So it's just over 4 weeks before we set off on our great adventure. Because I don't have enough to do and organising the visas and moving isn't complicated enough, Edd decided to apply for a new passport just to spice things up a bit.

We got a letter in the post last week from Her Majesty's passport office saying that Edd had not filled the form in correctly and had written his information outside of the boxes provided. This was quite entertaining as they were correct, he had not filled the information inside the boxes provided... He'd done it online. They also said we had to provide 2 passport photos and we'd only provided 1. Again they were correct, they only provided us with a box for 1, so that's what they got. You don't get what you don't ask for. We filled in another application form (which was unnecessary, but we felt that arguing would be a fruitless exercise) and sent them 2 photos. Now they have 3 and his passport should arrive in the next few days.

I will then be spending my days at the Thai, Cambodian and Vietnam Embassies. Fingers crossed they don't get iffy with letters in boxes. You don't normally need to get a Thai visa in advance with a British Passport, but because we're spending most of March in Northern Thailand and then coming back and spending most of May in Southern Thailand, we have to apply for 2 entries otherwise we only get 15 days the second time and we need a month. Luckily Thai visas take 24 hours to process. Vietnam and Cambodia take a week each.

Our Australian working visa is coming along nicely. We are busy with the skills assessment part of it and Edd has to take the IELTS test to get us the 20 points that we are short. We're going over on working holiday visas while we wait for the working visas to come through. I have to send my IELTS results to the Victorian Institute of Teaching to get provisional teacher registration. I only get full registration when I get a full time job. I won't get one of those on a working holiday visa as you are only allowed to work for the same employer for 6 months at a time, but I have no doubt that we will have the working visas by the end of the year, the restrictions will all fall away, I will get a full time job for next year and full teacher registration. Edd is a hot commodity in his field, we have no worries about him finding work.

Fingers crossed his passport arrives soon so I can get our visas sorted!