22nd January 2023

The beginning of January saw the whole family in excited anticipation of the arrival of another family member, though the lead-up to the birth was far from smooth. Illness had swept through much of the Palmer family over Christmas, and there was a particular scare when Sarah experienced symptoms suggestive of preeclampsia, thankfully a false alarm. A further concern arose in mid-January when it was suspected that she and Alice might have contracted chickenpox. A blood test was taken, and as a precaution, medication was prescribed. In the end, it was confirmed not to be varicella.

On 15th January, 21 days since Christmas Day, I finally woke up feeling well, no longer frozen with fatigue or worn out by my persistently troublesome internal plumbing. Sue, having recovered more quickly from our Yuletide illness, spent the day walking through the Leicestershire countryside with one of her U3A rambling groups, leaving me largely to my own devices. Having lost over a stone in weight, it may be a while yet before I’m up to joining her on a walk of any length. I busied myself in the morning by chopping logs and plastering over the cabling in the study that the electrician had repaired last week.

That same weekend, Jamie accompanied Tommy to celebrate his birthday with a meal at Marcus Belgravia, a high-end, Michelin-starred restaurant in London owned by English celebrity chef Marcus Wareing. Their meal was prepared by Craig Johnson, the youngest ever winner of MasterChef: The Professionals.

On 19th January, I ventured out on my first ramble with rugby chum, Sean, since injuring my foot on 9th November. It was only a short stroll, around a couple of miles, along the Grand Union Canal, ending in the centre of town with a set lunch at the Han Chinese restaurant. Remarkably, the meal cost just £5.50. This was astonishing, given how substantial it was; my chicken and cashew nuts alone cost more than twice that amount on the evening menu. No doubt we’ll be returning.

Back in October, Sue and I booked a trip to Ethiopia in April with the same travel company we used for our adventures in Madagascar and Peru. As with many of the countries we’ve visited, entry requires a visa. Some you can obtain online, others require a visit to an embassy, and a few allow you to apply by post or purchase one on arrival. For most countries, it’s little more than a means of revenue generation rather than a genuine check on a traveller’s credentials.

Obtaining an Ethiopian visa, however, proved to be particularly challenging and nearly broke me! In early November, after researching the process, I discovered that visas could not be obtained on arrival in Addis Ababa. Nor could you book an appointment at their London embassy or apply by post. The only available option was to apply online. “Great,” I thought, “surely the easiest method of all, requiring minimal effort.” How wrong I was!

Having been forewarned that numerous fake websites lie in wait to fraudulently harvest your hard-earned cash, I took care to ensure I was on the official Ethiopian visa site before beginning the application process. As I filled in page after page of required details, my initial impression was positive: the site was clearly laid out, intuitive, and allowed for easy correction of any typos. The only minor annoyance was the requirement that scans of both my passport and photo be under 2 MB.

The final page displayed a summary of all the information I had entered, giving me a last opportunity to amend any errors. After ticking the box confirming I was satisfied, I was taken to the WorldPay payment page, where I was offered two payment options: credit card/Google Pay, or AliPay. I chose to pay by credit card, first selecting the country I was paying from via a drop-down menu. The usual payment fields followed, and reassuringly, my name, email address, application reference number, and the amount ($52) were all correctly displayed. I clicked ‘Pay’ and was immediately met with a red banner stating that payment had been refused. I was advised to contact my bank to ensure there were sufficient funds.

Alarmed and worried I’d fallen victim to a scam, I rang the bank. They confirmed that no payment had been made. While a charge had been presented, the retailer, WorldPay, had declined it. The bank could not explain why.

Shortly after, I received an email from the Ethiopian visa service confirming that my application had been successfully submitted, but payment was still pending. The email included several links, one to check the status of my application, which I used to verify that all was in order, apart from the blank ‘Payment’ section.

Two additional links were provided in the email for retrying payment. The second was a copy-and-paste option in case the first failed. Clicking the first link returned me to the WorldPay page, but alarmingly, the details shown were for someone else entirely: a different name, reference number, and email address. A quick internet search revealed that this individual was a PhD holder working at a Chinese university.

Growing uneasy, I tried the second link, copying it into my browser. This time, the WorldPay site opened, only to immediately flash another red banner: “You have already paid, do not proceed further.” Confused, I returned to the visa status page once more, only to find that the payment was still listed as unpaid.

