jodi

Trying to convert old iPhoto libraries from twenty years ago to a format I can more easily use these days. 50 GB, so taking days to do this! Also as the photos keep popping up I run into friends who are no longer with us, some who seem to have disappeared or decided we are no longer friends, couples who are now mortal enemies of each other... and also friends who still are friends and memories of good times past, so there is that. It all feels quite strange, looking at these snippets of past lives.

It was a very quiet day, lessons cancelled and not a lot of energy to do anything so I just got on the 88 to let it take me someplace. Regent’s Street and Whitehall are more interesting from the top deck of a bus. Got off in Stockwell, walked (nearly eight thousand steps) to Brixton, walked around but there was no market on Sunday so no guanabanas. So went to Kings Cross, bought a slice of Basque cheesecake and had a little chat with the cake stall man, bought a couple of things from the Waitrose and had ice cream from the former neighbour, Ruby Violet. The ice cream was elderflower and prosecco and it was very nice. Couldn’t tell if the alcohol of the prosecco was still there but was quite happy for a few minutes 😃 managed to get the 214 back home just as the drops of rain were starting to fall.

After the little scare when booking the flight back from Miami on the NY, I decided that, expensive and a faff as it now is, I should get British citizenship, after all these years.

Why hadn't I done it before? Well, until 2016 that didn't seem necessary, with me being an EU citizen. But then I learnt that half of this country kind of don't want me here (I know, I'm being a bit melodramatic there). On the night before the flight back the airline wouldn't let me check in online because 'I needed a visa to enter the UK' and I 'needed a return flight' out of the UK. That night, let's say I didn't sleep much. There's been a couple of other things that have made me think I really should look into this.

I tried to fill in the forms online and then I hit what seems a very minor obstacle: they want the _exact_ date of first arrival in the UK. Well, I came here first on a Caribbean Airways (national airline of Barbados) flight in... sometime late June or early July? 1986. You don't keep airline tickets from 38 years ago. Plus the airline went under the year after I came so no-one there to ask. I entered the country as an Italian, EU citizen, therefore no stamps on my passport. I should imagine the Home Office should have the passenger manifest for that flight so I daren't make up a date and then be told that I forfeited the nearly two thousand pound fee because I put false details in -can't afford that!. Later I learnt there is a lot more to that, apparently you should declare even minor parking or traffic fines, etc. So it looks like I need advice but -lawyers are very expensive! I don't think I can afford that and the nearly two thousand pound fee. So I'm at a bit of a quandary, waiting to see whether I can find more information about this. It is clear that at this point in the game I will be spending what's left of my life in this country -unless something really, really major happens. So it looks like I'll be needing advice on this.