Canadian Dream Blog

A step forward

09:39, Monday 20 February 2012 .. Link

Status - Still in Scotland
Sunshine count - 7 days so far this year

On Saturday we received a letter from Canada Immigration in Nova Scotia.

To summarise, they have checked over our visa application and are happy with the details we have submitted regarding Ailsa's work experience and qualifications.

This is known as a Positive Eligibility Review (PER)

Our visa application will now be forwarded to the London Visa office for further proccessing.

Presumably in London they will check the ligitimacy of Ailsa's qualifications, and possibly check up on her work history. Also check our family's history and police reports etc for accuracy.

If that goes ok, then the next step will be a request for medicals. But I'll update you on that stuff if and when it happens.

House update:

New bathroom suite is in and leak-free, after a few failures, lol. Bathroom sealant is your friend! Still to sort out some flooring and maybe some tiling.

I have another batch of laminate from Ikea, so should have the downstairs finished in the next couple of days.

The skip came and I pulled down the garden shed. Didn't realise how big it was till I hammered a wall away and the roof tried to get me, lol. I packed the skip carefully so as to get as much in as possible. Job complete, skip away. Garden is now a boggy mess.

Was thinking of putting down some wood chips, but I reckon I'll just flatten it and throw some grass seed down. MUCH cheaper, and folk still like a bit of grass in their back garden. Ummm, that sounds rude, well, does to me, lol.

Ailsa is currently over in Burlington doing some training. She got off the plane in Toronto and Art met her, first stop Tims, before even leaving the airport. ;-)

She's loving it all over again and she says it now feels like home. Wish I was there :-(

She's off to Niagara today as it's a holiday Monday in Ontario, so I'm going to try and catch her on the Niagara Falls live cam.

I now have a large collection of Facebook friends in many areas of Canada. They make life so much better for me, sitting in our tiny house watching the rain bounce of our windows, I know there's good things to come, so thanks guys :-)

I feel pretty bad for some of the folk on the forum who applied last year but have been denied, because of caps being reached etc. I really hope their job is on the NOC list in July so they can re-apply and get the ball rolling.

But it's hard not to be excited. Our application is moving along quite quickly and I am hopefull for a completion date before December this year. If we have sold our house, we could be in a position to get over there for Christmas!

Right, back to work for me. This floor aint gonna lay it's self, although I have on occasion told it to go f*** itself ;-)

February already

08:39, Wednesday 1 February 2012 .. Link

Status: Scotland

5 sunny days in January is all we were given. Lots of wind, so lots or garbage lying about, never to be picked up and just left to rot for the next 5 years or so. The Scottish people really have lost all respect for their country :(

Anyway, onto the update...

Our Credit card has been charged for our initial Visa Application pack in Nova Scotia, so we now "exist", yay! Next step is waiting for them to approve the app enough to send it to London for the next stage of processing, so another couple of months of nothing coming up.

Ailsa is still working hard trying to get us over through work, so we're still keeping everything crossed that we could be there for summer 2012.

I have managed to get rid of my project MX5 and the trailer from the front garden, so it looks a lot tidier outside.

I've ordered a new bathroom suite, which should arrive next week, at which point I'll order a skip for the old suite and the garden junk.

Kyle seems to be a bit less against the idea these days. It wil probably end up with him being keen and Ross being sad. Kids eh.

I've been trying hard to stick to my "NO crap in the evening" diet, and taking the dog on extra long walks. It's working, but very slowly. Managed to button my jeans for the first time this year, lol.

Car news..

Got a great deal on a set of M Parallel wheels from Paul, for the Beemer. I know I shouldn't be spending money on such trivial things, but they will increase the value of the car, and make it far more sellable when "the time" comes, lol..

Ailsa has now decided on the car she wants in Canada. We can get one of these for under 6K and will be great all year round with the soft top in summer, and the hard top for winter..

Jeep Wrangler TJ, 2.5 Gasoline ;-)

I'm still after an old truck, so I'm spoiled for choice.

Had some thoughts on houses...

We're not going to have a lot of cash for a large down-payment on our "dream house", so the choices are limited to a lesser house in a lesser area, however, if we get over there on Ailsa's job we would actually have a decent income.
So technically we could afford a nice big house, but getting a decent mortgage as a newbie is hard,

We would also have to compromise on our cars, but there is another option..

