Hello everybody...
This is a tremendous website, which has in just a few short hours provided me with invaluable information for my intended move with my wife to Britain later this year. It has been great to read so many personal accounts from so many of the various stages of this long process!
I foresee myself doing much reading and posting here, so I would like to introduce myself.
I am a visual artist with an extraordinarily common name, so I go by the nom de plume of Jim Fat. I want to move to the UK because I believe there is more opportunity for me there as an artist, and a better chance for me to support a wife and (potential!) children while remaining true to the ambitions that made me an artist in the first place.
Through an extraordinarily lucky fluke, I am a dual national of the UK and the United States. Because my father, a US citizen since the late seventies who spent most of his childhood in Australia, thought he lost his UK citizenship when he served in the US Army, I never considered the possibility that I might be a British citizen by law.
It was only after visiting and falling in love with the place that I began to make serious inquiries into how on earth I could move to that lovely country -- and it was only then that I discovered my extreme good luck. It took three years after that to get everything together I needed to get a UK passport, but now that I've got one, nothing will stop me from moving there!
I have a wife now, a US citizen, whom I plan to bring with me. I plan to go ahead to Bristol (which we have very delicately picked to be our destination) in early September and begin the search for a job and a flat or something to satisfy my wife's visa requirements. Then, in November, while she is applying for her visa, I will fly back and then escort her and the two kitties to our new home. I am fairly sure I am on top of the PETS Scheme requirements, and all we lack for support of my wife's visa is an actual UK residence and UK income for me. My wife holds a BA in English and one in Spanish as well, and she has taught in Houston for five years, so I don't think we will have a problem proving her employability.
That's our story, and I'm very excited that it is finally in motion. The posts I have read have put me greatly at ease concerning the visa application for my wife. They have also given me a little trepidation about what I will encounter looking for work, shelter and -- gasp -- banking, but I think I have the enthusiasm to meet the challenges.
All that said, I'm looking forward to much time spent at this forum. I know I will have lots fo questions, and during the period while I'll be in England alone, I know I'll be lonely.
But what I'm really looking forward to is getting out of Houston, where it is 2:00 in the morning right now and it is still 90 degrees farhenheit outside!
