The Croydon Visa Centre Experience 2017

We decided to book into the Premier Inn at Croydon town centre, which is a great location because it is literally an 8 minute walk to the Visa centre. It’s also convenient because it has a really nice little restaurant for dinner, and there’s a convenient store located right underneath the hotel (Co-operative foods) where you can buy breakfast if you don’t want to pay the £6.99 for an all-you-can-eat breakfast in the hotel (we can never eat £6.99 worth of food!).

There is also a 35% discount at the Whitgift NCP carpark for all guests at the Premier Inn. When you arrive, go to reception and let them know you have a car parked there and request for a discount card. The discount card looks exactly like the car parking ticket so don't lose them! When you go to pay for parking at the machine, insert your parking ticket first and the discount card after. The machine will then ask you to insert your payment card into the same slot (it takes payment without the use of your PIN). The one we used didn't accept change so I'm not sure if they are all like that.

FYI - If you're using 4G you might lose access to the Immigration Board forums. I tried to look at them for last minute info and it said I was permanently banned due to the IP address. I think this is because SO many people have tried accessing the site using the cell tower around there, the site has flagged it as spam or a robot.

In the morning of our appointment, I was panicking about the bank statements after seeing that my newest one had become available 4:30am that morning, but my bank didn’t open until 9am, which was the time of our appointment!

With little choice left, I wrote a note to the caseworker explaining the situation and to call me should they need to see my newest statement.

At 8:40 we arrived at the Visa centre, and accidentally went into queue. The guard at the door came out saying if we have booked for a premium service, we don’t need to queue up, just show your booking confirmation and head through to security.

Security was through a door with misted glass either side, you head on in and are welcomed by a group of friendly guards who will ask you to take out laptops and electronics, place them into a box and place your bag and box onto a conveyor belt. It’s basically a mini airport security section, but a little friendlier!

Once through security, head up to the 3rd floor. When we went the lifts weren’t working so we took the stairs up. I’m not entirely sure what they do if they get anyone in a wheelchair or on crutches, I’m assuming they have a system in place for people with disabilities.

Upstairs we were welcomed by another queue, there’s a small desk up there manned by 2-3 members of staff who will take payments if you’ve not paid already, look at your application form and passports, then give you a ticket number and tell you to go sit in the waiting area next door, which has a coffee shop and photo booth there.

Just note that the wait in the queue was about 15 minutes, there were a couple of people in front of us who hadn’t paid yet and were filling out forms. If your appointment time wasn’t urgent, they made you wait at the side until they’d gotten everyone else sorted who needed to go to their appointments ASAP.

By the time we got through the line it was 9:03 am, we went through to the coffee shop and sat down clutching each other's hands nervously as we waited. By 9:28 the coffee shop started to fill out, it had suddenly gotten a LOT busier, I read somewhere it was quieter in the afternoon, but we just wanted our appointment done asap so thought we’d just deal with the wait.

At 9:35 am our number 133 was called out and told to go to booth 47, we both looked wide-eyed at each other, and rushed to the booth. We were met by a very friendly lady on the other side of the booth who asked which one of us was applying and what was my relationship to the applicant. Once we had sat down, we were asked to provide our reference, application form and passports for her to input everything into the computer system. We were also asked to pull out all our documents and place it into a little clear folder with a pop-button (she congratulated me on my organisation skills but this is how they prefer the files). If you have photocopies, it’s best to have all your files in the same order as the photocopies, just for ease of reference.

At 9:55 am she had completed what she needed and asked us to take the folder down to the biometrics area for the next stage. Immediately Shane’s number was called, I grabbed his bag and he went on in past a glass door to go to the booth to have his photo and fingerprints taken, along with a signature. This will be used for his new BRP card which will be attached to his new visa if we are successful. This only took 5 minutes, and Shane was told to return to the waiting area while a decision is being made.