Either rent a nice house for a few years, or use the "rent to buy" option. Best of both. But we are too proud for our own good sometimes, and living in "someone else's" house would annoy us.

We had considered houses in the Stoney Creek area, but I've been thinking about Ailsa's commute to work. If she is working in Burlington, she would drive along the QEW and then over the Skyway. The problem with this is that the lake is prone to fog rolling in to the shore, which could cause all sorts of traffic problems. Maybe I'm over thinking things lol.

Anyway, that's January over. Will update when I've done something productive.

End of week one 2012

09:28, Saturday 7 January 2012 .. Link

Status: Still in Scotland

I may as well use this blog to document the weather. Nothing else to talk about at the moment :(

One day of sunshine on Thursday, the rest was cold wet and windy.

The recent storm gales blew everyone's bins over on early Monday Morning, so it looks like Calcutta out there, so even more disgusting than usual. My ass-hole neighbour decided he was too lazy to put the rubbish from his garden in his own bin, so dumped it on my front lawn, WHAT A LOSER!!!! Can't wait to move away from this selfish ignorant moron.

Been watching the visa application numbers steadily going up, and wondering if ours is in that figure yet: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/complete-applications.asp

Health plan:

My new regime is, power walking with the dog, which includes an hour long fast walk round our local nature trail for three laps. This is ideal as it has a triangular up and down hill shape covering about a half mile.

I'm cutting way down on bread, potatoes and baked products like pastry etc, and trying to eat more veg, soup and meat. Only snacks in the evening are fruit. I used to consume a large bag of Asda Cheesy Wiggles every night, plus any other cakes I happened to have lying about. I just don't buy them any more.

Also doing a wee bit of weight training in the evening at home to try and turn my moobs back into muscle again, lol. I can't go to a Gymn. Weird mirrored, sweaty, BO smelling, indoor cattle markets, no thanks.

Would be nice to be in shape when we move to Canada. Need to be ready for the winters and all the outdoor activities available, like shovelling all the snow off my drive, lol.

Kids go back to school on Monday WOOHOO! piece and quiet :-) Will start getting the house in order. Lots to do before we can get it up for sale.

Till next time...

Goodbye 2011! How you doin 2012 ;-)

01:30, Saturday 31 December 2011 .. Link

So that was 2011, what did we do?

Ailsa completed her MBA, with distinction, after 3 very hard years of graft, both in study and in work.

We started thinking seriously about a move to Canada, and after a brilliant recce trip we decided to start the PR ball rolling.

Kyle is now as tall as Ailsa, not long till he catches me I fear. He's still fighting the Canada move unfortunately, but I think we are you going to have to deal with that when we get over there.

Ross is on his last year of primary school and is trying to accumulate as many trophies and awards as he can in his final year. He's desperate to move to Canada despite having loads of friends here, so we try not to talk about it in front of him as he'll get upset.

I spent so much time this year dreaming about moving that the year kind of slipped me by. My V8 project has been moth-balled all year as we didn't know what would would be doing in the near future.

The biggest negative of the year for me has been the weather. We had a few weeks of sunshine in April then it started raining and never stopped, at least that's how it feels.

2012 is going to be a busy one for us.

We plan to get the house up for sale asap, and move into a rented house. This frees up our property equity and will allow us to move to Canada at very short notice.
I would love to think we could have positive PR before the end of the year, but realistically it's more likely to be 2013 before we can make the move.

There is still a slim chance that Ailsa could get a work transfer, which would make life a shit-load easier in every way, lol, but we can only view that as a bonus, not a cert.

My goals for this coming year are:

Get rid of the fat belly and get into shape. More dog walks and better eating should help.

Finally break the V8 project and sell everything from the cars

Clear the back garden and demolish the old shed

Get the house ready for sale

Get CarArtz up to date and back at the top of Google search.

Going over to Edinburgh tonight to bring in the new year with Paul and his family.

Hope you all have a great New year!

Dave.

I'm not "Normal"

08:14, Wednesday 7 December 2011 .. Link

Well "Norm" the normal car lasted just over a week, lol.

