OK, so we have an enormous amount of catching up to do with the diary! A
lot has happened, and people have been complaining we haven't written
anything. Prepare yourselves for a long saga... to remind you of the
background, we're currently in Hull, England - having caught the train
up here for Kate's interview.
Cooked breakfast was absolutely enormous, very good.
We packed our bags to leave at the B&B, then Kate called Select
Education (the job agency she was registered with, from now I'll just
call it Select) to confirm her appointment with a lady called Michelle
at 11:15. It turned out Michelle was on holiday, and there was no record
of Kate's arrival or appointment in their diary system. Nobody else knew
anything about her.
We caught the bus in to town and went to the Select office to sort
everything out. They had to get Australia to send the documentation
again, but took a copy of Kate's police check (all important - there
have been a couple of school children murdered on a school excursion
recently over here - so they are being very careful about police checks)
and asked her to sort our bank and phone contact details, and let them
know. Everything else would have to wait until Wednesday (the day Kate
was supposed to start work) when Michelle would be back. Kate was told
she was unlikely to get work in York.
We went to a couple of banks, only to discover that since September 11th
(sound familiar yet) she couldn't get an account without an address
where she'd been living for 3 months and lots of proof of same. Gave up
on the banks.
At least getting a pre-paid mobile phone sim-card was easy enough. It's
+44 7986 621 389 if you want to send Kate SMSes, and will be turned on
until Sept 23rd.
We went back to Select and gave them the phone number, and also
suggested looking for work with their Leeds office, as Leeds is closer
to York than Hull. They gave Kate the phone number for the Leeds
office, but they couldn't do anything without the documentation from
Australia either.
We'd just missed a train to York, and the next one wasn't for ages. We
wound up catching a train to Selby (the place where the lines from Hull
split) hoping to get a quicker connection from there, but wound up
waiting just as long. There was a good take-away Indian place where Kate
collected food while I minded the bags. Selby stank of pigs. We were
glad to get going again!
Found the backpackers in York and crashed for a bit, then got up again
to phone Australia at 2am (yay for the time difference) to sort out what
was happening with the Select office in Sydney where Kate signed up.
I was on a top bunk, and the beds are far too short.
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