Rabbit Hill

There you are, clearing up your desk and emptying your pencil sharpener before leaving the workplace for Christmas and before you know it the New Year comes knocking on your door. Where does the holiday go to? Here in Canada it seems to pass almost uncelebrated, at least it appears to be if you happen to venture outside for a look around the neighbourhood. There simply is nobody there. Everyone, as mentioned in a previous episode, simply hunkers down with their egg nog (which is quite delicious actually) and rides it out within the confines of their own home. Now don't get me wrong, Canadians, although not appearing to be the most extrovert people on the planet, do enjoy a good shindig. We were invited around to our friend's house for a pre-big day party and as we left at midnight to put the kids to bed, the others were just warming up. It's just that there is no apparent feeling of the Christmas booze-up that is a big part of the British culture. Therein lies the difference. Canadians do not booze. They drink with plenty of joie-de-vivre but are always keeping one eye on their alcohol intake. They like a drink, but it does not form a cornerstone of their society. Consequently, Christmas becomes more a family gathering to exchange gifts, eat good food and celebrate the day as it was originally intended. They don't stuff themselves blind and drink themselves into a stupor before the Queen's speech.

As it happens, Christmas in the Palmer household passed off very agreeably. The usual format, wrapping paper being rendered from presents, a well-cooked lunch, a modicum of wine and an evening in front of the telly. Boxing day was similar, a peaceful time playing 'Operation' and 'Connect 4' with your eldest, chasing your youngest in and out of the new 'Dora the Explorer' play house and generally chilling out. The other, most marvellous invention, is talking and seeing your extended family on Skype. All you need is a broadband connection, a webcam and a magic piece of free software and suddenly the miles across the ocean simple melt away..........The sight of daughters waggling their newly opened presents at overawed grandparents is an image that will never fade. Oh yes, and it snowed. Real white fluffy snow falling in its own random, floating way, up to about a foot thick. On Christmas Day. Eat your heart out London...

However, once the immediate celebrations are over, thoughts turn to one subject - what do we do now until we go back to work/school? Out here, with the snow thick and resplendent, there is really only one answer - skiing. Edmonton, being on that indeterminate stretch of geology between the prairies of Saskatchewan and the mountains of British Colombia is neither flat nor mountainous. It is about three to four hours from the nearest main ski resort of Jasper but we have our own mini resort just 30 mins down the highway and its name is Rabbit Hill. It isn't huge and the ski equipment you hire is not great but hey, who's complaining? Claire booked Charlotte into a three day ski lesson programme and yesterday we headed off with the appropriate clothing for a day on the slopes. What fun! Charlotte seemed to have a good time, we got some skiing in and all for a reasonable cost. Tomorrow is the last of the three days and hopefully it will result in a confidence boost for Charlotte in advance of our trip to BC in April next year. It may be cold, it may be limited but we are skiing in our new hometown. Things don't get much better than that.

...now this was harder that first thought. You have just made, literally, a life changing decision and now you must impart your reasoning for this to your parents and friends. Claire was direct and upfront and explained everything immediately. I just prevaricated and left everything to the last minute. Reactions varied from the 'why are you doing this' to the 'I don't blame you' but ultimately everyone had to accept that our decision was made. Of course, the decision was made for all the reasons previously explained and not as some massive conspiracy. We genuinely wanted to go to Canada for real reasons and now all that was left to do was get the go ahead from the Canadian Immigration Centre and finalise our arrangements. In March 2007 we were told that our immigration application was being processed and in April, the WMO was given the all clear.

Christmas looms (2)

Work winds down for the holidays, trees are decorated, shopping continues. Only 4 days to go and still no sign of any gift ideas for Claire. I might have to undertake desperate measures - actually ask her what she wants...Everybody here is certainly full of the Christmas spirit, cheerfulness abounds. Everytime somebody leaves work they send out a round robin email with a favourite photo, attachment or witty comment and wishes for a great Christmas. Incidentally, the C word is used, I'm pleased to say, much more than the H word which so often spreads like a disease amongst American culture. That's Christmas and Holidays, in case you were wondering.

We also now have a web cam installed so that we can visually communicate with the folks across the pond. Now if we only knew someone in the UK who actually had a web cam too. Actually we do, my mother-in-law for one, although her first attempts at receiving a video call went rather pear shaped as we could see her, but she could not see us. Hopefully, the gremlins will be exorcised before Christmas day.

Charlotte has finished Kindergarden for the term so is now home terrorising Claire full time instead of part time. Eleanor has discovered that if you chase cats around they run away a lot and has received more than one warning paw across the bows. We are also making plans for a skiing holiday in Vancouver in April where we hope to meet up with some friends from the UK for a 10 day slide down the slopes.

Well, back to the gift hunting. In case I don't blog before the big day, I would like to wish everyone a happy and joyful Christmas and to all of you who read this rambling excuse for a blog a big thank you and to all of you who don't, why not?

Christmas looms

With all the moving in, we have rather overlooked the fact that Christmas is fast approaching and we haven't even hung a solitary piece of tinsel yet. Amazingly, I did remember to send off a few cards, not as many as normal but then we did have to have them stamped and posted by the 3rd December. Considering that we don't normally post any cards at all until the week before, this was a minor miracle. Next we have to buy a tree and some new lights as well as the small problem of presents. I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up last minute shopping at the local gas station. As for presents for those back in blighty - they may have to wait until the New Year!

