Visa arrived!

Phew! It's finally arrived. I told the courier company at the embassy last Wednesday that I wouldn't be at home to pick it up until this week, and they said it'd be ok because it would take a three to five working days for them to process it anyway. So I arrived on Saturday to a note saying that they'd tried to deliver my passport on Friday but (shock) there was no one in. So I phoned up their number to arrange a new delivery time. I've never been great at talking to answer machines, but talking to one that does actaully answer back is slightly eerie.

"Please say your reference number"
"123456789"
"123456789. Is this correct?"
"Yes"
"Sorry. Is this correct?"
"YES (stupid machine)"
"Sorry. Please say 'This is correct' or 'This is not correct'"
"Oh for crying out loud. THIS IS CORRECT!"
"Thank you. Please state your postcode..."
Etc. Etc.

I asked for the visa to be delivered on Wednesday, which was, I was informed by the robot, the earliest they could get it to me. When the line went dead without confirming whether Wednesday was ok or not I was left wondering whether it would arrive then or, in fact, ever. The company is one of these helpful courier firms that guarantees your package to be delivered "between 9am and 5pm", so we ended up sitting around in the house all Wednesday waiting for my visa. Of course, it never arrived so I phoned them up again but this time managed to speak to a real person, or at least an upgraded version of the robot. She/it informed me that it would actually arrive on Thursday (today) sometime "between 9am and 5pm". It arrived at 4pm after another day sitting around waiting for the delivery.

Anyway, it's here now and my name is spelt correctly (I was working on the assumption that it wouldn't be) so it looks like I'm all ready to go. Except I haven't got a flight booked yet and I'm meant to be starting work on 1st September. Getting a flight is going to be interesting given that currently most UK flights to the US (and, scarily, mainly those to Boston it seems) are being delayed/rescheduled/turned back/cancelled etc. because of evil people trying to blow them up. Hmm. I think I'll swim.