It's just not me. In fact, if I was happy with that sort of car I'd probably never even think about emmigrating. But hey, I had to try, and now I know it's crap to be normal.

So here's the new car.....for now. It's an excellent car but if I'm honest I'd rather have one in silver or white. Maybe in Canada I'll get one, although they are at least twice the price over there and I'm not talking basic dollar/pound exchange rate.

And here's how a white one might look in Canada...

No news on the application yet, but not expecting anything till the end of January.

Need to get Christmas out the way, then we can start getting the house ready to sell.

Application delivered to Nova Scotia

05:34, Friday 25 November 2011 .. Link

Our Application for Permanent residency was delivered to Nova Scotia, Canada this morning at 10.35am.

From what I've heard, we won't hear anything for a few months, not even a message to say they have received it :-(

Glad I used Fedex, so at least I know they have it.

All we can do now is wait and hope for a positive response.

Another dreary day in Glasgow

09:02, Friday 25 November 2011 .. Link

I can't remember the last time I saw the sun in Glasgow.

This is what we wake up to every day, or so it feels...

When the sun does eventually come out, Scotland is a beautiful place, but it's so unreliable we are usually stuck inside working on that day.

In other news....

I have made a (for me) HUGE sacrifice. I've sold my big comfortable, fast, expensive to run BMW, and bought this instead...

As much as it pains me to say, this is exactly what we need for the coming year.

With our emigration plans in full swing, we need a car for moving furniture, taking stuff to the dump, picking up stuff from B&Q, and for saving money on fuel (it's a 1.4

)

And when the time comes, it should be pretty easy to sell.

It's called "Norm"

Hopefully our Visa package will arrive in Sydney NS today. Will update later.

FSW Application posted!!

10:38, Wednesday 23 November 2011 .. Link

Yesterday was the big day. The day we posted off our Permanent Residence application to live in Canada.

After checking the application, then checking it again....and once more for luck, we were happy that everything was included.

I booked Fedex to come and pick it up. Now, if you book direct through Fedex, the bill is about £75, for normal delivery. However, if you use an agent, like Parcels2go, it only cost £24.50, and that is for priority mail!. I know, doesn't make any sense.

So here it is, all packaged up waiting for collection..

The driver was here within a couple of hours and was VERY helpful with regards to lables and packaging etc. He actually put it in a Fedex bag for extra protection, then off it went

We've been tracking it's progress online. At the moment, it has left Memphis TN (Fedex Super hub) and is heading, hopefully nearer to Canada, lol.

If I'd used Parcel Farce, it would probably still be in our local sorting office, lol.

We know it's going to dissapear into the void of back-logged applications once it arrives in Nova Scotia, but for now we can be excited as we track it.

Almost ready to post

12:11, Friday 18 November 2011 .. Link

Just had our third estate agent round to give his valuation.

So we are almost ready to post off our visa applications.

Will spend the weekend going over the forms and get some new photos taken of everyone.

Monday we should be good to post.

The "Moving over without a job" conversation

12:22, Monday 14 November 2011 .. Link

So I decided to have "the talk", you know, the one where you ask your partner if we are seriously going to emigrate to a new country with no job.

Don't get me wrong, I would do it without a second thought, but Ailsa has been the bread winner for the last 15 years, and she would have a massive sense of responsibility if we do this.

Here's the situation...

Ailsa - Loads of qualifications, engineering experience, MBA with distinction

Her job will be hard to find, but will be a good wage

Me - Jack of all trades, master of none. Can work on cars, can drive, can wash dishes etc

Bigger scope for me to get a lower paid job to keep us going.

But here's what we have decided:

As mentioned in a previous blog, I have a little business drawing cars. We have decided it would be crazy not to pick this up again. It can be a very reasonable income. One year I managed to bring in £4K per month over the Christmas period. That was with no advertising, so with two of us on the job it could be great.

I only need one room in the house to turn into a workshop, so no need for premises. I'll spend the time waiting on Visa's by bringing the business back up to speed, and drawing lots of North American cars. I also have some new ideas to freshen up the concept.

So the idea then is to get ourselves over there, and get CarArtz set up asap. While I work on that, Ailsa can get out and try and find her dream job, without the stress and pressure of being the sole earner, and without us having to eat into our life savings.

