Wailing and gnashing of teeth

So anyway, our visas and passports have still not arrived, so we decided to send a pleasant 'how are we doing' type email to the French consulate in Wellington. Al quickly got a reply - an automated message telling us that the visa officer we had been dealing with (there is only one) left on 16 June, but giving the email of her replacement. Ok, we sent off an email to her. And lo!! An almost immediate reply, despite it being the weekend. Gosh they are hard workers, these French consulate types, we thought. But no - it was another automated message. The new visa officer is away, en vacances, until 24 July. Ooops, we plan to leave on the 22 July. But hang on, this message says that her emails will be opened by other consulate officials. Whew! And in due course, this morning, we receive a message from a staff member, telling us that 'we do not know at this stage' about the progress of the visas. Pardon?

By now the blood pressure is rising a bit. Al emails back giving more details. Again the prompt reply, well if the previous visa officer said it would be okay then it will be okay. Somehow we don't feel reassured, so Al rings the Consulate and speaks to the email writer. No, they don't know how long it will take. No, they don't know where our passports are. 'You'll just have to wait,' says our less-than-helpful Frenchman.

Now we are in limbo. Admittedly we do still have 3 weeks before we go, but we need to know now if we have to change our arrangements. We have already paid for tickets - incredibly, the institution that Al is going to visit in France required us to have bought tickets before they would issue the paperwork that started the visa process. We have already paid for our leased car.

The funny thing is, for a long time I didn't want to go on this sabbatical. I didn't want to have to put my life on hold, I didn't want to go through the upheaval of moving us all somewhere else, then moving us back. I didn't want the stress of settling Em into a new country, a new school where she would have to make new friends. I didn't want to leave my friends behind here. But now, I do want to go. I really want to go. I really want to go to France.

We do have other options, if it all turns to custard, but it will take a bit of time to organise properly. We could go to Singapore, or Seattle, or even to Canberra. Al's keen to go to Oxford, but we couldn't afford to stay long there.

Hopefully things will work out. Hopefully the passports will turn up in the mailbox tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed.