Well, I went to the Consulate in Kensington first thing this morning, and got my visa application in with remarkably little fuss. All that remains now is to return on the 9th of January to collect my visa (I didn't go for a fast-track as Language Link said not to bother - yes, their e-mail actually came). So remarkably successful then.

Just a couple of things worth recording. In the queue at the Consulate, waiting for the gates to open, I got talking to a very nice, newly-retired retired man, accompanied by his daughter. He is going to Russia (Moscow and St Petes) for a month 'for something to do', has never been before, and is looking forward to it immensely. It's not often I give my e-mail address to men in their fifties but I wouldn't be averse meeting up with him in Moscow. He grilled me with lots of questions - about the language, what to wear, what I was doing out there, the whole visa process. That sort of thing.

I asked him how far he had come - the Canaries, he said, via Wiltshire, where his daughter lives. It seemed he lives in the Canaries permanently but in order to apply for a visa, had to come all the way to London. A bit out of his way!

The second thing I want to mention is the new queueing system the Consulate has implemented some time since last year. If you can imagine, there are two entrances, gates with revolving doors, that lead into the grounds of the consulate, and these are locked until the building opens to the public at 9am. One gate is for visa applications and is clearly signed as such; the other, I assume, is for staff/tradesmen and things. So here I was in the front of the queue (third, actually, behind the retired man and his daughter), having arrived 40 minutes early. 9am rolls around, and the Consulate opens the gate - but not the one everyone is queuing at, the other one! So the people at the back of the queue get in first... hmmm. A British tradition effectively scuppered.

Ah yes, there was one other thing. When you apply for a visa, you must specify whether you want a same-day visa, one ready in 3-5 days, or a 'one-week visa'. Now what makes me laugh is that a one-week visa takes six working days... and the Consulate is only open four days a week! That's not a week to me. So that's why my one-week visa will be ready in 10 days time, not a week (also, the staff have the 1st, 2nd and 7th off as public holidays).

Tomorrow morning I'm off to the Consulate. Actually, I'm staying over at my brother's in north London tonight so it should make the journey a lot easier.

There is, unsurprisngly, still scope for things to go horribly wrong (besides me oversleeping). The original plan was for me to be out in Russia on January 5; it's now December 29 already, and a visa ordinarily takes a week to prepare - so even if the Consulate decide that I am worthy of a visa tomorrow (unlikely), it still won't be ready by the 5th of January. What to do? Go out later, and possibly miss the start of the new term? Or ask for a fast-track (and especially expensive) visa? I don't know - it's up to Language Link. They are the ones who will have to pay the fee for the visa, fast-track or not.

I explained all this to them in an e-mail yesterday morning, and they promised that they are going to e-mail me *tomorrow* morning, before I head off to the Consulate in Kensington. What with the three-hour time difference, it should all work out okay. As long as they remember! Of course, if they forget, I will just have to guess what they want me to do. There's no way I'm postponing my trip to the Consulate due to Russian incompetence.

Just a quick note about FedEx, as I've just had some dealings with them, and although they are an international company their dealings and mode of operation seems suspiciously Russian.

So Language Link sent my Visa application to me, by FedEx from Russia, on Wednesday last week. FedEx should have delivered it by Friday - instead, once it reached England they sat on it for four or five days because my address was 'not known'. It's a new house, and the postcode wasn't in their database, so they just decided to leave my package in the sorting office for a while and hope that it went away. Of course, it didn't, and they eventually tried to deliver it on Tuesday of this week (Christmas Eve). I was in, but slept through the delivery (It was early, and I bet they didn't ring the bell anyway), so they took it away again. Very kindly, they left their calling card on the outside of the door so I didn't even know I'd missed them until eight hours later when someone else came home.

Couldn't deliver on Christmas day, obviously, nor Boxing Day, but I was promised delivery on the Friday after. Come Friday afternoon, the parcel still hasn't come so I phone the regional office. No answer. I phone the head office, and after 20 minutes in a queue get told that the number on the calling card for the regional office is, in fact, just plain wrong. I phone the new number I'm given; they don't know where my parcel is but promise to call me back when they've found it. They call me back a little later: they've found it, and will deliver on Monday. Too late for the Consulate. I moan at them; they promise to deliver by 9 on the Saturday morning (the lady on the phone tells me that in practise that means before 12). It comes at 8.15 that morning and I greet the delivery man, who hadn't even had a chance to ring the bell, in my dressing gown.

Welcome to my Russia weblog! Hopefully I'll use this weblog to record something of my second trip to Russia, as last time I forgot to write with any regularity to a number of people and they got a little narked with me! Understandably, of course. It will also stop me from cutting-and-pasting the same anecdote to fifteen different people, all of whom are under the mistaken impression that their e-mail is personal and unique to them. Sorry.

Well, as you may know, I'm not in Russia yet. I don't even have a visa yet. What I do have, as of this morning and courtesy of FedEx, is a very offical-looking visa invitation letter. Early on Monday morning I'll take this, and all my other documentation (in triplicate), to the Russian Consulate in London who will decide whether or not to give me a visa - based, of course, on whether it's a full moon, they like my name, had breakfast that morning, and so on. Last time I applied for a visa I got talking to a rather disaffected man who had been refused a visa because his passport photo was 'too shiny'. In fact, last time it took me five separate trips to London before I got lucky.

Of course, this time round it will all be different. To start with, I have a better idea of what I'm doing (I hope). Secondly, I have the real documents instead of the very foged-looking faxes I made do with last time. Thirdly, I'm applying for a shorter-term visa. Here's a hint if you ever go to Russia for a long period, say a year: apply for a 3 month visa then get it extended when you're out there. That's what I'm doing, on the advice of Language Link (my employers). I have no idea if it'll work, but it sounds clever.