So we are now full steam ahead, no doubts whatsoever.

I have estate agents coming out to value our house, for our proof of funds part of the visa app. Only waiting on a couple of documents, then we're good to send it off to the CIO

I really should tell my sister what we're up to, lol.

What to do with my time...

11:17, Thursday 10 November 2011 .. Link

Our intention is to imigrate into Canada via the FSW route, whereby Ailsa would be the principle applicant, and the one who would be making all the money, hopefully, lol.

I thought I'd post up a bit about me and my hobbies/jobs, which sometimes make money.

Most of which are easily transferable to Canada, such as:

CarArtz.com (Closed at present) - Automotive artwork, T-shirts, mugs, mouse mats etc

I've been doing it for nearly ten years, but recenlty closed the site due to lack of interest and sales. That would be MY lack of interest, which obviously affected sales. I might get back into it again after a break.

Car resto/engine swap etc

Swapping a 1.6 for a 4.0 V8 :

I would love to build kit cars in a nice big warm garage. Yes, I could do that in Scotland, but realistically there's just not the market, or weather for them over here. By kit cars, I mean things like Cobra V8's etc.

Would also love to get into the Muscle car scene. Need a triple garage for them though, lol.

Welding/Fabrication - Car bodywork, brackets etc

Making new engine mounting points for the V8 project:

Had to make the mount fit around the steering rack:

I would like to have a dedicated workshop, with bigger tools, like lathes, drills, sandblaster etc. Would love to be able to make my own billet alloy brackets and containers.

Driving instructor - I used to do this before we had kids, no reason why I couldn't do it in Canada after some training. I should have more patience and experience now too.

Ideally, we would want to buy a house with a detached large garage/workshop, which would allow me to "do my thing", whatever that may turn out to be.

I found a few that fit the bill on the MLS site, and even mention they have permission to run a business. It's just too expensive to run dedicated business premises these days, might be better in Canada, but in Glasgow it's near impossible for a new company to succeed.

If nothing else, I will be able to earn my keep just by maintaining the house. Been noting down all the prices people are paying for things like plumbing work, building etc. Looks like the service industry are paid well and kept busy.

The sun is almost out today. Better go out and wash the Boss's car. She's back home tomorrow from another week in England. Nothing against England, but she'd rather be working near home :-(

D.

Canada Recce trip 2011

09:08, Wednesday 9 November 2011 .. Link

We completed our family Recce trip to Canada in July 2011, and the results are as follows:

Family thoughts...

Ailsa: "I don't want to go home"..."sob sob"
Me: "I now have a shitload of work to do back home before we can move"
Ross: "awesome!"
Kyle: "It's ok, can we go home now?"

So, 3 out of 4 isn't too bad.

In our two week trip (three weeks for Ails) we did the following:

Ailsa worked for a week in her Canadian branch of her current employer.

We lived with friends in their "average family home" in the south west of Hamilton. We spent most evenings discussing the cost of living etc

Ailsa spoke to a bank mortgage advisor

We spoke to a realtor

We Visited Niagara, Montreal and Ottawa

We viewed 10 homes for sale

We drove around many surrounding areas to "get a feel"

We visited local schools

And the big one, we became addicted to Tim Hortons!

Findings:

Ailsa loves working in Canada. The burlington branch are very family aware, and have many occasions throughout the year where family are invited to work BBQ evenings, and a once a year work funded trip to places like Canada's Wonderland.

The family we were living with were also once immigrants, but from over 20 years ago. Their current home is a couple of years old and is in a newer area of Ancaster Hamilton.

Open plan Kitchen/living/dining area, 4 bedrooms, utility upstairs, full basement, double garage. Pretty much exactly the size we would like, but we would prefer an older house in a more mature area.

Even just 2 minutes along the road and there's more established areas that we like..

We decided on a budget of no more than £350K for a home. Any more than that and we would'nt have any money left to hang curtains, I mean "drapes"

You could easily get a nice large home for £250K or less, but you really have to decide how much of a snob you want to be with regards to area and schools, lol.

Mortgage wise, as a new-comer you may be expected to put down a 20% deposit on a house, so we would be looking at $70,000 up front, which would pretty much wipe out our entire savings once we sell our shoe-box in Scotland. We might just rent for a year, which would mean we could save up more of a deposit, and hopefully after a year the deposit required would be reduced as we were no longer newbies.

