The process of getting this women to England has taken almost 6 months of bureaucracy, corruption and barriers to overcome, but eventually she got her visa and caught her flight to Heathrow airport, which is a 5 hour drive for me,,, I was a little afraid tha she might not be on it especially as the flight was 3 and a half hours late.

But when she walked out from security with 7 large bags of luggage and saw me she left the trolley and rushed over to me and gave me a big hug,,,,, that was an amazing moment.

My faith in her was unwavering despite negativity from people.

I took her and the children back to my place and we have lived together since, the children are very well behaved, they are now in school and love it, and the school are very pleased with them.

Those of you who know me will know of my past history and it will probably come as no surprise that we got engaged, she is everything that I could have wished for, and more , I am really happy and having a family in the house feels so different, its now like a home, instead of a box.

Now moving on and catching up with time we set a date to get married and that was the 23 of March so tomorrow I will have been married all of 2 weeks,,, with no regrets at all, despite the age difference we both know what we want and life is too short to mess around.

This is our chance to share happiness.

Nigeria is a very corrupt and dangerous country and just to give you a little flavor,,,,,, she had to go to Lagos the capitol 6 times on public transport, which is a 3 hour journey each way and wait hours for her turn to be seen by the visa people, leaving home at 4 in the morning and not getting back until late at night,,, the things she had to endure to be able to get here is horrible,,, twice being "touched" by men on the bus,,,, 3 times having the bus stopped by bandits who shot 6 people and took 5 hostage,,,, having bullets' hit the bus and missing her by Inches,,, this is what they live with every day,,,, God protected her, as she follows her lord and she prayed for protection,,, just imagine her fear, on 2 of these occasions she had the children with her.

Now we are married life is great, I love the children and they are no bother, I have a family

We had a very simple marriage with just the 2 of us and 2 witnesses, it was a beautiful occasion with lovely weather

She looked gorgeous as you would expect,

I will send some photos

If you have any questions,,, fire away,,, you can ask anything if you are curious,

So for now I will enjoy married life and will keep you updated

Congratulations Badger! I wish you and your new bride a lifetime of happiness. I know people hear Nigeria and automatically think scam, but you are intelligent and I’m glad you have helped this woman and her children escape such a corrupt country.

BTW, my daughter just got married on the 23rd also! Same thing, just the two of them and a witness from the courthouse!

Badger…never a dull moment with you…😉😘 honestly, they could make a movie out of your life! I am astounded at the drama, but also applauding your tenacity and determination to get what you wanted. The story with the bank is absolutely appalling, and I’d be switching financial institutions, although I don’t know how much difference it would make. i’m surprised they have the ability to do that. Anyway, that’s in the past!

I’m very happy for everyone in the story…yourself and your new wife and adopted children. It’s a win-win win for sure. 🥳🥳🌷🥂I don’t think you mentioned how old the children are in your story… And yes, please do post photo someplace. You may not want to do them on here? Or you can do them, and then delete them.

Now how did that happen, doubled up on the photos

Anyway thanks for the lovely comments

The girl is 10 and the boy is 5 and I am so proud of them already and they are already calling me "daddy" we have bonded Very well, I'm so lucky

Congratulations and best wishes to you and your new family Badger.

G

Congrats Badger & best wishes. One thought came to mind...Is the visa a limit?

Badger, what a beautiful family you have! Everyone looks so happy together. I follow along here mostly just reading and am amazed also of your life and I believe you just added the icing to your cake, lol. O imagine your wife and daughters are as happy to have you in their lives as you are them. Best wishes for more than many years to come! Thank you for sharing with us a most hopeful and happy life story.

Look what the fairy's bought me last night

Thanks for the photographs badger! Beautiful family that you now have! I’m sure that everyone feels blessed. And you’ve definitely rescued them from what sounds like a hellish situation. I confess I’ve not been tuned in to what’s going on in that country. That’s a gorgeous dress that the bride is wearing! My hats off to you for your determination and persistence. You deserve every bit of joy going forward.

Happy, i’m pretty sure that being married there is no issue with the visa but I’m sure they had to jump through a lot of hoops initially.

Well, badger, you never disappoint! What a tale. I am happy for you and your new family, and send you all best wishes for the future.

Beautiful family Badger!

Well I did say I would answer any questions, so here goes

Visa

well carrying on from her arriving, we had applied for a place in a university for her to get her Masters in international leadership and mass media, as she used to be on the radio as a presenter when she was in Nigeria.

