Moving in

Yesterday we moved in to our new home. Well, actually I need to clarify that a bit. I was at work, the container with all our wordly goods arrived (I think these were the ones I promised to endow to Claire when we got married) and Claire and the kids started to move in. By the end of the day, the house was full of boxes, re-assembled furniture, toys and general mess. The unpacking crew waved a cheery goodbye, complimented us on our choice of home and then left. The girls then returned to Ellesmere Drive, where we are temporarily billeted. The man from the Cable Company is coming next week to install our tv and cable, telephone and internet, we have a tv, computer and phones to buy, not to mention additional furniture. One disadvantage of being able to afford a larger house is that you don't have enough existing stuff to go round. Anyway, the result of all this is that we are moving in by degrees, culminating in a final pack-up and push next Sunday. Then we truly will be residents of Lacombe Park, St. Albert, Alberta.

A little catch-up. Charlotte, we are pleased and proud to report, has taken to her new school like a duck to water and loves it. She is full of her (half) days activities and has already started making friends. It is only a matter of time before there are mass invasions at our house, sleep-overs and invites to join the school fund-raising committee.

Our new car is performing admirably, we have even discovered some features on it we did not know we had. An automatic tailgate and a rear-parking sensor being the latest. Now all we have to do is pay for it. A delay in the payment of my relocation expenses is the culprit. The Stantec internal system does not allow for instantaneous payment of 30,000 dollars - nor should it really.

Work is good. A trip to Fort McMurray in the north of the province looms. The days are full of coffee, doughnuts, chats by the coffee-maker and occasionally, a little work. Seriously, Stantec, like many Canadian firms I suspect, take work seriously up to the point where it interferes with any excuse for free sandwiches and doughnuts. Take last week. In my email I had an invite to a charity drive with free burgers (Friday), to celebrate the lighting of the Christmas tree (next week), an opportunity to meet the Big Boss - with free breakfast (Tuesday) and so on. Stantec have also arranged a kid's Christmas party at the West Edmonton Mall next month. Work is work, but the guys at Stantec seriously know how to party.

Oh yes, I had a major discovery yesterday. No, not the pot of marmite that I yearn for, but my digital camera! Yes, discovered in a box marked 'photo equipment'. So, no major surprises there then. Now all I have to do is to work out how to upload photos into the blog and I'll be laughing.....

It wasn't long before a response arrived from the CEA. Two companies were interested in bringing me in for an interview. The first was a company called Morrison Hershfield out of Calgary and the second was a consulting engineer based in Edmonton - Stantec.

A day of rest?

Today was our real first day off. After the last weeks of house hunting, car buying and generally running around like chickens with no heads we decided Sunday would be a day of fun. A trip to Edmonton city zoo was in order. Now, weekends in winter are strange days here in Canada. The temperature drops, the populace hunker down in their basements, go to the shopping mall, hit the indoor places generally. What they don't do, apparently, is go out. Or rather, go outside. The roads are empty, the playing fields and parks deserted and the zoo completely underwhelmed. We could count the number of cars in the parking lot on the cold fingers of one gloved hand. Most of the animals had been moved inside, the rides and activities halted but the zoo was still a very pleasant place. We were treated to a one on one with an armadillo, and watched an elephant paint. It was cold, but good fun.

Tomorrow is a big day. Charlotte starts school. Actually, that is a little misleading. She actually goes backwards and re-starts kindergarten - from 9am to 12pm. The worry is, she'll be bored stiff. You see, in Canada, they start school 1 year later than in the UK. Charlotte would need to be 6 to start grade 1, which she had already started back in England, but as she is only 5, she must go into kindergarten until next year when she can start grade 1 - again. Following this? Good, there will be questions later. We went to see the school last week. The Ronald Harvey Elementary School. Everyone was perfectly lovely as expected. Charlotte was reticent. She says she wants to go, she seems keen, but....there is always the difference between expectation and reality. We'll see.