This was the start of a nightmare that very nearly broke me. Using both my HSBC and First Direct bank accounts, via both credit and debit cards, every single attempt to pay for the visa ended with the same result. The only variation was that, following the initial failure, I would then be inexplicably invited to make payments on behalf of a legion of strangers from all over the world.

Attempts to seek help only brought more frustration. Those in a position to assist were either disinterested, dismissive, or downright rude. Despite sending emails to the Ethiopian e-visa support team after every failed attempt, over 150 in total, spread across two months, outlining exactly what was happening and politely requesting an alternative method of payment, I received no replies. Except once, in early January, when I was sent a curt and unhelpful two-word response: “Not paid.”

The e-visa service is hosted by Ethiopian Airlines, so I redirected my efforts there. Dozens of phone calls yielded almost nothing. Many were simply not answered; others were immediately disconnected when I mentioned needing help with a visa.

If I thought that was bad, the Ethiopian Embassy in London was much, much worse. I spent entire mornings and afternoons trying to get through, only to have the phone ring for a minute or two before being abruptly disconnected. On the rare occasion I did manage to speak to someone, it became painfully obvious that they couldn’t have been less interested in my predicament. Twice, they feigned transferring me to someone more appropriate, only to hang up. The only advice I received was to “keep trying” and “use a different computer.” I didn’t get the chance to mention that I had already tried five devices: my PC, two laptops, and two tablets, before the line went dead.

The travel company, Exoticca, from whom we had booked the trip, were equally unhelpful. They stuck rigidly to their policy that obtaining a visa was my responsibility and refused to apply on my behalf. I was warned that if I chose to cancel, I would forfeit the £2,008 already paid towards the trip.

As a final resort, wondering if I might somehow be at fault, I asked Suraj if he would try applying using my details and his own bank cards (NatWest). Suraj works in IT security for the NHS in the Midlands. If anyone could navigate the process without error, it was he. After several attempts, he confirmed what I had begun to suspect: the problem lay entirely with the WorldPay site. I had made no mistakes.

Then came crunch time. On the 20th of January, Exoticca contacted me by email for the final balance. I faced a stark choice: proceed or forfeit everything already paid. I had decided to cancel. The emotional toll and wasted time were too great. I’d had enough.

Still, before picking up the phone, I powered up my PC and gave it one last go. As expected, half a dozen more attempts to pay failed.

Enraged, but determined not to let this pass in silence, I began mentally drafting a series of emails. I would write to Exoticca, the Ethiopian Embassy, the e-visa service at Ethiopian Airlines, and even to Sahle-Work Zewde, the President of Ethiopia. In each message, I intended to detail my tireless efforts to secure a visa and express my utter disgust at the indifference and lack of support I had encountered at every level. I also resolved to contact my local MP, the BBC’s You and Yours consumer affairs programme, and to initiate a small claims court case against Exoticca.

Maddeningly, the next morning, I found myself continuing work on these complaint emails, determined to complete them before making the final call to Exoticca to cancel the trip. Around 10 a.m., I took a coffee break and, half-heartedly, decided to try one last time to pay for the visa. Unsurprisingly, the transaction failed yet again.

Still clinging to some shred of hope, I rang my bank to ask whether a refund could be claimed for any of the failed attempts. They listened and then suggested I try using a different card, advice I explained I’d already followed extensively. But after the call ended, a thought struck me: I did have one card I hadn’t tried, a joint account with my late mother, untouched for some time. I retrieved it, entered the details, and astonishingly, it worked. The payment was accepted. After dozens of attempts each day over two months, it had finally gone through. And on the very morning I was preparing to cancel the trip. Thank you, mum.

Unbelievably stressful doesn’t begin to cover it. Now, with fingers firmly crossed, I can only hope there will be no further complications.

That evening, Sue and I attended an excellent performance of Kindertransport at the Harborough Theatre. The play, written by Diane Samuels, explores the life of a child rescued by the Kindertransport programme during and after the Second World War. In November 1938, following a wave of violent attacks against Jews across Germany and Austria, the British government launched the Kindertransport, a scheme that provided safe passage to the UK for Jewish children, though, heartbreakingly, it applied to children only.

The next morning, Sarah and her family came to visit and stayed for lunch. Alice was excited to try out her new Christmas scooter, and they thought Welland Park would be the perfect place for her first proper outing on it. In the afternoon, Charlotte decided to take a break from decorating and brought Ellis over to join us. They headed off just before tea, as the fog began to descend.