UK visitor visa for defacto adopted child in (god knows how many) days

[SantiSuk]

Grumpy old man time:P

"Dear [sister in UK]

Yes it's the season of having to apply for visas and feeling like shooting myself in preference.

Today I spent 22 minutes on the UK visa pay-phone enquiries service at £1.37 a minute (plus call charges) to discuss the question that the free e-mail service so crassly avoided answering. End product of the expensive phone call - don't know, need to escalate upstairs, take your details, them upstairs will reply within 3-5 working days. [expletive deleted].

Anyway the UKVI application website keeps crashing so I can't finish [adopted daughter's] application even if I had the correct guidance.

I do hope that my charge**, that dear old UK.Gov is being discriminatory, sticks - the knowledge that it might make one or two officials squirm for a minute or two is all I've got to look forward to.

Unfortunately all this messing around means there will be no time to get any Schengen visas* so we'll have to hope to catch up with [other sister living in Germany] (and you of course) somewhere in northern Scotland maybe. Shalln't bother to fix that up until I know we are coming. For two pennys I would say sod the UK and sod spending money there, but I need to come myself at least to see the quacks and 'the girls' are desperately keen to come!

Chin up - nearly time for a beer then.

Love

* Just as well - the bleedin Germans refused our application for adopted daughter last time around and had us haring back to home from Bangkok to get some certificate from adopted daughter's school to say that she existed. "There's no mention of that in the guidance" I protested to the fraulein behind the counter. "It's needed in your case" came the bleak response. The school promptly required us to buy the form shirt with her new form on it which would not be available for a few more days and refused to accept her picture without a school shirt that had her form name and room no stitched into it and clearly displayed.

Oh yes - this time of year can take months off my life."

** I launched a complaint about their e-mail service yesterday accusing the respondent of being "crass, unhelpful and insensitive".