10:10 am marked when the dreaded wait began! The screens in the waiting rooms which usually tell you at what stage your application is at weren’t working right, and were showing old lists so we had nothing to go by. We decided to head on out to the bank and get the new statement just in case the caseworker asked for it, if you keep your ticket number safe you can come and go from the building as you please. We also popped into CEX where Shane treated himself to the fourth Assassins Creed game!

By 10:30 am we were twiddling our thumbs, so we headed back to the hotel room to chill and eat something and watch rubbish TV. My mum called up and scared the crap out of us because we thought it was the case worker asking for something! At 11:00 am we decided to head back and wait in the office in case our number was called out. When we arrived there were no seats left in the waiting room, we stood up until someone’s number was called and we could sit.

Our number was finally called at 11:35 am along with another number, our case was ready and results were in. We practically charged our way to booth 47, confronting a very confused looking caseworker, we gave him our number and he toddles off to collect our file. When he returned he told us it had been successful and to check all our documents were there. At this news I ended up bursting into tears because I was so happy! All that hard work paid off, and I get to keep my husband with me! The caseworker grabbed me a box of tissues and left us hugging each other while he served the next person. In conclusion to all of this, though it is a bit more expensive using the Premium Service, I would recommend it just for ease of mind. Usually you have to wait up to 3 months before hearing back about whether your application was successful, but this way you can find out within the day. For us it only took 3 hours!

Successful FLR (M) Visa Application - Croydon 2017

I've been putting off writing this blog until after the appointment to make sure it had a happy ending! But now that we've been successful, I'm going to share our experience to help and reassure others on the process. To be honest, if you've prepared everything and tick all the boxes, you shouldn't  have a problem :)

Before I start, I'll explain our situation to put it in perspective so that you can see if it can help you or not. I'm a British citizen, lived in the UK since birth, and my husband is from New Zealand. He's lived in the UK since March 2016, he came over on the Youth Mobility Scheme Visa and switched to the FLR (M) visa yesterday (July 2017). We got married on the 24th June 2017, so not too soon before applying for the new visa.

For the FLR (M) you will need to prove:

• You are 18 years or over.
• Your partner is either a British Citizen, have Indefinite Leave to Remain or proof of Permanent Residency, OR have a refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK.
• That you are married or in a civil partnership that is recognised in the UK
• You're planning to marry once in the UK (on a Fiance Visa)
• You've lived together for a minimum of 2 years (if applying as an unmarried partner)
• You have good knowledge of English
• You can reach the financial requirements for yourself and any dependents (click [here] for the financial requirements)

For people on the YMS visa, it states you have to leave when your visa expires, and that you can't switch to another point based visa. If you are married you can apply for the FLR (M) visa at any time, though I'd recommend doing it soon after you get married because the YMS visa years DO NOT count towards the 5 years needed to apply for settlement or citizenship. Also, the FLR (M) isn't a point based system so it's fine to switch to this. You can apply for this visa as an unmarried partner, BUT you DO have to complete the 2 years on the YMS visa to qualify. This is because you need 2 years proof of cohabitation with your partner which is akin to marriage to qualify. The Home Office allow 28 days after your visa expires for your new visa to come through, so I'd recommend going to your visa appointment on the day the YMS visa expires so you have the full 2 years and don't leave it too late because it's illegal to overstay.

For more information on the FLR (M) visa under the partner of spouse route, click [here].

Applying

I'm going to talk about the application form (version 04/2017), where we had to pay £933 for the application, £590 for the premium service and a £500 health surcharge fee that NZ and Aussie nationals now have to pay (as of 2016).

The application form is a little confusing to fill out at times because of some of the wording, I'll go through the ones that stumped me, even though looking back it seems obvious! Other things I'll go through are documents we provided, because things like bank statements and correspondence got us worried.

The Application Form (version 04/2017)

I won’t go through it all page by page, but I will highlight parts that confused us slightly.