We complete on the house tomorrow. Unfortunately our container with our wordly goods is in Montreal, in pieces, being custom inspected. We need a phone line, internet, tv, computer. Utilities need to be connected. I suppose the first thing would be to find out exactly who the utilities are, let alone arrange to get them connected. I really must get my mobile phone sorted as well. Ah yes, today's day off may be the last for a while..

Movin' and cruisin'

I have to say, as bank balances go, ours is looking a little on the sick side. Not quite intensive care sick, more a little TLC sick. This is not a surprising state of affairs. When you move to a different country to live and you have parted with your house, car and worldly electrical possessions, then what is it you must do when you hit the beaches on the other side? Yep, that's it, buy a house, car and more worldly electrical possessions. Now, as most people know, buying houses and cars can be stressful experiences. When you buy a house and a car in the same week, the stress meter buried deep in your head is turned to overload.

First, the house. We have probably seen over 30 houses in 4 weeks. Most of them were too small, too much in need of renovating and the real big problem - virtually no garden, or 'back yard' as we have come to know it. Now, this is the thing with houses here in Canada. They have well designed, open plan living areas, enormous garages, furnaces that would power the QE2, well appointed bathrooms, bonus rooms that would accommodate a platoon of infantry quite nicely and plenty of storage and.... miniscule gardens. The reason for this, it would seem, is quite simple. Nobody uses them. Oh yes, they have bi-level decks with hot tubs and seating for eight, but no garden. Most of the houses we saw, especially the new developments (of which there are many - St. Albert is a rapidly expanding community) have back gardens so small, that if you stood on the deck and reached over the rail, you could touch the back boundary fence. The exception to this are the acreage properties out of St. Albert, these have large properties on large lots. Therein lies the problem. The lots are often too large, requiring an army of gardeners to keep it straight, exposed in winter and isolated from most of civilization.

So there we were, requiring a 4-bedroom house with a decent sized back yard. We did find one, a property I mentioned earlier, in Grandin Park. We made an offer, we thought about the reworking we would need to do, we got cold feet, we pulled out. Now, at last we have it. A four bedroom property, only 4 years old, in a great cul-de-sac location, fully fitted out, an attached triple garage, a large back yard with lawns, flower beds and a fire pit, a fully fitted basement, a good size deck and a road name to go with it - Laurelcrest Place. We have bought it, got the mortgage, signed the papers and we move in on Saturday week. Yes, they do not mess about in the property business in Canada.

Which is more than you can say for the car business. The world over, car salesmen are a special breed. Full of charm, spiel and that killer sales technique. Canada is no different, except that most of the salesmen we encountered looked like they had either appeared on The Sopranos or had walked straight from the set of The Godfather. Down to the black Crombie coats. We had decided, one car was enough for now, what with me taking the transit, but we needed a specific vehicle. It needed front or 4 wheel drive to deal with the snowy winters. It needed more than 5 seats for the inevitable child hauling, it needed all the usual stuff, cruise control, electric windows (not that you would open them most of the year) , climate control, etc, etc. New cars were an unnecessary expense we thought, so a low mileage, pre-used SUV/wagon was just the job. Several shady dealers later and having seen almost as many cars as houses, we found it. A Chrysler Pacifica Tourer. It looks good, it drives well, it has the required speciifcation and it was the right price. So thank you Michael at City Ford (or Micky, to his 'family'). Let us hope the warranty is as trustworthy as your smile....Watch this space.

The advertisement was from the Consulting Engineers of Alberta. It was almost as if the ad was tailored for a potential emigrant waiting for his application to be processed. The opportunity could not be wasted. It stated that several engineering companies were holding closed interviews throughout October in London. It invited you to submit your c.v electronically for consideration. You would then be informed what companies, if any, wished to interview you. The job range was huge, from structural engineering to petro-chemical. Amongst the names in the list of companies attending were several I recognised from my initial searches. I duly uploaded my now updated c.v., received an acknowledgement and sat back and waited.

First on the ice

We seem to have suddenly got very busy. It's probably noticeable from the lack of meaningful blogging. In the last week Claire and Charleymunchkin have started skating lessons, we've been to the Canada Finals Rodeo, we have bought a house, work continues to intensify, car hunting has now replaced house hunting and well, life here continues to surprise and delight.

