Families, stress and showing your appreciation.

The Wilsdon household is becoming an increasingly stressed place, and there are still nearly two weeks until Christmas!

The reason for this tension above and beyond what is normal for this time of year is that I need my parents help to collate the documents necessary to demonstrate that Rosey will not be a burden on the state, in order that she is granted a settlement visa. We have to demonstrate that Rosey and I will have a roof over our heads and if the worst comes to the worst, she will have some means of support to prevent her from starving.

My parents are very forthcoming with this help and they're both very experienced at dealing with bureaucracy. Hence we have compiled a dossier of documents detailing their permission for us to live here, confirmation that the house is big enough for four without overcrowding and enough financial details to demonstrate that none of us is in any danger of starving.

Since the visa application fee is around £800 with no refund if it's refused, we want to get it right first time.With Rosey and my ability to be together and move forward with our lives at stake, not to mention the money - there is a tendency to over-engineer and we certainly have been dotting every i and crossing every t, to the extent of fretting over the exact wording of our letters and statements, just in case the nice people at the UK Border Agency decide they don't like our use of the past perfect indicative and turn down Rosey's visa application on the advice of the grammar police. With so many different variables, some of them more critical than others, three family members working on them at a distance of 10,000 km from where the actual application will be made, tempers can get a little frayed at times.

Of course the stress of separation from my wife doesn't help my tolerance of difficult situations. I can only hope that I am making a good job of biting my tongue where necessary and that when the time comes, I am suitably demonstrative of my appreciation.