Section 3 - Your Sponsor’s Details

Okay, yea, this seems simple enough. The only issue for me was 3.2 Name at birth… I was born with a different name (it’s complicated), so I was worried that this would confuse the Home Office. Luckily, I still had my change of name deeds and wrote a small letter just explaining why my names had changed so much JUST in case this caused them to become suspicious at any point. My view is, honesty is the best policy.

Oh, and some people are confused with 3.9 How long has your sponsor lived in the UK. I just put ‘since birth’.

Section 6 - Your relationship to your sponsor

Here they want to know things like, when we met, how did we meet, when did our relationship start and how we keep in contact.

So for this section, considering when we met in person was different to how we FIRST met (we met on twitter), we decided to provide details on BOTH. I gave dates on the different stages, like “we first met online on the 12th April 2014 but we first PHYSICALLY met on 16th February 2015”.

Also, for 6.8 where you have to mention ALL addresses you’ve both lived at, along with a start and end date. We have only lived at one address, and so just put that, the date Shane moved in here with me and left the end date blank.

6.9 IF RELEVANT, have you lived together permanently in the UK with your sponsor since your LAST grant of limited leave to remain as a partner. - If this is your FIRST application, just put N/A.

Section 7C - Accommodation

Don’t laugh, but this actually stumped us in this section. Especially 7.13 Does anyone other than your sponsor live in the property?...I think they could have worded that better, because our first thought was “Why yes, SHANE lives with me…” but eventually we worked it out haha!

Basically it’s for people who might be house sharing, or have other family living with them, and the Home Office is trying to establish if you have enough room for another person (this can be a reason to reject an application if you don’t have enough living space). Just to prove that our flat could accommodate us both, AND to show that I own the place, I included things like the Land Registry (which they photocopied), floor plans, and correspondence between myself and my solicitor to show I had purchased the property and also am currently renewing the lease.

Section 9 - Biometric Residence Permit

As Shane was on the YMS visa, he has already gone through the process of getting his biometrics done, so we could fill this section out just fine. If you already have yours, in 9.14 put the location of where you got your fingerprints taken, and in 9.15 you might need to do some research into this one, but make note of the diplomatic post(s) involved in your biometric application. For Shane it was the “British High Commission Wellington” - we didn’t expect it to be called that, so not sure if that might catch other people out too.

Section 10 - Personal History

At 10.14 it asks for what ties you have with any countries, for this section Shane just put “New Zealand” and stated he had family there.

Consent and Declarations

There are quite a few things here to be signed, but not all of them need signing! The ones we signed were all of Section 14 - Shane signed his one and I signed the last two giving the Home Office permission to do checks on my accounts should they need to. Then if you read section 15 it’s pretty easy to work out which ones are for you.

[PLEASE NOTE]

I am only going off what I did, and am no way a professional in immigration in any way, but I hope this gives some reassurance if you’re stuck on the form. I’ve got no idea what you need to put if you have kids, but there are some excellent forums you can visit if you need extra help!

Tips

• Photocopy your application form, it is good to have reference to it because the Home Office will take the original copy and you will never see it again!
• If you forgot to take photos for the application, there is a photo booth in the visa centre and also at the Whitgift shopping centre nearby.
• You can leave the visa centre when your application is being considered, just be sure to keep your ticket number safe because you will have to show this at the entrance when you return.

Supporting Documents

Now this is something that really got my anxiety shooting sky high! I became extremely paranoid about the supporting documents, to the point where I completely over-prepared. But then again, even the lady at the Visa Centre told me “better safe than sorry”. A saying you hear bantered around a lot in these situations, and it’s so true.