Claire decided to learn to skate. I suppose it's something that I should do really, as it would be difficult to call yourself a true Canadian if you couldn't lace on a pair of skates without falling on your backside. Everyone does it in the winter on the frozen lakes and rivers and in the impressive indoor arenas that abound out here. Anyway, Claire's first lesson went swimmingly, well, skatingly and she avoided the ignominy of picking herself up after falling flat on her face. It won't be long before the call of a double Lutz becomes too strong for her to resist I fear... Charlotte followed with her lesson on the Wednesday and after the usual pre-session nerves she was towed onto the ice by the instructor. We did think that one fall and she would collapse in a puddle of tears and want to be carried off - Oh ye of little faith. She loved it. It was only a half-hour lesson, but in that time she learnt to stand up, move forward and fall properly. It bodes well for skiing later anyway. So well done all round.

The highlight of the week for Claire and I undoubtedly though was our evening at the Canadian Finals Rodeo. I had been invited to go on the Thursday night by the Edmonton Economic Development Council. These were the people that arranged for Stantec and a host of other Canadian firms to come over to London last year. They also passed my cv over to the Consulting Engineers of Alberta, which set me on the path to my current job. Every year they arrange a night out for their successful candidates and this year it was to the rodeo. Yeehaaa! It was held at Roxall Place, a vast indoor arena which is normally home to the Edmonton Oilers, the local NHL ice hockey team. This time, they had replaced the ice with a dirt arena and had set up gates and pens at either end. We had a private box, with food, drink, popcorn and the highest seats in the house. It was an awesome night, with bronco riding, steer wrestling, roping and my personal favourite, bull riding. Oh yes.

This was Canada at her most enjoyable, her people at their most relaxed. More cowboy hats than you could shake a stick at. Open hearted warmth abounded. The food and drink franchises selling anything from Alberta sized hot dogs to skips full of popcorn. Beer was bought and drunk without any of the nervous undercurrent you normally associate with organized events and alcohol. Large men with pink cowboy shirts ('You have to be tough to wear pink' was this years' motto - all proceeds to cancer research) rode and fell off bucking horses. Cowgirls raced around the arena, teams of young bucks showed off their roping skills and the biggest bulls you have ever seen charged around and menaced everything in sight. It was tremendous fun and Claire and I agreed that this was just one of many reasons why emigrating out here is turning out to be a good decision.

Oh yes, we bought a house too. More of that later.

So the application sat in the offices of the Canadian High Commission and awaited its turn. Meanwhile, life for the Palmer family continued as normal. I went to work, Charlotte went to school, our lives seemingly in a sort of limbo. It was as if nothing was happening but there was the prospect of leaving the UK for good always hovering in the background. Every time we went onto the internet to research house prices, or look up job prospects we were reminded that our lives were effectively on hold. Waiting for the day that the CHC would get in touch and the countdown would begin. By now it was November 2006 and our application had been in for 20 months. It seemed at times that it just wasn't going to happen and if we were both honest, our nerves were beginning to send messages casting doubts over our decision and we were hesitating. Then I saw the advertisement in my trade magazine - The New Civil Engineer - and this was the point when I saw our Rubicon moment in the distance for the first time.

The first snow

I apologise if I'm a little slow today. Last night I went out for a few beers at a local watering hole called O'Mailles and imbibed in one or two rather nice Irish ales. It was good to get out for an opportunity to mix it with the locals. Needless to say, it wasn't difficult to strike up a conversation with anyone, in fact, if you want to drink on your own - stay at home. I went with Ian, husband of Shirley, the demon realtor and we discussed many things, from hockey to football and house buying to when the snow will come. We met Dave, an expatriate of 25 years and swapped stories. Then it started snowing. 'It probably won't clear until April now' Dave said. Oh goody. Dave left with a cheery goodnight and it was only when we went to settle the tab that the barmaid informed us that he had also paid for that as well. Apparently it happens a lot out here. Welcome to Canada.