Thursday 7 April 2016

Complicated paperwork!

During the last two weeks I have been advised by post that various things need to be renewed!
It must be something to do with my age I suppose...when we get older it makes sense that we can provide proof that we are still alive!
When it became time for me to renew my passport I was advised that it could be done online!
The same thing happened when this week I was asked to renew my driving license!
At first the filling in of the various forms seemed daunting...especially when I was asked for various passwords to get onto the government website!
The tip here is not to use the same password for everything which is what I used to do but to jot everything down as you go!
So I fill in my forms surrounded by old diaries, whilst I try to sort out the paperwork!
I now have my new passport and my new driving license intact...so clearly I am doing something right!
However.
The driving license will need to be renewed again in three years time...just to check I'm still capable of driving I suppose....
The passport seems to be un chipped! Since filling in the on line form I don't remember any option for having a chipped one but it appears that my esta has now been cancelled!
The esta is necessary for getting into the USA!
So I am now wondering if I need now to get a chipped passport with no idea how to go about it!
The bottom line here is that I have no plans to cross the Atlantic right now but you never know.....I might want to at some stage!
The whole way of filling in forms has I believe been made easier by being able to do it on line but there are traps for the wary.
Trying to explain all this to those friends of mine who are not computer literate has proved difficult.. It tends to put people off but in the end I remember occasions when I have made a mess of the paperwork. I often needed two attempts to fill in a form correctly so it is definately an improvement for me.
And that is the most unlikely statement I have made this week!



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1 comment:

UKViewer said...

We renew our passports via the Post Office and we find that their checks prevent any mishaps.

The government gateway is a nightmare at times. I was given a password, which came by post after I had registered. When I first use it, it needed to be changed, but at the time, you had to ring up to do so. I gave up in the end. But next time I needed to log on it worked without any prompt to change it.

But I gave up trying to renew our driving licenses online as we both went to the post office and did it via their system.

It seems that the post office is becoming the new community hub to access government services - not sure how privatisation will affect it?