I'll admit it - I had put off the renewal of my passport for too long as Christmas seemed a long way ahead but the adverts have started to appear on the TV, the first snow of the winter appear on the roads, and Wessex Trains have emailed me about three "Santa Specials". Yikes - I had better get my passport renewed.
A deep breath, a form grabbed from the Post Office, and a trip to Newport scheduled for today. Then a cry of horror as I filled the form in yesterday and read that it's now done
by appointment only. Oops, but a call on Sunday afternoon got me an 08:30 appointment for today (Monday).
I had been to the Passport Office once before to sort out an issue of needing a second passport and I recalled a hot and steamy room full of people waiting (I've done the same thing at Croydon too, but that's another story). But I was very VERY pleasantly surprised.
The passport folks have sorted out what used to be a nightmare system and it's now quick and easy. Indeed, I was admitted a few minutes before my appointment, given a number, and helpfully directed to the photo booth that I needed to use. My number was called WHILE I WAS STILL TAKING MY PICTURE and the security guard helpfully offered to walk my pictures over when their 55 seconds processing was up. I was out of the place by 08:35, to return in 4 hours (but it should be available in 3!) to collect. A morning spent Christmas shopping, then!
And so, by Midday we were away, by 1 collecting a repaired computer in Bristol ... oh - didn't I say that we try to combine our trips. There was a third thing too, but that's another post.
(written 2005-12-05, updated 2006-06-09)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
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[81] Caf[83][c2]á keyboards - (2004-10-10)
[368] Vacation Week - (2005-07-04)
[370] From Iceland - (2005-07-06)
[373] Vik, Iceland to Melksham, England - (2005-07-10)
[374] Instant availability - (2005-07-11)
[420] Towards Tebay - (2005-08-20)
[548] San Francisco - (2005-12-30)
[620] Familiar names, close to home - (2006-02-23)
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[1004] Old dog, old tricks - (2006-12-22)
[1025] Tomorrow's keywords - London, Training, Course, PHP, Ruby. - (2007-01-08)
[1120] 1200 miles in 3 days - (2007-03-28)
[1143] A course in Helsinki - (2007-04-11)
[1150] Helsinki - what comes naturally - (2007-04-15)
[1231] Sur le Continent - (2007-06-13)
[1291] Day trip to Weymouth - (2007-08-05)
[1293] Weymouth - Sunny Summer Sunday afternoon - (2007-08-07)
[1299] In the USA for a few days - (2007-08-11)
[1308] Good to be home - (2007-08-18)
[1454] From Sunday to Monday, from Melksham to the Balkans - (2007-12-03)
[1457] A day in Ljubljana - (2007-12-04)
[1657] Farewell, Newcastle to Stavanger, Haugsund and Bergen - (2008-05-29)
[1740] Vertical London - (2008-08-06)
[1746] London for the visitor, for free - (2008-08-09)
[1868] Liverpool - a friendly city - (2008-11-03)
[1992] A good time to travel - (2009-01-14)
[2030] The final step to being British - (2009-02-07)
[2090] Melksham to Georgia - (2009-03-19)
[2098] A room without a view - (2009-03-22)
[2100] Visiting Family - (2009-03-23)
[2101] A B C D of GA and TN - (2009-03-23)
[2198] On the road, at a Service area thats a cut above the others - (2009-05-25)
[2200] England, Scotland, Northern Ireland - (2009-05-26)
[2208] A beautiful coastline - (2009-05-30)
[2265] A chance to do the tourist thing - (2009-07-01)
[2269] Sipping at York - (2009-07-05)
[2306] Melksham to Mexico for the week - (2009-07-27)
[2313] Seeing Guadalajara - a first glimpse downtown - (2009-08-01)
[2469] Beyond the Pale - (2009-10-22)
[2759] Touching base - (2010-05-10)
[2796] Sunday - waiting for the ferry. - (2010-06-06)
[2797] Sur la T.G.V. - (2010-06-07)
[2803] Travelling across Europe - (2010-06-12)
[3300] Wildlife and other pictures from holiday - (2011-05-24)
[3303] Flying tonight - (2011-05-26)
[3306] Photogenic Place - (2011-05-28)
[3321] Travelling around - (2011-06-09)
[3345] Cruising - (2011-07-04)
[3346] Gibraltar - said to have a few residents less than Chippenham - (2011-07-05)
[3372] Wearing the new London uniform - (2011-07-28)
[3381] Report - day trip from Swindon / Chippenham / Melksham to Weymouth - (2011-08-07)
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[3737] Postcards from Barmouth - (2012-05-20)
[3742] Dysenni Valley, and nearby - (2012-05-24)
[3853] Blanford Forum, Dorset - (2012-09-01)
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[4215] Great beauty, but great natural danger - (2013-11-26)
[4249] An evening in Glasgow - (2014-03-19)
[4433] Different views of a Welsh Valley - but headed home - (2015-02-20)
[4471] Leopardstown to Rosslare by train - (2015-04-23)
[4472] Rosslare to Fishguard - foot passenger on the ferry - (2015-04-24)
[4473] Fishguard to Melksham - third part of Dublin journey - (2015-04-25)
[4478] Home in Melksham to Gatwick Airport - easy by public transport - (2015-04-29)
[4513] Yesterday, Weymouth - (2015-08-02)
[4643] From last July (2015) - (2016-02-08)
[4728] Visiting Los Alamitos Bay Yacht Club - (2016-11-23)
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