Frustration

Hello All
What a beautiful demonstration in information gathering we had this week. Those of you who read regularly are aware that Gavin made an application for a visa to visit the uk on 7th August with the hopes of seeing our friends from Zimbabwe who have been living in Australia for 13 years. At the offices in Paris he was informed that he would be notified by email on the progress of his visa. 
Having heard nothing for a month, and our friends having returned to Australia without a visitor from France, an email arrives from Uk Visa Services informing Gavin that seeing as they have received a decision on Gavins visa please could he complete the online survey. 
Quelle surprise! The survey team have information to which we are not privy.
Yay, progess. Quick we may discover more.
Page 1, "Have you received a decision on a visa application in the last three months?" 
Page 2, "No" 
Page 3, "This survey is now complete".

Being the synic that I am I figure that the survey form is actually a cover to discover where they are in their queue for visas as they are still recovering from the fiasco of passport applications during the summer, although in theory the visa section is a different department from passports. I would have hoped that given Gavins connections with his wife who is a UK citizen by birth and his residency status in France would mean that he does not fall in the 1% bracket of people whose visas have not been processed by 30 days, according to the statistics for uk visa processing in France. 
We are now working on the theory that 30 days actually means 30 working days, oh whoops we have completed 30 working days as well. So that must make Gavin one of these incredibly complex high risk visa applications that only gets completed in 60 days so we will have a response by either 7 October or 31 October.
What is really super good is that there is no contact email address and one of the phone numbers for enquiries does not work and the other one costs 1.34pounds/minute which you have to pay for upfront using a credit card.
So the moral of the story is if you want to be spontaneous, plan ahead!
See you all soon
Helen
PS  Oh yes the photo is of my friends puppy and it has nothing to do with the topic of the blog other than to relieve the frustration of administration. Enjoy!