Great News!! In today's post was a rather large brown envelope that meant either one of 2 things:
i) My phone bill was much higher than i expected
ii) My wifes visa was approved
Luckily it was my wifes visa. Our application which was posted on 1st October was returned today with a letter saying that her permit will arrive in the next 7 days.
It seems that waiting times are indeed coming down. Thanks everybody for your comments on here, these have really helped us when it counted. Finally we can now start making plans for our future, what a great day