I divided the supporting documents up into sections, as follows:

Section 1 - 5

• Applicant’s passport (and any previous ones)
• Sponsors passport
• Change of Name deeds
• Applicant’s and Sponsor’s Birth Certificates

Section 6

• Flight tickets of sponsor travelling to NZ
• Flight tickets of applicant travelling to the UK
• Screenshots of conversations between us using Google Hangouts
• Scans of our scrapbook which showed proof of us meeting each other’s family over the years (X5 which contained about 12 photos)
• Printout examples of our webcomics
• Marriage Certificate
• Proof of Shared Financial Responsibilities
• Council Tax bills (X2)
• Car insurance with Applicant as joint driver on Sponsor’s insurance
• Proof of shared savings account (stamped and signed by bank)

Section 7A

• A signed letter from employer (on official letter headed paper) stating
• Sponsor’s name
• Address
• National Insurance Number
• Job title
• Length of Employment and that I’m still employed there
• Salary
• Length currently salary has been held
• Confirmation of yearly bonuses
• Payslips and P60 are genuine

• 6 most recent payslips (signed by employer)
• My recent P60 (signed by employer)
• 6 bank statements*
• Letter explaining bank statements*

* This was a last minute stress for me, there is a 28 day rule in regards to bank statements. From what I can tell (I couldn’t find where it specifies this, but people are saying this in the forums), if you’re doing a postal application you have to have 6 of the most recent statements, and the last statement can’t be older than 28 days from PAYMENT of the application. But for premium service, it’s 28 days from the APPOINTMENT. Our appointment was on the 10th of July, and the last statement was dated the 8th June. What made this worse was that at 4:30am in the morning of the 10th I received an email from my bank saying “YAY! Your most recent statement is now ready!” - the bank didn’t open until 9am and that was when our appointment was!! So on the morning of our appointment I hand wrote a letter using my sketchbook paper explaining this to the case worker, and told them to please PLEASE contact me if they need me to run to the bank and get this statement as proof. Turned out they never called me and the application went through just fine.

So who bloody well knows haha!

Section 7C

• Land Registry for current accommodation
• Correspondence between  solicitors and sponsor about property purchase
• Correspondence between  solicitors and sponsor about lease extension
• Floor plans of property
• Photos of property (these were not needed).

Section 13

• 25 pieces of evidence of correspondence to our current shared address from 5 different sources
• 9 in dual names
• 16 in single names

That’s it folks! We were approved on all of this, and I’m pretty certain it was way too much because the lovely lady who spoke to us saw it all and said “if you want an answer today, I’d advise on providing less evidence!”.

If you want to hear about our experience in Croydon and a breakdown of time taken there, please click [here]!

Useful links:

• cyborg001 FLR (M) Success Story
• zogokool FLR (M) Success Story
• ASD1 FLR (M) Success Story

END OF WEEK SIX!

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD has been the word for this week me thinks!
Seriously, I have eaten some of the nummiest foods ever this week! (apart from that Thai, which we had that one time... twice.... we've already had it twice... AHEM).

Firstly, we went to an amazing place called Corianders where 99.9% of everything on the menu is spicy, so naturally I WAS IN HEAVEN AND GOBBLED MY THREE ENCHILADAS DOWN LIKE NO ONES BUSINESS  >:D We went there to celebrate Tasha's grandma's birthday. Going to a restaurant and munching in her honour is the least I can do to celebrate her birth am I right? UwU
Tasha and I couldn't behave ourselves for too long, but who didn't see that coming?

Secondly, on Saturday we went to the only sushi place within 592942 miles of where we live AND GOODNESS.
MY GOODNESS.
They make it to order, so you do have to wait a good 20 minutes for the dude to make it for you but man is it worth the wait! They don't have the huge variety of flavours like they do with the sushi in NZ (and I hate fish so that cuts 97% of the menu down for me here) but what they did have I loved!

And just to destroy the bowels after that, we dropped into a neat little place called Sprinkles and ruined all the hard work we put into this mornings walk with one blasters sundae which is pictured somewhere on today's blog. We have decided that we couldn't eat for the next 5 days because of this, so don't envy us too much.We are basically already dead.
I'm sorry Ryan. That promised hug will never be fulfilled.

