British Expats - Home for 2 months, reflections

We landed in Manchester on June 22nd after 14 years in Clearwater Florida. Our move back had nothing to do with being dissatisfied in the USA it was about our parents ageing and the daughters we adopted in Florida being the only grandchildren in either family. My wife had also just completed a PhD and the prospects for her area of research look a lot better in the UK.

Our arrival in Manchester with two adopted daughters from China, now US citizens, was a little problematic as the Home Office had at that time lost their applications for British Citizenship and all the supporting documents, they arrived with the Home Office on April 9th. That left us without the necessary documents for visa applications. So we entered with a plan to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain for them once in the UK. This plan was met with less than full enthusiasm by the immigration officer at Manchester. We spent a couple of hours waiting for the Borders Agency to confirm what I had already told them! They then asked why we hadn't just applied for our girls UK passports, which we couldn't do without them first being granted citizenship. Eventually they were admitted for 6 months with a "Code 1 A" stamp in the passport, that gives them full access to NHS and schools, and gives us 6 months to help the Home Office complete the applications. As a precaution, a rather expensive precaution, we did get them ILR using the premium same day service at the Solihull office.

My wife and I are enjoying being back in England and our girls, age 9 and 7, are enjoying living in Birmingham. Our housing wasn't too much of an issue, I am a vicar so the church provides a house, they didn't have one for my position so the church is renting a house for us, we looked on Rightmove at rentals, asked them to go and look and when they and we thought a house was suitable they rented it for a year. We are happy living in Quinton so far. We are still working out schools for the girls as both are blind and need a special placement in a school with a teacher of the visually impaired. We chose a house half a mile from a school with a vision support unit and hope that Birmingham Education authority will soon realise that our girls will do well there.

Things we are all pleased about, being able to walk to places not having to use the car for everything. The buses in Birmingham have been great too and offer so many flexible transport options for us that we are going to manage with just one car. We have bought a car and so far it has not been used very much. The last time filled it with diesel was mid July. We like living very close to a Tesco superstore and walk over there to buy a few groceries each day that has been another novelty for our girls too. We find food to better less expensive and better quality on the whole.

I am really enjoying my new position at St. Martin's in the Bull Ring, there is so much going on in the city centre and so many people come into St. Martin's to be quiet and enjoy the peace, a large part of my role is to be in the church welcoming people and answering their questions and taking time to pray with then if they ask. I am meeting people from all over the world who have made Birmingham their home.

So two months in and we are all happy to have made the move. I'll be even happier when the girl's citizenship is resolved, the Home Office found their citizenship applications on July 2nd, the day after we spent £3000 on ILR. So far so good.

Mike