist or celebrity.

As elephants are my favourite animal I had an amazing time veiwing all of the beautiful fibre glass structures, in Berkley Square, Covent Garden and Oxford Street (to name but a few locations).  Here are a few of our photos of the elephants we saw ...

The first few things that we'll never do again (probably)

This week and the end of last week have seen us commence the things that we're not likely to do again, it has been quite emotional already, and I know as the next few months progress it's only going to get worse.

So far we have done the following for the last time ...

1.  Attended the Try-Angle Awards, Kent Youth Services annual awards event for young people.
2. Been to the Biggin Hill Air Show (although we get to see the Red Arrows again soon)
3. Gone to the V & A museum

These might seem boring to some of you but we're just trying to get as much in as possible.

and the wait goes on ...

Having been to New Zealand House and having recieved the letter explaining that our application has been submitted, we wait again.

I know that it's only been 13 days but I want an answer now!!!  We were told we would know within a month as there was no wait.

I guess I'm going to have to learn a little patience

It is done

Following my last post where I said that we would have to wait at least a week before we could go to New Zealand House ...  Richard managed to find the time so that we could attend Friday morning as he was under the impression sooner rather than later.

So we left on the Javelin at 10am arrived in London, met the advisor, got everything rubber stamped and a case number assigned and we were back in time for me to go to work in the afternoon :o)

We have been informed that we will recieve a letter confirming that everything has been accepted by next week and that we should be able to have an interview with our case officer in roughly five or so weeks.  This is all really good news as it moves us one stage closer to the goal.

Finally it's here

The results from the medicals finally arrived today :o) and everything looks good, nothing dodgy or untoward there.

So now we just need to make some time to go and visit New Zealand House and get the official stamps in the passport.  Unfortunately we cannot even begin to entertain this idea until Richard comes home from Greece. (I thought that we could go this week but we don't have enough time) That said though I'll have a busy week collating all the info and making sure it is ready for when we manage our visit.  Once that is done the fun then begins :o)

Still Waiting

I think that I must be extremely impatient at the moment, as we're still waiting for the medical results. I know that they were only completed on Thursday, but the doctor assured us we would have them within 24 hours.

This is the final piece of the puzzle before we attend New Zealand House, as everything else is ready.

Needles and Pins

Well the medicals are now finally finished following a second visit to Dover today. We had already been once before about two weeks ago and had to return to give more blood so that our blood sugar levels could be checked.

Giving blood is not an experience I want to repeat ever again, the first time they tried three times to get it and today another three attempts were made. Apparently I have deep small veins and as a result it comes out slowly. But I braved it, got it done and now we await the results.

The only glimmer they have given us is that our cholesterol is fine and we don't have senile dementia :0)