Our neighbours, for the most part, have already engaged their battery of external Christmas lights. Over here, excess is the key word. Why bother to string up a few pathetic looking coloured bulbs around that small fir tree in your front garden when you can floodlight the front of your house with stars, icicles, inflatable santas, blinking reindeer, illuminated steam trains, rows of minature elves, full sized fir trees ablaze with lights and my particular favourite, a full size sleigh and team of reindeer atop the roof. It does create a very pretty neighbourhood, but boy, the Alberta power drain must be pretty severe.

Talking of neighbours, ours seem to be conspicuous by their absence. We have seen them from afar a couple of times, but the weather drives them indoors before we have a chance to say hi. Apparently, this is a bad time to meet people. Everyone drives everywhere and as soon as they approach the house, they punch the control for the automatic door openers, drive inside and then automatically shut the doors as well. We have met one neighbour who very kindly collected our mail for us, but she couldn't stop. On the whole though, the close seems deserted most of the time. Claire says we should send them all a Christmas card introducing ourselves and inviting them round whenever they want to. I think this is a good idea. Of course we may find out that they all prefer not to meet us because we are suspicious looking and have somehow offended them by clearing our driveways the wrong way or something. Maybe protocol demands that we make the first approach or maybe they just want to be left the hell alone. It is a political nightmare. Get it right and we could make friends for life, get it wrong and we could end up as the neighbourhood pariahs. We'll see.

As it happened, three days into my trip to Canada, Stantec duly came up with an offer. It was a good one with plenty of benefits including a substantial re-location allowance. A phone call home to discuss what to do and then the decision was made. Accept and prepare for our new life. So I did. If we got cold feet, we thought, I could always cite some excuse to pull out. Returning home we embarked on more research and a status report on the passage of our immigration application. Stantec needed to apply for my work permit and something called a WMO, a work market opinion. This was a statement to the Canadian Immigration Council explaining the case for offering a post to a non-Canadian citizen and why the position could not be filled by an Albertan. This was expected to take three months. Once that was given the green light, we allowed three more months for house selling, notice at work and all the preparations. So our start date in Canada was early July 2007. The clock was ticking and all we needed to do now was tell our friends and, more importantly, our families....

Oh, the weather outside is frightful....

Forgive me Father, it has been several days since my last blog. I could use the excuse that it is so cold outside that my journeys into work have left me devoid of all feeling in my extremities and my limbs subsequently refuse to work. Needless to say, things aren't that drastic. It is simply that the process of moving in to our new home has left us neck high in boxes both packed and unpacked and in the limited time available to me at the moment, I haven't had time to get any blogging in.

As if anticipating our weekend move, the thermometer decided to head south. The peak daytime temperature manages to stagger to about -18C, whilst at night it drops to about -25C. It also decided to snow. After a few days of fall we now have about 6 inches in average. The real impact of this became only too apparent last week when I indulged in one of the less enjoyable Canadian traditions - the clearing of the driveway of snow. Claire did help, she bought me the snow shovel, but I think it is fair to say that the actual snow moving was carried out by me. Now, when it snows, every householder has a civic duty to clear not only their own paths and driveways, but also the public footpath running alongside their property. So there was I, in sub-zero temperatures, dressed up so that only a pair of eyes was showing, shovelling snow until all was clear. This was fine until a day later, yes, you're way ahead of me here - it snowed again. I have resisted the urge to grab my snow shovel a second time. However, I'm now the only householder who hasn't got a clear driveway in my immediate neighbourhood so guess what I will be doing later....
The Canadians, of course, treat all of this with their usual laissez-faire. Walking to the transit stop at 6.45am, I observed at least half-a-dozen residents busily and seemingly effortlessly, clearing away. More worryingly, there were even more driveways already cleared. God only knows what time in the morning that happened.

Anyway, back to the move. We said our goodbyes to Ken and Doreen, our most wonderful hosts for these last weeks at Ellesmere Drive, promising to stay in touch and drove the short distance to Lauralcrest Drive. Our new home. The best thing though was that Max and Merlin, our two moggies, were sprung from their cattery and ceremoniously carried through the door to be released. They are destined to remain indoors for the duration of the winter but after some initial trepidation, both seemed to have made themselves at home. It is good to have them back. The cable guy turned up and installed tv, phones and internet as promised, furniture has arrived and all that is left for us to do is unpack. I say all, have you seen the number of boxes we brought over with us?

So I travelled up to London for the interviews in October 2006. They went well and I was confident that at least one of them would be interested. I was right. A week later, I received a positive response from Stantec inviting myself and Claire over to Canada for a further interview and a first look at our proposed new home. After some discussion, it was clear that it would be impractical to leave the children with someone for a week, so reluctantly Claire conceded to remain at home whilst I went on the trip. For some reason, we had both considered Calgary as our final destination, so it was slightly off-plan to consider Edmonton as the city of choice. Meanwhile, our application for permanent residency was still in the system with March 2007 as the target date for processing. We still hadn't told anyone of our intentions yet as there was still some indecision despite the time and money already conceded. Now it became apparent that a final decision approached. If Stantec made me an offer - do we go?