We are now 9 days away from boarding the first flight of a long journey that will take us to the UK.
It's been our plan for years, and we started the process in the summer of 2024.
The first step was selling two houses. It wasn't the best time to sell, but we managed to sell both in a reasonable time at good prices. In a rare turn of events, we met both buyers before the sales were complete, and consider both friends now.
Next, I needed to apply for a visa so I could legally live and work in the UK. I'm married to a Brit, so I chose to apply for a family visa.
The application required proof of savings since I didn't have a work contract for the UK, pre-payment for 33 months of National Health Insurance, proof of identity for me and hubby, proof that our relationship is genuine and proof of a place to stay (Our eldest agreed to let us use his address)
There was a lot of paperwork to upload and the third party site made the whole process even more stressful and tedious.
I also needed to attend a bio-metric appointment in person where they took fingerprints, a photo and I handed over my passport.
I ended up flying to Houston for the day since I needed an expedited decision and it was the closest office that offered it.
Once everything is submitted you wait. It is agonizing, since you can't do much else to prepare until you have the approved visa, and you don't have your passport until a decision is made.
I got my approval on May 13th, and received my passport with 90 day visa attached the next day. The Visa allowing me to stay 33 months was in electonic form.
While waiting for my visa, I was able to start on the health certificates for the dogs, though. These are required to bring pets into the UK. With Gabby being brachycephalic (short-nosed), we couldn't send her in cargo (and didn't want to anyway), we couldn't fly directly to the UK. Approved Routes to Bring Pets to the UK
We decided to go via Dublin, Ireland and break up the trip so the dogs would have a break in the middle of the journey.
This meant we'd need two sets of health certificates for customs: one for the EU, one for the UK.
This is another set of paperwork, deadlines and stressful waiting. Both dogs needed updated rabies vaccines since only a current one-year or a three-year vaccine given within the last year are acceptable. These had to be given at least 21 days before our arrival. They also had to have have tapeworm treatment 5 days before arrival.
