All the countries in the World

All the countries in the world pointed out to you.
Thanks to Animaniacs

Our visa timeline

Here is a timeline of how long it took us to get our skilled independent visas.
The actual processing time came to 8 months and 14 days. Start to finish.
The time it has taken us about 2 years.

15 March 2005
We arrived in the UK after our trip around the world that took us 10 months in Australia, 1 month New Zealand and 1 month in the USA.
30 March 2005
Around this time we realized we wanted to go back to Australia and Sydney in particular.
After looking in to the matter we find out to our horror we did not meet the requirements for the visa we are after by just a hair. The Skilled - Independent visa Subclass 136 Caroline meet all the points required 120 is what is needed and I believe she came to 130-135.
The only requirement she didn't meet was that you have to have worked in your field for at least 12 months out of the last 18. And because we just spent 10 months in Australia where Caroline couldn't work....we didn't meet that criteria. You can imagine our disappointment. Such a small detail and the irony.
April 2005
We went to Holland and Caroline meets the rest of her new family. And it is the first time she has visited it.
May 2005
We find a place to live in Witney, Oxfordshire
June 2005
We both find jobs.
7 July 2006
We finally meet all the requirements and send the application in. We had decided to try and do it ourselves rather then go through an agent. The reasoning behind this was, is that you will still have to provide the immigration agent with all the information. Although it was a bit of a struggle Caroline and I managed to fill everything in. (Correctly as we never had to redo anything or provide additional information)
12 July 2006
Application received
10 August 2006
Creditcard debited
12 August 2006
Acknowledgment received
28 October 2006
I took my IELTS test.
I had to take this test to prove my understanding of the English language for the Australian Migration department.
10 November 2006
We sent my IELTS results in.
29 January 2007
We had a Case Officer assigned to us. And he requested for our medicals and my Dutch Police Certificate of good conduct by the 26th of February
14 February 2007
We sent our medicals off.
21 February 2007
We sent in my Dutch Police Certificate

Now we had done everything that needed doing..........and the agonizing wait began.
Every morning first thing Caroline would check her email and every time there wasn't anything we were wishing the day away. Just so we could check her email the following morning.

21 March 2007
We received the email we had been waiting for so long. Our visas granted. That evening we opened the Champagne we saved for this occasion. And later we opened another one, just because.
23 March 2007
We sent our passports in to have our visa put in.

Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After what has been a 2 year wait we finally have our Australian visas!!!!
We are currently finishing our 2nd bottle of champagne
I'll see you soon when recovered.

Don't bite off more then you can chew

Red Nose Day

Last Friday the 16th it was Red nose Day
Red Nose Day is a UK-wide fundraising event organised by Comic Relief every 2 years which culminates in a night of extraordinary comedy and moving documentary films. It's the biggest TV fundraising event in the UK calendar.
Here follows Ricky Gervais' contribution.


Comic Relief was set up by comedians and uses comedy and laughter to get serious messages across, while making sure that everyone who gets involved can have fun at the same time.
Donate here at http://www.rednoseday.com/donate/index.php

Really, I was just lending a hand

Antarctica Time lapse: A Year on Ice

We are experiencing a cold spell this coming week. After a few relatively mild weeks of Spring like weather. We are now confronted with freezing weather once again. The wind is coming from the north blowing the Arctic weather our way. Global warming seemed reasonable yesterday, today however....

When Graphic Artists Get Bored

This is a nice example of what people can do with Photoshop.

Moving abroad

I guess we better not try to swindle UPS out of any boxes, then.
Over the last few weeks Caroline and I have been busy trying to figure out what we want to take with us to Australia. That will mostly depend on the prices different removal companies will quote us.
What we have worked out so far is that we could be looking at paying anywhere from 700+ GBP(removal quote) to just a little over 200 GBP (excess bagage/sea freight/DIY) from the items we want to ship. The items we want to ship are mostly personal affects (photos, paintings) and DVD's. Items of which the replacement value would outweigh the shipping costs.
The problem with all this is the amount of space we think our items would take and weight being secondary. In order for us to get an estimate we need boxes, hence the video above.
In Holland it is quite easy to find empty boxes when you move house. You just pick them up at your local supermarket. Most supermarkets will have an area behind the tills where you can pack your groceries in the boxes they discard. Here in England it is a bit tougher.
Although most removal/shipping companies are quite happy to give you some boxes...... That is only after you have committed yourself to them.
Meanwhile we keep guessing, but I think we are close to as we know what we want to ship and we think we know how much room cubic ft/meters that will require in a sea freight container.
It is strange that when I left Holland 3 years and 2 days ago to the day all I needed was what was in my backpack. I must admit I didn't plan on moving out to Oz forever then but to see what we have accumulated since and don't want to separate ourselves with is still a significant amount.

Top Gear Fly -drive Challenge

Finally the full version of Top Gear's USA Fly-drive holiday.
Update on previous post

UPDATE: unfortunately the full version above is no longer available. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet I found the full episode containing their Fly drive somewhere else.

End Day

One day the world will end...
5 Ways the world as we know it could end when one day is here.
Another great documentary produced by the BBC.
Official End Day website on the National Geographic Channel.

The Royal Observatory Greenwich

Last weekend Caroline and I stayed with Matt and Dave in London who had recently moved there after having lived in NZ for a year. We met them during our travels in Australia. It was funny Australia is such a big place but we kept bumping into each other here (where I met Matt), here, here and here
Together we visited the Royal Observatory home of the Prime Meridian or 0º Longitude in Greenwich.

Anyway The Royal Observatory, home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian line, is one of the most important historic scientific sites in the world. It was founded by Charles II in 1675 and is, by international decree, the official starting point for each new day, year and millennium (at the stroke of midnight GMT as measured from the Prime Meridian).
More info on Greenwich Mean Time here and the Meridian Line here.

Lunar Eclipse

We had a lunar eclipse on Saturday 03/03/07. We came across it purely by accident. We just came back home from a nice dinner for our 2nd year anniversary, which was on 4th of March, that we noticed it. When the moon was eventually fully covered by the Earth's shadow the moon had this nice red/bronze glow to it. I found this image of it on Wikipedia
A funny fact about lunar eclipses is that unlike a solar eclipse, which can only be viewed at a certain relatively small area of the world, a lunar eclipse may be viewed from anywhere on the night side of the Earth. So when I texted my brother in the Netherlands there is a lunar eclipse going on. He texted me back saying they were already observing it from their kitchen window.
The next lunar eclipse will be the 27th of August, hopefully it will be just as clear then as it was now.

Two years already?!

We just celebrated our 2nd anniversary. Time has flown by since our wedding at the Little Chapel of Flowers in Las Vegas. And fortunately for me I didn't forget about it. Caroline had dropped many hints in the weeks leading up to it, but even so I don't think I would have forgotten it. For your 2nd anniversary you need to give your partner something made out of cotton, apparently. Therefore I treated Caroline (and myself) on a nice duvet set made of Egyptian cotton. Nothing but the best.

Copier Transformer

Think before you hit your copier, next time you have a paper jam.

Mars 2020

Where does the 'martian' flower come from?

Live Until I Die

Some very close calls....

Cordyceps Fungus

Natures Scariest Secret. From the BBC series Planet Earth

How does she do it?

You go ahead and get your car.
Don't worry, I'll open the gate for you when you get here.