April is here but no news on my visa... I sent the paperwork by 'super extra expensive, so it'll arrive in five days, international air postage on 22nd February, but no news of arrival.

This got me thinking about identity theft.  It can't be too difficult to become me, in cyberspace, once you have a colour copy of my passport, birth certificate, marriage certificate, the paperwork for hubbie and kids, and both J and mine examination certificates.  Hence panic.

I decided to call.  The bad news was deliver with nonchalance.  My photographs were the wrong shade of blue.  Worst still, the paperwork needed to be legalised, certified and then sent to KL to support the application....   what does this all mean?  So I called the High Commission... oh!  It's all about money is all I can think.  It means £35 per document, a four week delay and then we can send off the visa app.

VISA = money!

So I need to raise another £140.  Well as standing on my street corner will put me on the prohibited list, I thought how else can I get cold and make a fool of myself haggling over 20p, of course, a car boot.

Well I'm not an expert, having only done one before with my mate, and having only visited two others in the last 25 years, but it was a good morning.   In a lovely rural Northamptonshire village, Holcot was fine.  

Holcot Carboot

What an experience!   I had forgotten how awful it was unloading the car.  Gin was shoved out of the way by two old men who were trying to rummage in the bags in the boot before we had taken them out of the car.  Another two immaculately dressed and pressed men wanted to know did we have any LPs.   The concept of LPs on a 15 year old is lost.  Even though we currently have to step over this box to reach the plug socks in the lounge: 

LPs: Gin didn't have a clue what they were talking about.  

So arriving home with most of what I'd taken and fifty quid in my pockets wasn't too bad for a morning's work.

Next stop Uppingham Book shop to swap my best literature and Gin's vampire plastic  literature for a twenty and we had made it to the half way mark.

My only hope is that this is the last of the big payments for a while.  Shipping doesn't take place for six weeks so that is plenty enough time to sell a limb or two.

But in the meantime, my living room looks like I've been burgled.  Roll on the 9th August.