Tickets to UK booked - there's no changing!

Last week Barry's updated NZ passport arrived - it's so beautifully done, black (of course) with a silver fern on the front and back cover, and each page inside has intricate art work depicting the history of Aotearoa - it almost makes me want to apply for citizenship just to get one of my own!  

In New Zealand, for some unknown reason, you have to get a new passport every five years - hurrah for UK who only make us do that each decade (though the document is terribly boring in comparison)!  Barry only updated his previous one in 2008, the first time we were planning our narrowboat adventure of living aboard the canals for six months.  At that point Tom, his son, was coming with us too.  It's Tom's 22nd birthday today - Happy Birthday Tom!  However it was to be another year before our dream came to fruition, Barry's house and business just wouldn't sell, and by then Tom had all grown up and didn't come with us - here's our first ever blog from 17 April 2009, it feels like a lifetime ago.  

Anyway, I'm getting diverted!  As I previously said, in a June 2012 post, in order to apply for his UK residency visa, Barry needed to have a date of 'arriving'.  So to book the tickets he had to update his passport which still had another 8 months left - oh well, sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get where you want to go.

We'd seen a good deal on Malaysian Airlines for a one way ticket to Heathrow from Auckland for $1,200, so as soon as his passport arrived we went online and booked - we leave Gisborne on 19th March and arrive in Heathrow on 20th March 2013, just in time for my mum's 80th birthday on 24th.

The potential 'hiccup' of the ticket is that we can't change the date of it - that's when we will be going or we'll have to fork out lots more money (it was going to be >$1,000 to have that luxury - I chose to decline).  We're confident that this time our plans won't be delayed - we can't afford for them to be!

So we just have to sell the house, sell Barry's business and complete my Holistic Life Coaching Diploma by that time - no problem, of course it'll all work out, just a bit more of a journey for us before we get back to the waterways of Britain, this time to stay 'indefinitely' ...