I've always believed you have to give to receive. And sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.

Immediately after our immigration interview, Ghost and I opened a joint bank account. The bubbly smiley girl at the bank collected all our details, opened the new account and happily informed us that the bank account was ready to go.

I went to an ATM on Wednesday to withdraw some cash.

"This transaction is not allowed."

After several attempts and much cursing, I had to make a cash advance against my credit card, incurring fees and immediate interest charges. I hopped online to find out what the hell was going on. Apparently we had money in the account, but the 'Available Funds' were zero.

WTF?

I rang the bank. Apparently our bubbly smiley girl had forgotten to allow us to access our money. And it could not be fixed over the phone.

Our rent was due that day.

I was starting to feel like all our planets were lined up in the house of 'fuck you'.

Thursday morning, I confronted the bank only to be told that our bubbly smiley girl was in a meeting and she needed to be present to fix the problem.

I could not stick around and wait for her as I had made an appointment to donate blood for survivors of the Bali tragedy. So I went off resignedly to the Blood Bank to do my bit.

A pint or so later, I came back to the office to two messages.

One from the bank telling me that the account had been fixed and not only that, we were not going to be charged the cash advance fee or interest on my credit card.

The other was from our immigration lawyer. He had gone in with both boots and Ghost had been granted a temporary visa. Not only that, but he got a work permit as well. Ghost can get a job whenever he likes and he will be granted permanent residency as soon as we have resolved the outstanding stuff.

He's staying. He can work.

Sometimes you have to give to get.

All that for a pint of blood? Not a bad exchange, I think.