Passport office - a much improved system

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 under

Z201 - Holidays and Business Trips
  [3381] Report - day trip from Swindon / Chippenham / Melksham to Weymouth - (2011-08-07)
  [3372] Wearing the new London uniform - (2011-07-28)
  [3346] Gibraltar - said to have a few residents less than Chippenham - (2011-07-05)
  [3345] Cruising - (2011-07-04)
  [3321] Travelling around - (2011-06-09)
  [3306] Photogenic Place - (2011-05-28)
  [3303] Flying tonight - (2011-05-26)
  [3300] Wildlife and other pictures from holiday - (2011-05-24)
  [2803] Travelling across Europe - (2010-06-12)
  [2797] Sur la T.G.V. - (2010-06-07)
  [2796] Sunday - waiting for the ferry. - (2010-06-06)
  [2759] Touching base - (2010-05-10)
  [2469] Beyond the Pale - (2009-10-22)
  [2313] Seeing Guadalajara - a first glimpse downtown - (2009-08-01)
  [2306] Melksham to Mexico for the week - (2009-07-27)
  [2269] Sipping at York - (2009-07-05)
  [2265] A chance to do the tourist thing - (2009-07-01)
  [2208] A beautiful coastline - (2009-05-30)
  [2200] England, Scotland, Northern Ireland - (2009-05-26)
  [2198] On the road, at a Service area thats a cut above the others - (2009-05-25)
  [2101] A B C D of GA and TN - (2009-03-23)
  [2100] Visiting Family - (2009-03-23)
  [2098] A room without a view - (2009-03-22)
  [2090] Melksham to Georgia - (2009-03-19)
  [2030] The final step to being British - (2009-02-07)
  [1992] A good time to travel - (2009-01-14)
  [1868] Liverpool - a friendly city - (2008-11-03)
  [1746] London for the visitor, for free - (2008-08-09)
  [1740] Vertical London - (2008-08-06)
  [1657] Farewell, Newcastle to Stavanger, Haugsund and Bergen - (2008-05-29)
  [1457] A day in Ljubljana - (2007-12-04)
  [1454] From Sunday to Monday, from Melksham to the Balkans - (2007-12-03)
  [1308] Good to be home - (2007-08-18)
  [1299] In the USA for a few days - (2007-08-11)
  [1293] Weymouth - Sunny Summer Sunday afternoon - (2007-08-07)
  [1291] Day trip to Weymouth - (2007-08-05)
  [1231] Sur le Continent - (2007-06-13)
  [1150] Helsinki - what comes naturally - (2007-04-15)
  [1143] A course in Helsinki - (2007-04-11)
  [1120] 1200 miles in 3 days - (2007-03-28)
  [1025] Tomorrow's keywords - London, Training, Course, PHP, Ruby. - (2007-01-08)
  [1004] Old dog, old tricks - (2006-12-22)
  [878] Easy criteria to meet - (2006-09-25)
  [684] Staying in the country - (2006-04-13)
  [620] Familiar names, close to home - (2006-02-23)
  [548] San Francisco - (2005-12-30)
  [420] Towards Tebay - (2005-08-20)
  [374] Instant availability - (2005-07-11)
  [373] Vik, Iceland to Melksham, England - (2005-07-10)
  [370] From Iceland - (2005-07-06)
  [368] Vacation Week - (2005-07-04)
  [81] Cafe keyboards - (2004-10-10)
  [65] Ireland - (2004-09-27)

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Some other Articles

Javascript events - a good example
Proof needed? Please just use common sense!
Three life changing comments
New Road
Passport office - a much improved system
An occasional chance, and reducing data to manageable levels
Open source questions? Anyone can ask.
MySQL - an FAQ
Crazy Day-sies
MySQL - JOIN or WHERE to link tables correctly?

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