We weren’t expecting to get away on holiday this year but last week we were offered an amazing opportunity for a last-minute holiday with one snag – Greer doesn’t yet have a passport. Frantic phonecalls to the Identity and Passport Service got me an appointment yesterday for a fast track one week passport. The only criteria? Greer’s application had to be completed and countersigned before we got there. Is it just me or is it frankly RIDICULOUS that a baby has to have her own passport? Total money-making scheme on the part of the Government, there.
It just so happened that I had completed Greer’s online application a few months ago when we were still planning to go away so I had the forms. A wealth of friends stepped forward and volunteered to countersign the application for us. All that was needed was the photograph and being of the stingy and penny-conscious variety, we decided we could do it ourselves. We borrowed a cream-coloured bedsheet from Hot Neighbour, got Greer dressed and took a BEAUTIFUL photo.
Bob resized it on his computer so that when it printed, it would print at the perfect size and all would be good in the world. Then we hit our first snag. The photo needed to be printed at a professional printer, I had developed a phenomenal case of Labyrinthitis thus couldn’t drive, Bob hasn’t passed his test, it was Sunday and we live in Outer Mongolia as far as buses are concerned BUT luckily Greer’s Godmother Kat was popping over to see us and kindly ran Bob up to the shop. Using the Boots print-your-own service, Bob printed off the photo and we were cooking with gas. Something ridiculous like 39p and we’d saved a fortune…
…except the photos didn’t print off at the right size and by the time Bob got home and fixed it, Boots was closed for the evening so we had to resort to the photobooth effort. The first shots didn’t come out because Greer was looking at the floor so ANOTHER FOUR QUID to get a decent shot. I can totally understand how these photobooths bring in a profit!
Luckily the new photograph was just as nice (although Bob had neglected to remove Greer’s bib but I can forgive that now that I’ve got over the wrong-size-photo incident!) and she looked so beautiful that even the passport office dude commented on it and he must see hundreds of babies every week [/smug mummy alert] so I just have to sit on my hands now and HOPE that the blooming thing arrives soon.
Still. It is a really cute photograph to tuck into my purse.
Posted under family
This post was written by Vonnie on June 8, 2010
Wow what a pretty passport photo. I agree with the passport man, I’ve never seen such a pretty passport pic, ours are always hurried and stressed affairs!
She is so cute you could eat her up. I won’t though! Is it just me, or does she look super grown up in the pictures?!
Awwww! She looks so so cute! Hope that passport comes through soon.
Very cute picture – we used Paspic online so easy so to bring this news to you too late but here’s the post and the links
http://www.cheshiremum.co.uk/2010/03/holidays/ Hope it arrives on time and you have a great time! Cx
That is such a gorgeous photo Vonnie.
It wouldn’t meet Irish passport regs any more! But it is a very beautiful passport pic.
That’s very cute! Although would probably get rejected here too *sigh* I just about went stark raving mad trying to get Alastair’s passport photo done before we came to the UK in ’08. We tried for a month before getting one that met requirements, and that cut it so fine that I ended up having to pay for expedited processing on all four passports! (Yep, I didn’t have a passport until then – had only travelled overseas as a child, on my parents’ ones before children had to have their own.)
she is such a gorgeous little thing…
H has US and UK passports so we know the drill of forking over alot of money… and to get the US one renewed last year meant we had to go to the US Embassy in London.. which meant petrol money, train money, tube fare, plus dinner, hotel and breakfast… we made a mini trip out of it but it was still a huge hassel.
That’s a gorgeous photo!
I had to get Andrew’s first one when he was 4 months old so we could go to Paris. I ended up holding him up in the photo booth and he looked like Jabba the Hut.