Untitled

Writing for an Audience of One

03:21, Thursday 20 December 2007 .. 2 comments .. Link

Having realised that I'm in serious danger of boring half of BE & indeed myself, to death with the relentless analysing of the situation of getting consent from my ex for the children to travel, I've decided that the only fair thing to do is to start this blog. Here is a place where I can obsess & moan to my heart's content without driving everyone else to distraction, but if anyone else wants to join me in a bit of grousing, then feel free, pull up a blanket & a mug of horlicks & we'll chew the fat together!

It's been a bit of a tough one today. Both girls are off school for the holidays & I'm supposed to be emailing my solicitor details of our case so that she can put an Application into the Court. Not an easy thing to do when you've got a twelve year old (& a pretty savvy one at that) peering over your shoulder wanting to know why you're scanning their birth certs!

Anyway, the case for Court is hinging on, I think, the lack of effort the ex has put into contacting the girls since we moved here to Kent & due to that, his objection is unreasonable. It doesn't help that he wrote me a letter saying that he only wanted to see them 3 times a year. At the time, I think he was hoping that we would worry that we would be losing his "free babysitting", he has certainly always given us the impression that he felt he was doing us a favour by having his own children to stay overnight. Anyway, writing that letter will haunt him for years to come - you know what they say.... "be careful what you wish for...." The flip side of this, of course, is that despite our misgivings, we both really believe that the girls love their dad & need to stay in touch with him - so it's for their sakes, not his, that we're prepared to put in quite a bit of effort to make sure they have every opportunity to stay in contact.

So, we took on a specialist solicitor to advise us regarding this whole nightmare & briefly, we had to prove several main areas:

1. That we didn't move to Kent as a strategy to weaken his case for objection after he initially refused back in the spring. Fortunately, we kept some documents that show that pretty clearly - OH's new work contract showing that he was on 3 months trial so we weren't in a position to take on a new mortgage immediately; also, when I left my job in Devon I arranged a career break in case things didn't work out & we had to return to Devon; finally that my youngest couldn't get into the school we wanted, so we had to appeal that decision. My letter from that time clearly demonstrates there was no intention to emigrate. So far, so good.... I hope.

2. For the actual emigration we need to show we are being realistic & we have had to send in bank accounts, payslips & everything else that shows what money we have at our disposal. We've also sent pdfs of houses that we can afford to buy outright, details of schools even though we can't get a place at any of them until we get a visa. We've also had to demonstrate that we are eligible for a visa - thank you here to George Lombard who kindly provided us with an assessment & again, pdfs of our points assessment & MODL list from the immi website. Finally once we get the skills assessment we can start looking at work for OH, which we will also have to present in court. With a bit of luck & a fair breeze, we'll have something by then to show we can support the kids.

3. Welfare of the child. This bit is easy, I've been taking care of my girls without any help at all from ex for over 3 years now. He's never been involved in taking them to clubs, going to parent's evenings, buying their clothes, so it's pretty much established I don't need his practical assistance. Taking kids to Australia isn't like wanting to go & live in a yurt out on the Steppes, or wanting to home tutor them so I can take them travelling. Hopefully it will be easy to show that their quality of life can only be enhanced by the move. I've also sent copies of the girls school reports, showing that moving to Kent didn't have a detrimental effect on their schooling & that they are obviously well supported & able to cope with change without too many problems.

4. Probably most importantly, we have to show that we're not acting out of a desire to exclude the ex from our lives. Well, much as I may wish never to set eyes on the idiot again, I've done a pretty good job of making sure the girls have a good relationship with their dad - blimey I've even gone out & bought presents for him, his girlfriends & his girlfriend's kids over the years so that the girls haven't had to turn up at celebrations empty-handed. But this is besides the point... the judge needs to know that we've thought about contact & of course we'll be able to tell them all about Skype, webcams & so on - I'm sure they've heard it all before. I've done statements about contact with grandparents, lists about how many phone calls, texts etc., he's made to the girls in the last few months, it's been hard.

And now it's all done.....now what? Well we get Christmas out of the way & the proverbial sh1t hits the fan I guess, but in the meantime my first ever Christmas without my lovely girls & a exciting foreign trip to look forward to instead......

do you reckon I need to take my bikini to Ireland?

Untitled

Writing for an Audience of One

About Me

Links

Categories

Recent Entries

Friends