New country to visit, but...

I should be excited - I have a new country to visit in September. It's a secret as the person I'm taking doesn't know the itinerary yet, so I won't reveal it here. It's somewhere I've always wanted to go, and the trip should be great; planes, trains, all sorts. The trip is for two weeks, it's going to be the first real break I've had since completing the Rickshaw Run in January.

However, I'm currently without my passport. I sent it off to the UK Border Agency nearly four weeks ago. Ack! I need it back, I've already had to cancel a weekend trip to Norway a couple of weeks ago. It's with them to get my settlement visa (now that's been a long time coming), I never expected to have to send the passport away, I had thought I could walk into their Glasgow office and walk back out again, but alas no.

They say that 70% of the applications are back within 20 working days - today is 17 working days. I'm supposed to fly out after 34 working days - halfway there. Will it be back? Who knows?!

The other thing I'm trying not to think about, is that when my passport comes back I might not even be granted the visa. That's a prospect too scary to even begin to imagine...