PR granted today.... Crikey !

PR of course is Permanent Residency and today I received notification that I'd been awarded it by those lovely people at NZIS, Haymarket,London. Adele Curtis was my Case officer and I thought that she'd give me 'Work to Residence' But no ! PR straight off. It was a bit of a shock and it hasn't yet sunk in. I'll get the passport sent off this weekend and in a handful of days I'll have the prized blue stickers attached. Exciting stuff !!

What else ? I had a fantastic weekend last week. I went to see my expat Brother Mark, and his expat wife Sheila and their expat rinky dinks in the South of France. It was a whistle stop, fly in Saturday morning and fly out on Sunday night trip courtesy of EasyJet from Liverpool. We had a lazy day on Saturday catching up on some much needed sleep in the garden with the temperature soaring into the 30s followed by a delicious



BBQ as the sun went down. On Sunday we went to the Classic Monaco Grand Prix, a Bi Annual event that takes place 7 days before the F1 circus rolls into town. The picture is of me and my niece, Becky taken on the balcony of the amazing apartment that we were invited to watch the racing from.

What a great day, what great hospitality from Stuart & his family and what a great venue to watch the fun. We were in an awesome apartment overlooking the harbour, the start/finish straight and "The swimming pool"




section of the track.The view from the balcony was stunning as the panorama images below show.

The racing was fantastic, comprising of around 10 races of 10-15 lap duration featuring basically all of the old Formula 1 cars from 1937 to 2003 including the 6 wheel Tyrells from the mid 70s aswell as Schumachers Championship Winning Ferrari from 2003. You must go next time it's held in 2008, you'll love it. Just take some ear defenders.









This Saturday I'm going with Shorty to Newcastle to watch Ian Brown (ex Stone Roses frontman) play at the HiFi festival. On Sunday I'm off to the Liverpool FC Museum with my younger Bro, Simon and his son, Jake. I'm not sure what the girls (Sis in Law Emma and their daughter Sarah)are doing that day but clearly the sight of the recently aquired FA Cup and the FIVE European Cups on display, isn't exciting enough for them.... :-)

Speaking of footie, Simon and I went to Anfield on May Day Bank Holiday to watch Liverpool v Everton play in a rematch of the 1986 FA Cup Final (which Lpool won..again) The match featured all the players who played that day and was really good fun. The game was rather like watching MOTD in slow motion but it was particulary nice to see Kenny, Hansen, Lawro, Kennedy, McMahon, Rush, Beglin, Molby etc grace the hallowed turf again.

Things I've learnt this week
a. There are nicer views to look at in the World than the one I see before me now.
b. F1 cars are particularly noisy and are a bugger to photograph... Can't these guys drive a little s-l-o-w-e-r ?
c. Employers give exceedingly small pay rises whilst thanking you for your hard work and commitment. Actions speaking louder than words ???

Til we have another update.....