I also got my new computer!! It's nothing amazing special to brag about but it does exactly what I need it to do for my comic work and such, so I am a happy Shane. Tash and I must have looked pretty scruffy when we went it to buy it, the first guy who assisted us looked very unhappy about us not buying his highly recommended anti-virus software. I was very tempted to let him know I worked on an IT Helpdesk for the last 6 years of my life and so feel pretty confident with computers, but ah well, it's kinda funny none-the-less.  XD  Well, nearly every other shop assistant from the store avoided us, one person even went straight past us to go help the people behind us. It was the first time I actually considered complaining about it to someone further up the food chain there but we decided it wasn't worth it because WE HAVE PLACES TO DRAW AND COMICS TO WALK TO! :D

We have also be watching the show "Flight of the Conchords" which is about two Kiwis living in New York trying to make it big in their band Flight of the Conchords, and I can recommend it to the moon and back! This is actually the second time we have watched through both seasons because it's that good, and if fully takes the mickey out of NZ in so many ways. Just look at this poster. It's all you really need to see to understand the humour of the show.

Other than that, we've just been trying to plan a trip to Ireland, which we've now moved to September due to how quickly the weeks are going already, and we kinda ran out of time to book things!! Tasha has also been researching into other places she'd to take me which are close by, such as Stourhead which she has highly recommended to visit! So hopefully when the weather is good, we'll get some awesome photos from there :D and maybe Longleat Safari Park!! 

See you guys next week!! :D

END OF WEEK FIVE!

Whups! I was meant to update this two days ago but life took over and stopped me. I'm currently writing this at 3:45am in the morning on my phone as I couldn't sleep tonight for the first time since getting over jet-lag while listening to the LittleBigPlanet soundtrack from the PS3 game which is truly crazy yet super fun sounding considering I haven’t played it in so long. Ahhhh, nostalgia! I LOVES IT! Go look up the LittleBigPlanet song called Atlas you will have an idea of what I am talking about *DANCES ALONG IN BED A LITTLE WHILE TRYING NOT TO WAKE UP TASH* >U<

The main reason I haven’t updated this blog is because my laptop is starting to pack up and I don’t think another reinstall of Windows will fix it this time, so a new UK one is in the books for this afternoon which will be super duper good! Though some of the keys on the UK keyboard being placed oddly compared to NZ keyboards, so don’t be surprised if you see some odd words with the @ symbol randomly placed into them now and again, or something XD

Last week involved looking for jobs! I'm still really trying to find a job which wasn't available in NZ because opportunities lack there slightly in comparison. I recently asked a comic shop if they had anything available (they didn't unfortunately BUT MAN THAT WOULD BE AN AWESOME THING TO HAPPEN LATER ON) but I'm gonna keep on looking! I just don’t want to settle for a job I don’t particularly enjoy straight away because “that’s what people have to do”. If there is one thing I have learned from life over the last two years it is that anything can friggin’ happen and any small move taken can change your life forever. 

Another thing that I have realised is that your life choices are in your own hands, despite what a lot of people make the world out to be. You are responsible for where you are in your life most of the time, and most of the time, you are the only one who can change it. I personally just don’t want to be  another name in human history who just existed, I want to leave something behind that isn't simply genetic or that can inherited, which is another reason why I am doing Beefpaper! I don’t ever plan to stop it so hopefully it will be a record of my life from when I was 23 all the way up until I can no longer draw/breathe, but we will see what happens! SO YES ANYWAY I GOT SLIGHTLY DISTRACTED THERE I AM JOB HUNTING AT THE MOMENT  XD

I also saw some of the legendary bluebells that Tasha has been telling me I needed to see since we basically met roughly two years ago AND THEY ARE VERY PRETTY! Odds are we are going to go back and have a look at them again shortly as they were not all out, so expect some pictures next week too! We went there with Tasha’s uncle Neil and her Grandma Jill, who has been working on my family tree for me over the last few months now which I really can’t thank her enough for!! It really is amazing to see where you actually come from and to actually some faces next to those names! If you don’t know much about your ancestry then MAN GO HAVE A NOSEY! Odds are we are probably somehow related, everyone seems to be by the freakin’ looks of it if my tree is anything to go off! 

