Visa Fishing

Feeling rejuvenated from such a perfect holiday, it was a great relief to come back and face the potential that Lucie would be kicked out the country in less than 3 weeks if she didn’t arrange an alternative visa. No problem; as per the recommendation of 3 separate ‘specialists’ from the immigration office (including our case officer), she would now need to apply for a tourist visa to pass the time until residency was confirmed. There were a couple of questions in the application that were as clear as vomit so she phoned our reliable immigration office for assistance. In doing so, they now advised that it was impossible to apply for a tourist visa if currently in the country on a working holiday visa. For some reason, this small problem was not identified by anyone previously. Our new situation was, either we heard positively on our residency application in less than 3 weeks or Lucie would have to fly to a non-NZ jurisdiction country (that didn’t require a visa application itself), and then she’d be able to return to New Zealand and be immediately granted a tourist visa. B*llocks to that! Understandably, we were a little miffed at this incompetence so I phoned our case officer and in the nicest possible way, told her to sort her act out. Her response was at least positive even if not totally reassuring. We were told not to worry; she would make that deadline. The back-up plan was that if we hadn’t heard, we would send our passports to immigration and plead the case of it being impossible for Lucie to leave when they had our passports. This was going to be interesting.

I’d lost a lot of weight when travelling. I managed to drop around 5kgs just in the Himalayas, and that was with eating 2 helpings of Dhal Bhat twice a day for nearly 3 weeks. I guess the rest of the loss was through not eating my usual 6 meals a day and simply, not lifting weights. When we got to New Zealand, I knew we’d be here for at least a year, so registered with a gym within the first couple of weeks. After that, some good home-cooked food, no more packet noodles, plenty of meat, and initially no work to go to, helped me pack on 4 kgs in the first 3 weeks. Since then, the battle has been slower but consistent and I’m now heavier than ever. “You can achieve your dreams. Beafcake.” No ‘Weight Gain 4000’, but I have had the help of a few tubs of protein powder, and enough porridge to feed Scotland.

In the last couple of months I decided to take up another hobby. This time, something which has appealed to me for years, but for one reason or another I never got round to trying. The sofa can be a powerful adversary of action. For the last couple of months, every Tuesday and Thursday evenings, I have been learning Wing Chun Kung Fu, courtesy of Sifu Tony Brooks – who according to rumour, would have kicked Bruce Lee’s ass, if they fought at the same age…and one wasn’t dead. I’ve really enjoyed this escapism. No matter how tired or even ill I’ve felt beforehand, I always feel better for going. The class suits me perfectly. There is no bullshit, pretense, or unnecessary exercise. The way they see it, if you want to get fit, go to the gym, this class is for learning kung fu. I couldn’t believe how much we covered and so quickly. I remembered doing Shotokan Karate years and years ago, when we never learned anything remotely cool until reaching the higher belts. On my 2nd class of kung fu, I was practicing multiple hit combos, and finishing with arm breaks. What’s more – it all made sense. It is a lazy mans martial art – defeating an opponent using the least amount of energy and using an attacker’s force against them. This is so much fun it should be illegal.

While there were still the odd weekends of sunshine, we couldn’t resist another attempt at fishing. This time, we went all out and chartered a boat. The skipper said from the start that it wasn’t the best of the year to go, but we remained optimistic. On the way out, a pod of 20 plus dolphins swam with us, and we were content with the day already.

In the distance, the sky was dark with movement. This was a good sign. Where there were birds en masse, there must be fish drawing them there. We tried our luck in the area but consistently came up with nothing. From there we tried a few different spots, and our luck increased each time. I managed to convince myself that I was pretty good at fishing and reeled in 12 fish over the next few hours. Unfortunately most of these were either no good for eating, or infuriating close to, but below, the legal size limit, and had to be released. However, at the end of the day, Lucie and I had a glorious red snapper each and a couple of Mau Mau. Some people do it for the sport, I do it for the dinner, and it tastes even better when you’ve reeled in the beasts yourself.

The penultimate date arrived and Lucie's visa was over. Thankfully, confirmation had arrived that our residency had been granted, and she wouldn't have to go on the run. It was such a long build up, and so much stress, that it should have been a huge relief or cause for celebration when it was actually over. It wasn't though. It was an anti-climax. Just an end to stress, rather than massive elation. True, we were very pleased that our future was back in our hands, but we never felt the need to pop a champagne cork.