Every year it seems that
time moves by more quickly – we're already almost half way though 2012 and it
doesn’t seem that long since the New Year!
In just over a week it’ll be the shortest day and longest night here in
the Southern Hemisphere – which is good news for us as it means our days will then become
longer - possibly not so good for those of you reading from the Northern hemisphere, where you seem to have sadly lost your summer weather
once again.
Last time I wrote I'd
recently taken on my new role as project coordinator for the maternity quality
and safety programme in Gisborne, and it's been full-on for the past 6 weeks.. I know that if I continue in this
role until we return to England, it's definitely going to be one that that
takes up a considerable proportion of my time.
My concern here, as I know
is an issue for many people, is around maintaining a good work/life balance and
not allowing one aspect to ‘take over’ in my passion to fulfil my obligations
to the maternity services here by taking on the role. The plan had been to concentrate more on my
Life Coaching this year, whilst getting our house ready to sell and
de-cluttering our enormous array of ‘stuff’ that we have both managed to
acquire. The Life Coaching is still
incredibly important to me, as it's how I intend to earn a modest income when
we return to UK, and I shall make time to complete my diploma and see lots of lovely clients for my case
study hours as well as those who continue on a maintenance basis - and fit in some fun things too, like going to Samoa for a week in August and two of my sisters coming for a three week holiday in November! So it's not all work and no play ...
On another positive side, the project
post is on a contractual basis, so I’m paid an hourly rate, which was the only
way I could work it in with my other commitments (as is my locum midwifery post
at Te Puia Springs), so I’m having to get to grips with the concept of
self-employment for the first time in my life – it’s certainly different to
someone just paying you a salary, having deducted whatever needs to be taken
out and then you can spend your money however you wish! Now I’m learning how to invoice, whether or
not I need to be GST registered (similar to VAT in UK), what receipts I have to keep and what spending
I have to keep account of, a log book for my car journeys and a monthly ‘cash
book’ that I must keep to give to the accountant at the end of the year, if not
before. It feels like keeping accounts is a part time job in itself!
Last week I finally managed
to overcome my (irrational?) fear of visiting an accountant – taking the easy
option and going to Barry’s longstanding firm, and bless him he came with me to give in
his end of year books so I had his hand to hold! Now I just have to do the paperwork for last
year’s income I earned that wasn’t taxed, from being a midwifery mentor, hiring
TENS machines, renting our
house out as a holiday home, and Life Coaching.
The great thing is that when
we come back onto the British canal system in 2013, I'll be so au fait with
self employment that I won’t be in the least fazed by then working out how to
do my accounting in another country – or at least that’s the plan!
Barry's downloaded the
visa application for his UK residency, and he’ll be working on completing that and
probably visiting the Embassy in Wellington in the next few months. He was
stumped on the first question “What date do you arrive in the UK?”!!! So it looks like we’ll need to bite the
bullet and book our tickets well in advance, before we even put the house on the market, and then we'll have a date to work our
‘project plan’ on – seeing the vision and working backwards to break
it all down into manageable steps and prevent it all feeling so overwhelming.
In the meantime, here's a few photos Barry took while we were there in March:
Swanning about on The River severn, Worcester
Sandra (with a bit of M & S shopping!) and her mum and dad
An unusual lock paddle pulley system at Maunsel Lock, on the Bridgewater and Taunton Canal
We're hoping to book tickets to arrive towards the end of March 2013, before my mum’s 80th
birthday on 24th, so we have a nine-month gestation period to grow our dream baby!
Watch this space …
Sandra
ReplyDeleteSo unsolicited advice from my own visa experience.
Barry should work his visa application timing backwards. If I recall correctly the application can be submitted a maximum of 3 months prior to the departure date. The difficult part is working out how long the High Commission will take to process the application. They told me "up to 3 months". But they actually took 3 weeks.
Remember the visa is for two years and if Barry is going to request a subsequent visa (extension)he needs to ensure he's actually going to be in the UK for the full 24 months.
All the best
Tom & Jan
I use an umbrella company. It's like being employed and all I do is send in timesheets and expenses claims. They do all the rest.
ReplyDeleteTom and Jan
ReplyDeleteThanks for that - we thought it was six months, not sure about our timeline as 3 months before will be xmas time so no chance of anything getting done until February! We'll have to find out about that. I don't think there's any worry about keeping Barry in UK for a minimum of 2 years though, lol!
David - the problem is, especially currently, is that I am earning money from four different roles so I can't see your solution working - and for Life Coaching it's possible that I could join an existing coaching practice - certainly something to consider for when we're in UK - thank you.
Sandra (& Barry)