I've also been gaming a heck of a lot with many different pals which has frankly been awesome toos, including our comicing pals Red and Flynn (playing Don’t Starve Together), the super mega awesome TK (playing Borderlands 2 as pictured above) and even one of my super old friends from way back on Star Wars Battlefront which was a big surprise but an awesome one at that! I do feel like my comic work has suffered a bit because of it all so this week is gonna be all about getting back on track, hopefully…… I feel like I have just jinxed it terribly by saying that….. *GLARES AT DYING LAPTOP IN CORNER OF ROOM* >____>’ 

WEEK, THE THIRD!!

I'm officially all set to go for being a working joe here in the UK! My National Insurance Number came through which means I can officially work now, so the great job hunt can really begin! I am not really rushing out to get an office job straight away considering there are so many opportunities for all kinds of different work here so I am keeping my eyes open for anything that may catch my fancy, but I am really unsure as to what my fancy is at the moment.... WE SHALL SEE!

This week has been rather quiet adventure wise as THE Tasha has gone back to work and stuffs, and it wasn't even a full week because of Easter! DX Still, we are still making the most of the time we have together! We have both wrecked our feet a little (AGAIN) after a walk we did yesterday to the beach. My little toes were like little cherries and Tasha's shoes just EXPLODED, so we will need to go buy her some new ones, WON'T WE EGG?? HMM?? >__>

My bank account for the UK is finally all sorted too! For some reason they failed to fill it with money. I will call them on Monday to sort that out...

To reward ourselves for maiming our feet on Saturday we spontaneously went to a Thai restaurant for lunch (I actually had the brochure for it up on my bedroom wall back in NZ for the past 5 months, it was just by chance we decided to go there). And, well.... IT WAS SOME OF THE YUMMIEST THAI FOODS WE HAVE EVER HAD EVERNGJEHOIHGKEHHGRWJKN!!!! It was only a small portion, being lunch, but HOLY MOLY IT WAS SO SUPER YUMMY!! It was called Sakuna Khrua Thai and DANG GO THERE IF YOU CAN! I can recommend it to the moon and back, because it will send you there with it's yumminess...  >U>

My mums fish tanking business all the way over there in NZ is all in full swing too and Tash recently designed this super freakin' amazing logo for it!

Not too shabby if I don't say so... UwU

If you click on this link it will take you to her Facebook page, so if you know of any places in Whangarei that need an amazing fish tank or if you have an existing tank that needs a darn good spruce up, then you know what to do!

We have also acquired two new additions to our little family just today! Two tiny little hiss cockroaches named Red and Flynn (based off our super mega awesome webcomic pals who do the equally amazing webcomic Liar's Dice). Tasha's sister TK owns the two hissing cockroaches shown in the photo on this post and we don't think they are old enough to start hissing yet... but we are waiting patiently like two strange, proud parents for the day Red and Flynn hiss their first hiss!  >w<

SPEAKING OF WHICH, THEY ACTUALLY MADE A COMIC ABOUT IT! They also demand that you listen to this song as you read the comic, which is indeed very fitting! :D

Tash and I have just finished our monthly gaming hangout with our Patron's who support our work on Patreon and I am completely knackered for some reason so I am going to it the hay. All I can hope is that Red and Flynn don't crawl into our brains as we sleep.

SO THEN-

As I type this, it is 9:49pm on Wednesday the 16th of March using Tasha's absolutely horrible keyboard which was no doubt made in the 1800s. We both woke up at 2am this morning we presume because of jet-lag from the flight two days ago, or maybe because we are just amazingly synced up together. We also accidentally slept 6 hours together at lunchtime because of this so now both our clocks are messed uP HORRIBLY AND I'VE ACCIDENTALLY HIT CAPS LOCK AGAIN FOR THE 5TH TIME IN TWO MINUTES BECAUSE THE KEYBOARDS HERE ARE DIFFERENT FROM NEW ZEALAND ONES. Tasha also just walked by with a bucket of water from her pet Axolotl tank while grunting 'WWWHYYYYYYY'.