So we paid £3,500 for her deposit, then the next payment was due at Easter, but between her receiving her visa and starting the course on the 2nd of January, the price of the course and the payment schedule changed so that we were unable to pay, they wanted to bill her the day she started, another £4,000, we could not pay it so we deferred the course until September, but she is on a Student visa and it only lasts a year, so we have now got to go through another procedure to change it to a spouse visa at a cost of £2,300 for us and £1,600 for each child. but we have no alternative as the university will send back to the home office that she is in breech of her visa by not doing the course, so we have only 60 days to get it sorted or they will send her back, but we have been told that they have a backlog of 6 months for a change of Visa, its shameful of our government to put us under this pressure, plus of course all the money we have payed out so far will be lost as they won't return any of it

There is nothing but barriers put in your way, if you make a mistake on one of the forms it will be rejected and you cannot apply again,,, people tell us to get a immigration solicitor, the cheapest I have found wants a deposit of £3,500 and warned it could be much more in the end.

Now we have discovered another route, as she is working in a care home at the moment to earn some money, and of course she is restricted to 20 hours a week, her employer can register as a sponsor as care workers are in great demand as not many people want to do the job, so we offered to pay the employer to get registered at £500 and then she can get a license to stay until we are able to get the spouse Visa., that will last for 2 and a half years at which point she will need to renew it to take her to 5 years when she can apply for residency, but of course there is no guarantee that she will get it, its all down to the home office.

I wonder if Canada is more approachable, ?????????????????

Worse than Kafka. What a nightmare. I figured once you were married, it would be a piece of cake. No pun intended. They certainly don’t make it easy do they? And the money involved…😖 ouch. It seems given the backlog that the best thing to do is to try to buy time. Getting into Canada depends a bit on your nationality. If you’re from a country Canada is taking refugees, I think it’s pretty easy but otherwise not so. You could try talking to your local government representative sometimes they have advice.

Thanks Badger for explaining that I thought there was some other something with the state and good luck and that's too bad that they can't at that money to the other thing in 6 months with that changing I have a doctor from India and he's on a Visa and he has a text number so he can receive payments he's a very good doctor I really like him and he's kind

My congratulations to you and your beautiful new family, badger, and my hope is for you both to get the government hurdles crossed so you can continue on your life's way with no more worries. Maybe you will have to do as your 'Houzz' name evokes: badger.

verb [withobject] repeatedly ask (someone) to do something; pester: Tom had finally badgered her into going | journalists badgered him about the deals | [with object and infinitive] : his daughter was always badgering him to let her join.

You seem like a very astute online friend so we know you will do all within your ability to have things work out for your new family. I feel comfortable saying that I speak for all of us here in wishing you the very best future for years to come.

Congratulations badger! May the best life yet to come!🥳

Welcome to Spring y’all!😎

Very beautiful flowers GLS

Happy spring… Life is definitely not a bed of roses here in Nova Scotia. A cold blustery wind today hovering right around the zero mark. 🥶

A fun surprise, Badger. Best to you all. We have a new romance here, a couple in their 90s who go about everywhere holding hands and beaming with happiness. Such a joy to see them.

Hello, everyone. Where on earth did two months go? We had a lovely Mothers' day brunch recently, prime rib and cheesecake, lovely roses for everyone. Fathers' day brunch is scheduled for this week and a "longest day" picnic is planned. 70's predicted. I am fine, keeping busy.

Julky 4th picnic here, beautiful day in the 70s. Greilled hamburgers, potato salad, beans and cheesecake for desert. What a nice day.

I’ve been thinking about you recently, just yesterday as a matter of fact! Wondering how you were doing and assuming that your active social life is keeping you from posting… But I was concerned that posts were not showing up as my Houzz Info seems to be somewhat flaky. So…👋Nice to hear from you!

…

The excitement in this neck of the words mostly involves the sun actually deciding to shine… L O L

…

My garden has been singularly lacklustre this year for various reasons, including the overcast weather but the clematis has decided to go to town. And here is the Mooz… taking full advantage of my new chair.🤦‍♀️

Such a Mooz, lol. Clematis is beautiful! I planted some at our back fence but nothing. Not having much luck with what i planted last year, but maybe i’ll get a surprise one day!

Hm. You also planted some glads that didn’t do very well also. Is that the same location? Might need to look at some soil amendment. Like something to aerate soil if you’ve got a lot of clay.

