CANADA HOUSE

I thought I would post a little information about hand-delivering your file to Canada house.

If you decide to deliver it by hand you should consider these points before setting off.

1) You will not be able to park without the Metropolitan Police officer or London’s finest traffic wardens hovering around you.

2) When you finally fight the Law off and cut the clamp off your car, you will have to join a large queue, which stretches all the way down the street, unless you are in a police officers uniform, that helps. I forgot my uniform this day, What a Shame

3) When you finally arrive through the doors and into the foyer, you are faced with a fed up, hot, frustrated person on the other side of a very thick piece of glass, who seems to just grunt.

4) If you thought you would be able to speak with someone, than this is where you discover that the trip was a waste of time, and posting it would be have saved a trip and have been far better.

Alberta wants us!

On Saturday morning we received a big brown envelope from the Alberta government. We are now officially Alberta provincial nominees! This morning Neil hand delivered our application for permanent residence to Canada House in London complete with bright orange PNP stickers on the envelope and front page. Now we wait for acknowledgement of receipt followed by Medical requests. Neil is in touch with the first guy to have been on the EPS Alberta provincial nominee scheme, he sent his application to Canada House on 20th January and has already completed his meds so it sounds like it's going to be quicker than we'd thought.

Click on the link on the right called OUR PICTURE GALLERY, I just added some more holiday snaps.

Latest house pictures

Here are the latest pictures from Beaumont. As you can see we now have a roof, albeit in the back garden. It's due to be crane lifted into place on Wednesday, this is a big developement and we can't wait to see how it'll look. Jo from Orca Homes tells us that the show home ( blue house next door to our's) is now under offer so we'll have some neibours soon. Orca Homes now have a website, www.orcahomes.ca , there aren't too many photos but you see that they build really beautiful homes, if you're interested in looking at the plans our's is called The Bastille and yes we do know it's named after a prison.

Finally...a new post!

Well, at last I've found a moment to write something about our trip to Canada. We've been back a week today and I've either been at work fighting to stay awake or in bed fighting to go to sleep. I don't know if it is a proven fact that jet-lag is worse after a Monarch flight but it feels that way to me! Jasper was beautiful and the mountains were breathtaking. We saw all kinds of wildlife including Moose, elk and bighorn sheep. We didn't have all that much snow but we had a great time on the mountain anyway. Neil's snowboarding is coming on very well and he'll soon be better than me, much to my annoyance! Oh well, it was nice to have the advantage while it lasted. We skated on a lake in true canadian style and drank plenty of Moosehead Ale in front of the crackling fire back at the lodge. In Beaumont our house is coming along nicely, we have two floors! It was great for me to finally meet Keith, Mary and family and to see all the places that I'd seen on Neil's video taken back in the summer.
On a more reflective note, it was a strange experience going to Canada not just for holiday but with a real possibility of the place becoming our adoptive home. I have to say it created a strange atmosphere and made the whole situation more real. Up until now it's almost felt like we were pretending. We both felt glad of these feelings as it can be all too easy to get caught up in idealistic and, dare I say, unrealistic day-dreams of how your new life will turn out. We still want to go more than ever and we're still excited about all the possibilties and new experiences this opportunity is going to bring us, but.... these feelings are already edged with a wierd emptiness that is inevitabley going to stay with us for quite a long time after our arrival and maybe even forever? You can't imagine just how much you take for granted. Aside from the obvious things such as ALL YOUR FAMILY! Things like winding roads, little cars, wet air and hickley-pickledy green, grassy fields divided by hedges. All this familiarity that seems so unexciting while you're living amoungst it is what makes a place home. Without it, it's easy to feel lost. This said, I firmly believe that everybody should step out of their fish bowl and experience new things at some point in their lives. It can be scary but will open your eyes to things that may otherwise have passed you by. Personally, I don't think it helps to compare one place to another, I'm not going because I feel Canada is better than England, I just feel that I will learn more about other people, places and perhaps even more about myself if I give life a go in a new place.

HAVE A LOOK AT THE LINK ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF THE SCREEN THAT SAYS
PICTURE GALLERY!

WE ARE BACK!

Hello, well we are back from our holiday in Canada.
OK well DON'T fly Monarch! Unless you have NO legs. ZOOM airlines has the exact same plane and on that plane, the seats are as follows. 2 on the right 3 in the middle and 2 on the left. This is not to bad, leg room is at a minimum but bearable. Monarch.....Oh my god, this pathetic airline has three seats on the left three in the middle and thee on the right! They have basically packed as many people in as they could. Nine hours of this was not good. Not to mention the large man in front of me who yanked his seat back into the recline position causing me to loose all circulation in my legs. Deep vein Thrombosis, Hell yeah! I had to unfold out of my seat every five minutes before I became paralyzed for good. Well that is my winge over. I will let Sophie fill you in on Canada Life as she is much better explaining things. Bye