WASP News

I’ve been looking for an opportunity to use the picture above for ages. I love the symbolic concept of planting a flag in new territory, and this week it feels like I am justified in using it. It just so happens the territory in the image is a Cheese and Chilli Croquet as served in the Firestation so we won’t extend the metaphor too far, but I enjoyed making the image almost as much as I enjoyed eating the Croquet afterwards 🙂

This week my name change was ratified by the Australian department of Births Marriages and Deaths….Its a huge milestone that was worthy of celebration.

So celebrate I did. Which took the form of fairly rapid consumption of a bottle of Merlot. It also resulted in one of the most bizarre and lucid dreams I have ever had,  most likely a result of combining Merlot with a variety of Anti Depressants. but thats a story for another post….

So last night, whilst I was sat quietly with Jane I started building a spreadsheet of organisations I needed to approach to register this important change.

This list started out with the really obvious bodies , Department of Transport, the Local Shire Office, the Electoral Roll and so on…. The Spreadsheet grew rapidly, and began to look like a mammoth task,  so this morning, over breakfast I started work on the huge task of reporting my name change. I set about the task in an online fashion, initiating the process by using various “Contact Us” pages on websites.

Just before lunchtime I took a call from a number I didn’t recognise. The  ninety second conversation that followed  with a completely lovely lady at the Water Corporation, resulted in an email arriving in my inbox some five minutes later. I replied with a scan of my legal name change certificate, and within an hour I received the following…

Dear Suzanne,

Thanks for updating your account details, we wish you well on the start of your new life……

The first box on my spreadsheet was ticked…..

I have a feeling they may not all be as simple as that one. But for now I am going to remain hopeful, happy, and confident…