They were different areas, of course to make things even more difficult. My soil may be compacted, but one area i planted 30 gladiolas was new foot deep compost. The other areas are old. We have many worms which is a good thing. I certainly meant to get out and dig up a few to get a peek but got lazy in this heat. We worried about grubs from last year but treated some areas for them and saw hardly any June bugs, so hopefully they have been dealt with this year. Grass is growing lush and two gardenia bushes i started from cuttings are really taking off in their slow way. Mainly fed Felix like four times, cleaned, cooked and online shopped :) i’ll get my basil plants tomorrow from my daughter and set them near the food bowls and see if the flies stay away for the most part. When I feed Felix, I hover and fan, lol. He’s still eating and meowing, has become very lovable and moves fast, that’s good. When I go to pile his food in the bowl he pushes my hand out of the way, like “get out of my way!” lol, daughter is going to give me some cat probiotics for him. Cannot hurt.

Annual picnic here, in a park with beautiful old oak trees. I mt some new people and enjoyed the fine weather. We have been having perfect weather for weeks, mid to high 70s, a few mid 80s, but real hot temps predicted for next week.Fortunately I don't need to go out as I am not tolerant of 95 plus degrees. Someone planted sunflowers in one of the bit planters in the courtyared outside my window and they have produced lots of cheerful flowers. The day lilies have done well this year too.

Hi Blee! Glad you are having wonderful weather! It is VERY hot down here on the Gulf coast the past 6 weeks. I am amazed that the tourists can tolerate the heat at the beach.

Meanwhile, here, in the Canadian Maritimes, it feels like fall! I actually had a fire on in the woodstove last night to take off some of the chill and damp. The flower gardens are slowly passing through daylily season, and will be moving on to the fall flowers soon. Golden rod is blooming in the ditches and that’s a sure sign of the transforming season. I can’t Believe summer is done. there will still be some hot days. I am sure. these photos are from the professional daylily gardens up the road.

Someone thought we were going to have a longer summer but this morning I heard locusts for the first time I never heard them like other years in July one year I heard him in June so I think we're going to have Frost either the first week or two in September but it could take as long as the Indus September somewhere around there though it's usually 6 or 8 weeks

I noticed them yesterday at the post office Happy! And ooooh…fall must be on the way after al! Except the forecast for next week is 98* all week!🥵

Yes we're going to have a longer winter and more snow Farmers add a knack said that

Lol Happy, I love your phone almost as much as you! Lol 💗

LOL autocorrect

I wonder how Badger is doing.

Our perfect weather gave way to three 100 plus days, 105 on one of them. Not nice! Thank goodness I didn't need to go out.. 78 degree day tomorrow for my doctor appointment. A special quarterly brunch yesterday, I especially enjoyed a fresh fruit salad and a variety of baked goods, We have fresh fruit every day; the melons have beern good. I also have two friends who have tomato plants that are priducing an amazing quantity of

fresh tomatos.

Stryker… I have been wondering the same thing! Pretty silent in that part of the world. Hopefully he checks in and update us soon!

BLee, I hope the hurricane is not impacting your part of the world. I’ve been following it on the news here and of course Nova Scotia is just entering it’s hurricane season. Look at this wonderful photograph of a bright red truck… Circa 1948. We have a local museum site here called Heritage Village or memory lane that goes back to the 40s. I’m not quite old enough to remember those years since I was born in the late 40s.

Wonderful truck. The sunflowers are done; heavy rain, but there are still day lilies booming despite mostly rainy weather. Today is especially nice. Rain in the morning, but now a wintery blue sky and puffy white clouds. Happy pumpkin day; the staff has carved some; we are to pick our favorite one, a prize to the carver. A party tonight afer dinner should be fun. Some residents have creative costumes. My all purpose costume is boots, poncho, gaucho style hat.

That sounds like a wonderful evening Blee! Our neighbor’s daughter is visiting here on the Orange Beach coast from Lawrence, Kansas. Last night she made us Banana Foster for a special treat. It was delicious! Sunny any 80 here still.😎

Still really warm here as well. Today it was hot enough I was out there in a sleeveless shirt. Ran into some friends when I was stocking up my jewellery display at the local market and they bought me lunch! We sat outside on their patio and socialized. In the sun. Amazing for the end of October. Your Halloween sounds lovely. I won’t be doing anything except handing out potato chips and eating too many of them…🤦‍♀️