That would also give us a better idea of the area we were living.

There are many other monetary factors you need to be aware of when choosing a house and area. Property tax can be quite expensive. I think the family we were staying with pay over $4000 a year, and you also have the usual utility bills such as electricity and water. Bare in mind summer can be hot and dry, so if you want to keep the lawn green, you'll need the sprinkler on every night.

Here's something that won't occur to many of us in the UK...

We would class a house built in the 70's are relatively young. My mum's last house was a 120 year old semi and was in pretty good nick.
Because of Canada's extreme temperature differences between summer and winter, we are talking 60 degrees, their houses come under much more stress. Because of this, the life of the average canadian home is much shorter than that of a house in the UK. Many are built from wood rather than brick because wood can adapt to the differences better than brick and cement. But then wood has it's own set of potential problems.

So my point is, it is sometimes cheaper to tear down and rebuild a 40 year old home in canada, than to try and maintain it.

View over Hamilton..

Home Styles:

We looked at a few different home styles.

New build - We found that a lot of the new detached homes were designed more to look good inside than for functionality. There was a lot of wasted space in some of them. For example, there might be a wide staircase, and at the top there would a large area of landing with no real purpose other than looking spacious. All this really does is reduce the size of the bedrooms upstairs. There are other obvious design cosmetics, like MASSIVE ornate windows inside a walk-in cupboard, the only reason for this is that the window formed part of the front of house appearance from the street.

But the thing we hate about the new homes is the way they are all built in a line with about 2 feet between each.

Older 2 story detached home - This was our favourite. Maybe around 20 to 30 years old. Square shaped home with attached double garage to the front. Most had finished basement with either extra bedrooms or rec-rooms and work-shops
The first one we looked at had a complete student rental appartment in the basement. Two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and lounge. Many families will rent this out for some extra income during the school seasons, not a bad idea.

Side split

I thought this was going to be my favourite style of home, but sadly it is not. They generally only have half a full height basement, with the other half being crawl space. They are also usually much older houses.

Single level home (bungalow)

We only looked at one of these. It was an older home, and to be fair it was quite nice. I hated the kitchen. It was an old style and very little work-top. It had a fully finished basement, but it had odd things like a "bedroom nook". It was weird, lol.

These were all "open houses". This happens on Saturdays or Sundays between 2pm and 4pm. The owners basically leave the house for a few hours and allow their realtor to show the house to anyone that wanders by. If this was Scotland, you would need to install CCTV in every room

City Visits

Niagara:

Very touristy, but no more than you would expect and hope for. We went on Canada day, so we knew we would need to pay a lot for parking. Worked out at $20 for the day, not too bad. The falls are just as you would expect. Lots of water rushing off a cliff

I would love to see it in winter with the snow and ice.

We had a brilliant meal at the Edgewaters restaurant over-looking the falls. Not the cheapest meal we've ever had, but good sized portions and very tasty.

After dinner it was time to head over to the mini golf for the kids, then down to the river for the fireworks and light shows

I was amazed at the amount of different peoples all sitting on the grass near us. Canadian, Chinese, Indian, African, European and a family of Mormons complete with horse and carriage all happy to be part of this great Canadian day.

Montreal:

I have to say, I'm not keen on France, so our trip to Montreal was not filling me with joy. My feelings were not wrong. I really didn't like Quebec, and once you get it in your head that you don't like something, it's very hard to change. I took some nice photo's of the architecture, but that's about all I liked. Sorry Frenchies.

Hmmmm, for a place I didn't like, I seem to have taken an awefull lot of pictures, lol

Ottawa:

Ottawa however is awesome. We had a suite on the 21st floor over-looking the city. Decided to make some pizza's in our oven, but had a bit of a disaster when the pizza drooped and dropped cheese on the element causing a "little smoke" and setting off the smoke alarms on the whole 21st floor, oops.

At the same time, one of the kids had walked through the flyscreen on the balcony and jammed the door so we couldn't open it enough to let the smoke out

Oh how we laughed

Had to stop off for some world famous Beaver Tails, YUM!

