Yesterday was a bit of a mess. Thursday was alright, but Friday was a little bit chaotic.

Thursday evening was the annual careers convention at OSH, my old school. I get an invite every year to be the representative for web and graphic design, and being a good chance to spread the word, see the staff and other faces again, I try to attend. Unfortunately I decided to walk, and by the time I had arrived I was drenched from head to toe. It took me most of the evening to dry down, but giving out some guidance and getting a chance to speak to a few people I hadn’t seen in a while made it all ok. Definitely thanks required for Ian who fetched me a plate of stealth buffet. Good man.

When I got back home I decided that I was going to bite the visa bullet and just knock it on the head the next morning. I knew this meant an early start, and that it was likely to be a fairly interesting experience. Not wanting to pay £30 for somebody else to do it, or risking a postal application following some nightmare stories and reading the rather foreboding terms and conditions on the application forms, I arrived at the Consulate in the Jewellery Quarter at 7.20am and joined the queue which was already 50 people long.

I had bought a paper thinking this would be the best way to pass the time, but I ended up spending most of the two hours until opening time chatting to the girl next to me in the queue, which ultimately was very worthwhile as she shared her camping chair with me while everyone had to stand. Thankfully the rain held off. Whilst I only live half an hour from the Consulate, Paula (the girl with the chair) had travelled from Liverpool and like me, had made one previous failed attempt earlier in the week. We were both gritted and determined to not be back here again.

At 9.30am they finally opened the doors. I’m not sure how many people were in the queue now, but after the first 200 tickets were handed out, the rest of the queue were turned away. It was about 9.40am.

We had to wait for our numbers to be called, another hour, but finally we got to the counters handed over our stuff and we’re told to come back at 3pm to collect. At least, that’s what I thought was going to happen. Paula seemed to have no problem, but the guy behind the counter asked where I was from. I told him, and he told me I’d have to pick it up on Monday. I didn’t quite realise how angry I was about this until after we’d left for some food.

So Monday morning I’ll be back at the Indian Consulate picking up my passport and visa. Thankfully I won’t have to queue next time (well not for longer than 15 minutes) but it was only 11.30am and things weren’t going as well as I had hoped.

Things just got worse and after getting home and sorting out a list of things that needed sorting out, I finally sat down to do the day’s work at 2.30pm. Not ideal. Thankfully I was quite productive after this, and despite feeling totally knackered by 9pm, things were wrapped.

I woke up this morning to a few nice surprises. My new lens has arrived (Sigma 18-200mm ) and I’m really happy with it. The focal length is ideal for travelling as it saves carrying multiple lenses, and even if this type of lens isn’t so hot at the long end, it’s better than the limits of the standard lens kit I was using before. I also got two cheques in the post and a couple of other pieces of correspondence that I’ve been waiting on. Saturday is coming good.

As a sidenote, this site will be down for four hours tomorrow for unfortunate but essential server maintenance between 8am and 12 noon.