I am fairly happy with how the move has gone from NZ to the UK, it's pretty much what I expected. The weather is a lot colder than New Zealand (NZ is just coming out of an amazing hot summer!), there are pigeons, and I keep waking up in a web of Tasha's hair every morning so far, so YA!

Today we went down to a tiny little miniature post shop to pick up my Biometric Resident Permit which is the very last step of the whole visa process, so it's finally all done and dusted and I can now focus on making a life here! It's super nice knowing that thAT'S IS ALL DONE AND I HAVE HIT CAPS LOCK AGAIN HAVEN'T I.

I also called up the Job Centre to get my National Insurance Number (NIN) application started! It will take about 6-8 weeks in total to complete because the David Cameron has to hand write every application form, or something like that.

Tasha also called up the Council to get me onto the Council tax bill, WHICH TOOK AGES BECAUSE THEY ACCIDENTALLY HUNG UP ON HER FIRST TIME ROUND!

Word of warning to anyone who want's to move to the UK...YOU NEED PROOF OF ADDRESS FOR EVERYTHING! Such as registering for the NHS, opening up a bank account etc. So having your name on a Council Tax bill is super handy. Get that done ASAP if you can!

The next big thing to start focusing on is a job for me! I have a feeling that I am going to end up on a IT helpdesk like I was previously but I think I might end up dabbling in some random jobs first just to test the water a little while I can. Here are list of jobs I would like to try:

• Book shop worm
• Finger food collector
• Food storAGE UNIT CAPS LOOOOOOOCK
• Light shade mechanic
• The newest member of Moulin Rouge
• Tasha tamer

If anyone has any of these positions open then please message me ASAP.

Photo credit to Tasha Dancy 2016

About

What's this blog all about???

I've just moved to the UK from New Zealand for two years on a Youth Mobility Visa and have decided to make a blog to keep a diary of my adventures here, as well as hopefully provide a useful insight to others who might want to do the same.

Who Are We?

We are Shane and Tasha, a couple of crazy asexual comic artists who have a hunger for adventure! Originally meeting online, we instantly struck up a friendship, where we would talk for hours about the places we wanted to visit and what we had on our bucket list. 

It had been settled that we definitely had similar interests in what we wanted to do, and that it would be flipping awesome to do it together, the only issue? We lived on the opposite side of the globe from each other. Literally...I come from New Zealand and Tasha's from England.

So to make a start, Tasha booked her ticket to New Zealand, a place she had wanted to visit for over 10 years now. We thought it'd be cool to do it during her birthday, plus it gave us an excuse to do something a bit more crazy, so we settled on Skydiving onto a traditional North Island beach!

After that our taste for adventure grew, soon after Tasha arrived back in the UK I booked my ticket to spend a month over there. We had 6 months to plan, so we knuckled down and started booking what we could. 

Tasha did a LOT of driving, we explored a lot of Dorset and around London. I saw my first grey squirrel in Hyde Park! (Yes, I was VERY excited by this!) and my first red squirrel at Brownsea Island waaaayyy down south (Even more excited by this!). The culture in the UK amazed me too, it made me realise just how young New Zealand really is. 

To say the least, I felt one month was not enough. Tasha and I grew closer by the end of it, and decided to make it official and become life companions (our asexual alternative to 'boy/girlfriend'). It was pretty painful leaving, but we kept positive and thought about looking into me getting a Visa to stay in the UK for longer.

Tasha then contacted me and told me about the Youth Mobility Visa which is available for people aged from 18-30 in selected countries, where you are able to stay in a country for 2 years and work. Perfect!

My Visa was thankfully successful, and now I am finally living in the UK with my best friend!

I hope you enjoy reading through my blog as we continue our adventures together, and that perhaps it will inspire you to do the same. There's a LOT of world out there to explore, it's a shame to let it go to waste, and let's face it. It's so much more amazing when you can share it with your best friend :)