Sauntering Vaguely Downward

Our beloved and heavily used red DeLonghi kettle finally died on us last month after twelve years of intensive service. After much deliberation, we decided to replace it with the same brand and colour again. Although it's the same basic shape and colour scheme, there have been small tweaks to the design in the intervening time between kettle purchases. I would enumerate them, but I need a cuppa.

🤮

More seriously, I am Not Happy about the probable damage that is going to be done to the disadvantaged, the vulnerable, the foreign (hi!), the fabric of the social safety net, to name but a few things, if this is correct.

My five questions came from manue7a.

1. What does Humuhumu mean?
   It’s short for “humuhumunukunukuapua’a, which is the name of the Hawai’ian state fish. It’s a trigger fish. It is very beautiful but also quite aggressive. When I was a child, my dad and I managed to catch one when we were idly fishing at the beach, and we brought it home to put in our aquarium. Eventually we worked out that it was the reason our other, smaller fish were disappearing (duh), so we took it back and released it.
   
   And now it’s my daughter’s online pseudonym. I hadn’t remembered that story when I chose the pseudonym.
   
   
2. Where are your parents from?
   New Jersey and Manila.
   
   
3. In which European country would you like to live, if any?
   Well, I live in the UK and have become a naturalised Brit. Despite the total idiocy that is Brexit, I still rather like it here. I will contemplate moving if, and only if, things get so terrible that I am actively persecuted as a non-native citizen, and if that persecution extends to my children. I speak sufficient Spanish to get by there, and I do love Spain. I’d probably find it difficult in other non-English-speaking countries as a facility with languages is not, regrettably, amongst my talents. I would put the effort in if it was needed, though.
   
   
4. Do you have a favorite painting?
   Huh, interesting. On reflection, no, I don’t. Magritte was my favourite artist for quite a long time.
   
   
5. What music did you listen to as a teen?
   My favourite bands were The Cure, Nine Inch Nails and...Metallica.

Comment below with, e.g. “Yes please”, and I will ask you five questions.

[Warning: contains swearing]

For context: Today's news features a story about the UK's Home Office threatening to deport a generation of Commonwealth citizens who came to the UK decades ago and were never issued with what is now required paperwork. The UK government is now making out that it is all a terrible mistake, cannot possibly be their fault, rather than a direct result of the increasingly hostile immigration policies it has been introducing for the last eight years or so. I am particularly incensed by Theresa May's "apologies", because the rules being used for the deportation orders were implemented by her when she was Home Secretary. These policies are not just hostile toward illegal immigrants. They are hostile toward all immigrants.

I say this as someone with direct experience of those policies. I came to the UK in 2004 on a domestic partner visa which cost about £300. I became a citizen in 2013. Indefinite Leave to Remain, the immigration exam and the citizenship fee cost me £2200. But it was not just the financial cost of legal immigration that ballooned during those ten years. When I first arrived - in London, which admittedly gives one a warped perspective on how much of a melting pot the rest of the country is (top tip: most of it isn't) - I experienced a good deal of stress. Most of the stress was cultural. I learned to navigate social cues, try to make friends, figure out the bus routes, cook with different ingredients, speak in the correct vocabulary, smooth out my accent, apologise constantly, etc. The cultural stress diminished as time went on. However, there was an element of stress that got worse the longer I stayed, and that was a direct result of the increasingly bureacratic, rigid, and expensive visa renewal process.

It took four weeks to switch from the domestic partner visa to my first Tier 2 (employer-linked) visa. I swopped to an HSMP (the now-defunct Highly Skilled Migrant Programme) visa as soon as I could, and from there to a Tier 1 visa (now inaccessible unless you're a millionaire or City banker) because it gave the holder the flexibility to work for any employer.

By the time I applied for Indefinite Leave to Remain, the waiting time for a visa renewal or switch was a minimum of six months. Perhaps that doesn't sound too bad if you've never been through the process. Let me tell you why it is that bad.

You cannot apply for a visa renewal until you're within six months of the expiry date of your current visa. The chances are, therefore, that your visa will expire whilst you're waiting for the renewal. You are, magnanimously, allowed to continue working at your current job while you wait for your expired visa to be renewed, and you'd better pray you don't lose your job during that period because you can't apply for a new job until the renewal comes through. Even if you are not particularly at risk of losing your job, allow me to assure you, it is deeply fucking stressful to go to work every day knowing that you are entirely at the mercy of your employer in order to remain legally in the country.

