I had the joy of receiving my permanent residence card today, a key milestone on a journey that began at the back end of 2008 with my decision to head back to grad school in Newcastle. At the time, staying back in the United Kingdom, and becoming British were not necessarily on the agenda, it was meant to be a gap year away from what had been a difficult year at work.
Grad school done, I moved up to the ‘Deen for work, staying even though there were opportunities to leave, most notably to Azerbaijan in 2012. All told, I’ve stayed which is how I eventually qualified for this.
There was the small matter of the life in the UK test to navigate before this could become a reality, Work and work pressures meaning I was reading about the battle of hastings and what king did what into the early hours of the morning of my test. That the test administrator in the centre I wrote my test at in Dundee could have been Miss Maple, or any other similarly austere English governess did little to ease my concerns on the morning but thankfully that went without a hitch.
Further issues with getting the requisite paper work from work surfaced but in the end, here we are, card in hand. From here on, it is largely a question of staying in the UK for a further year and then qualifying for a British passport. Brexit may have put a little bit of a downer on the advantages of having one but given the time that has passed so far, there is still a lot of value in obtaining one.
On then to the future I guess. Thankful.