And then some street performers entertained us for a while.

So we saw the first light-show of the year on the parliament building, which was awesome, and then did the guided tour the next day. Also saw the Museum of civilisation and the war museum before we headed back to Hamilton.

Driving in Ontario:

I found the driving style to be fairly laid back. Saw the odd nut-case, but in general it was fairly easy going. I like the fact thet the pedestrians are given right of way when crossing the road, unless the UK where they are seen as targets.
We did get caught in a jam on the way back from Ottawa when we were driving through Toronto. 10 lanes went down to 1 lane

Took about 3 hours to get through, but everyone seemed quite patient, and allowed you to cut in without too much grief.

I asked later if the traffic system was a bit crap, or if it was just traffic volume. Turns out that Canadians like to drive, a lot!

Shopping

There's huge differences in prices from one shop to another. It was hard for us to try and get out of the "but we're on holiday" attitude, but when our bill in Walmart came to $92 for some sweats and juice, I had a major re-think.

There's shops like "No frills" where you can buy the same items much cheaper, and "Dollarama" is excellent for kitchen stuff and craft items

Gas (petrol) is obviously mush cheaper than here, but it's all relative. Once you live there you will stop relating everything to pounds value equivalent.

Fastfood is cheap and plentiful. Tim Hortons not only does coffee, but breakfast and other yummy food at a good price.

We had a look in a thrift store while the kids were at "Lazer-tag". Loads of great items in there for a few dollars, and a great place to buy furniature for your new home when you're just starting out.

The people

We were paying particular attention to the way people spoke to us and to those around us. When we were in Florida, it was obvious that most of the service industry staff were being paid to be nice. We didn't really see this In Canada. All were friendly and helpful, and it didn't feel forced.
We had a get-together with many of the neighbours on a couple of evenings (drinks on the driveway), and got a real feeling of what it was like to live in Canada, the good and the bad.

You can tell a lot about the people from the animals that live nearby...

Conclusion:

Obviously we have only seen a small slice of living in Canada, but it was enough for us to decide it's where we want to live.

Meet the family...

11:10, Tuesday 8 November 2011 .. Link

So, who are we then.

From the left...

Kyle, Ailsa, Ross, and me

And our 5th family member, Hemi..

The day we rescued him from jail:

During his first snow fall in Scotland, I think he'll like Canada..

Where we live:

Usual grey drizzle, but at least I have a nice car

The view from where I walk the dog..

So I have a nice family and live in a nice enough area. As I mentioned before, we're not running away from Scotland.

Canadian Dream

01:24, Monday 7 November 2011 .. Link

Welcome to our Blogg.

(I have a few years to get you up to speed, so I'll keep this first entry as brief as possible)

Our Canadian dream started about 15 years ago during a trip to my wife's aunt, on Vancouver island.

We stayed for three weeks, visiting Victoria, Vancouver, and driving through the Rockies to Calgary.

We fell in love with Canada during that holday, and our dream of a new life began.

On returning to Scotland, we started researching the imigration criteria. We were young and naive, and after a couple of months we realised it was nothing more than a pipe-dream.

Twelve years and two children later, we re-visited the idea again, when Ailsa had a very slight opportunity of a work transfer to Mississauga.

But again, it was not to be. We decided, or so we thought, that we would no longer pursue this silly dream.

However, since the start of this year (2011), Ailsa has been traveling to Burlington, to visit a newly acquired branch of the company in which she works. The subject of job transfer arose again, and started to look positive.

We booked a holiday/recce trip to Ontario, where we would stay with friends for a couple of weeks. (Full report here: http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=725236 )

This trip really confirmed that we wanted to emigrate to Canada.

The option for an Intra-company transfer is a possibility, but not something we are going to hang around waiting for, so we have started the Imigration process ourselves.

We are going the FSW route (Federal Skilled Worker).

So far we have:

IELTs test
Police reports
Collected almost all documets (birth/marriage etc)
Filled in most of the Visa application

Still to do:

Proof of funds (House valuations/mortgage statement)
Get 6 passport photos each, (which is a pain since the machines only do 5)
Get a couple of the trickier certificates, like Academic, and parents marriege cert

And then we will be ready to send off our Visa applications.

Then the waiting game begins.

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