The Home Office has your passport. For six months. Obviously you cannot leave the country during that period. You can't travel for work. (This was a pain in the butt for me more than once at my job). If, heaven forbid, one of your non-UK-based relatives has the audacity to become ill or die while you're waiting for your visa renewal, you cannot go to them. Or rather, you can, but you have to somehow get the Home Office to answer a plea to return your passport. When they do, this will invalidate your renewal application. You will have to start over. Now imagine a scenario in which you are five months into the six-month wait. Your visa is about to expire. You have to arrange and attend a funeral for one of your parents. Then you have to return to the UK, hope that you'll be allowed back in, return to work, and resubmit your 150-page visa renewal application. And wait another six months, five of which will be spent working on an expired visa. Oh, also, one of your parents has just died. That doesn't sound stressful at all, does it.

This is all deliberate. The visa application system has been crafted to be convoluted and unwelcoming. The Home Office has been under-resourced to deal with the volume of paperwork it requires immigrants to generate. If you do manage to navigate the bureaucracy, to fill out the right forms and afford the fees and complete the path to settlement or citizenship, the experience leaves you permanently scarred. The feeling that you are second-class, that because your citizenship was earned rather than inherited, it is somehow still precarious and worth less than a native-born person, will never leave you. Not even when your children are born UK citizens. I know because I live this daily.

The bloke’s parents with their heart-shaped homemade cake. The chalkboard next to them colourfully reads: “Welcome to Lodge 106. Happy 50th Wedding Anniversary! Have an excellent holiday. 😊”

A couple of weekends ago, we went to a Center Parcs with the bloke’s family to celebrate his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Each family stayed in separate lodges, and we joined together for lunches, activities, tea and evening meals.

Going to a big resort-type thing in a forest in the school holidays seems to be a rite of passage for English children. Everyone else in the family (actually being English) had this innate understanding of how things were going to work and what was going to happen. I, on the other hand, was completely in the dark. I didn’t know that the “swimming pool” was going to be a massive indoor waterslide park with separate areas for children of all ages, for instance. Or that bringing our bicycles was not just so we could get some exercise, but so we could pop out to the shop for some milk for five minutes rather than have to walk for half an hour. The place was gigantic and – it being the start of the summer holidays – completely full.

The wildlife, being accustomed to the presence of humans, was very nearly tame. If you left the sliding door to the patio open, the ducks would waddle confidently inside in search of whatever food you had foolishly left out. The squirrels would take nuts from your hands. The muntjac deer would walk up to the patio door and stare in, and not run away until the toddler came outside and tried to pet it.

We had a truly typical British summer holiday experience in that it rained nearly the entire time, so we spent a good amount of time in the water park. Humuhumu was, at first, slightly afraid of the water slides. Subsequent to our first trip to the water park, we bought her some goggles and that flipped the switch. We couldn’t get her off the water slides after that. She went round them so many times that when we went to the changing room to get back into our clothes, she could barely stand, she was so exhausted. I only got the chance to try the water slides once for about ten minutes (during which Keiki apparently screamed for me the entire time), so I went for the biggest one (twice): the Cyclone, which you went down on a rubber raft in a group. I got to go with my niece and her mum, aka the bloke’s sister. I shrieked like a banshee the whole way down. It was fantastic.

Despite the filthy weather, we managed to sneak in some outdoor activities. We played boules. We climbed around the adventure playgrounds. I took Keiki to the pond, where the nearly tame baby moorhens nibbled at his wellies, to his boundless delight. We also found a peacock, with whom Keiki had a half-hour conversation. I turned my back on him briefly and when I looked at him, he had moved close enough to the peacock to stroke its tail feathers. The peacock held itself very still, almost as if it didn’t want to frighten him, when really it should have been the other way round.

The wedding anniversary celebration came off very well indeed. There was a huge, heart-shaped and delicious sponge cake, baked by the bloke’s sister, and a “cheese cake”, which was a mountain of stacked cheeses. The bottom layer, an enormous squishy brie, had to be served separately because it would have collapsed under the weight of the wheel of harder cheese above it. This was not a problem because we devoured it over the course of two days. Most importantly, the bloke’s parents had a wonderful time being surrounded by, but not in the pockets of, their children and grandchildren.

Further photos below the cut, including a series titled “Keiki Points at Things”.

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In case you’re wondering why there aren’t so many photos of Humuhumu, this is because (1) she wanted to go to the water park pretty much every waking moment, (2) you couldn’t take photos in the water park and (3) Keiki did not want to go to the water park more than once a day, so someone had to stay with him.