We had a traditional Bonfire night party with bonfire and fireworks (rockets are banned here because there is so much forest and the risk of fire). We invited our neighbours and friends and Julie made 7 litres of her Chicken Curry while I brewed up about 7 litres of Mulled wine! The girls made toffee apples and brandy snaps.

We had a great turnout of about 35-40 people and only the brits understood why we burned an effigy of Guy Fawkes on the bonfire… It did look a little barbaric!

After all the party clean up and preparations for winter (loading the 3cord of wood into the garage, winterising the lawn mower and strimmer, putting the deck furniture into the shed etc…) we sat down and went over the year we had just had to put some thoughts together for this news letter.

What do we like about NB Canada?

• We love the house and the garden; we have privacy in the garden and our own space in the house.
• We have lots of friends, people seem to have more time to stand and talk. Most of our friends are from somewhere other than Fredericton, they are like us, and have moved here to live a different life.
• The nature, the variety and new things we see especially the whales in the Bay of Fundy.
• There are many new birds and animals to see, you cannot imagine what it is like to find half a dozen turkey vultures sitting in the trees of your garden, with their six foot wingspan! Then the next thing you see is a tiny purple breasted humming bird hovering in front of a flower.
• The Camping and walking facilities are good too.
• The scenery is very pretty too, with some amazing sunsets in St Andrews (a little seaside town).
• Winter sports and activities are a positive experience for us too. We have taken up cross country skiing (again) and this year are planning to try snowshoeing!
• We have a better standard of living than the UK with the larger house and three cars. Because everything is new to us we can visit local areas and they seem like a holiday to us.
• Having time to do things rather than having time for working
• There are more opportunities because there things are less developed.
• There is less snobbery and they are less concerned with consumer items / designer clothes than the UK.

What don’t we like about NB Canada?

• The Fredericton people are very cliquey and getting to be included in their circle friends will take a lot longer than we thought. In some ways it is like living in a small rural village.
• Because of the lack of traffic the general driving skills seem poor to someone from the UK. People drive slowly and seem to have little understanding of good road positioning.
• There is not much to do for teenagers
• TV is poor and directed at the lowest level (dumbed down)
• There is a very provincial view people are not aware of outside world and what is going on within Europe say.

• The shops not modern enough.  However this means there are opportunities for  entrepreneurs .

• Because the children mainly use the school bus and the rules around both lanes of traffic having to come to a complete halt when a school bus stops, they lack road awareness. They often just step out and most drivers just stop regardless if the person is at a crossing site. This is scary as a driver when people are at crossing they assume you will stop if they walk out. These crossing are not marked like a zebra crossing or pelican crossing in the UK

• Another bugbear is the poor social skills particularly in children (probably due to isolation) this is displayed as poor manners, little or no please and thank you's, people cut their food into bit size pieces with their knife then eat with just a fork or just use the fork and cut their food with the side of the fork.
• Cost of healthcare and car insurance is high(er).
• Overall the cost of food is generally higher than the UK as a proportion of your salary.

What do we miss from the UK?

• Good manners, hearing please and thank you’s.
• The inefficiency in many things. For example in the UK when we shop for food, we pick it, queue, pay and get out as fast as we can, while here we shop and have to wait while the checkout person has a chat with the customer at the till
• Variety of Shopping, we girls particularly miss ‘Next’ shops.
• Our local Butcher and his quality meat also the variety and quality of food in the supermarkets. Sainsbury’s had a consistency of supply and variety in items such as fruit
• Heinz Baked Beans, the Canadian versions just don’t taste the same
• The quality of TV in North America is poor with lots of commercials a two hour programme in the UK will take three here. There is a lack of quality dramas we miss the BBC. Although we can get a version of it here there are still commercial breaks. You can find British TV if you search (Cornation Street and East Enders are both here)
• We all miss English Robin's and Blue tits.
• I think I can also say we all miss Barney our dog. He died before we left.
• We miss tourist signposts, places to go, much easier to find in the UK a challenge here.
• Our local Leisure centre, although Fredericton is building one which will be ready in the spring, plus it will build another one next year.
• Crime Watch, crime is no were near the levels in the UK and a drunken driver will make the headlines. I think there have only been two murders this year in New Brunswick, both violence on partners or siblings. To give you an example in the UK the murder rate is 1 in 56,000 and here it is 1 in 200,000.
• Because of the smaller population there are less quality restaurants, they tend to close by 9:30pm in the week due to lack of custom.
• Friends, we all miss them and finding new ones isnt very easy for me. (Kat)
• I miss not having pets. Dad’s being a pain and refusing to consider any. So I brought an aquarium and have started breeding Guppy’s. Oh yes I have also started breeding meal worms (to feed the baby birds) – (Dad says…  they sound like pets to me)

What don't you miss about the UK?

• Road rage you very rarely see it here and if you do it is probably someone from out of town.
• I don’t miss the Police and Ambulances coming to school nearly every day (Gemma)
• Oh yes I definitely don’t miss the constant background noise. It is so quiet here!
• In the UK I had horrible views from my bedroom window and here it is much prettier.
• The general lack of privacy, you couldn’t sit in your back garden and not listen to the neighbours playing football with their kids. Here we cannot even see into our neighbours back gardens they are so far away!
• Long commutes, long working hours and crowded public transport (in the south east)
• Tony Blair / Gordon Brown / UK Politics / EU – I will say no more.
• Crime and the fear of walking the streets
• The cramped housing in crowded streets with people who you don’t know and never meet because they are all to busy making ends meet.
• The millions of people, in New Brunswick there are 750,000 people in an area with is ¾ the size of England!
• Rubbish/litter in the streets. People seem to take more care of their environment and there are less of them to make a mess in the first place.
• Here we are the foreigners and on the whole we are treated with a friendly “hello and I love your accent”. Immigrants make the effort to fit in learning the language and learning to explore new things. Perhaps my list of dislikes shows how hard it is for newcomers to fit into any nation, even one that is similar.
• The only non English speakers we hear are people speaking French as New Brunswick is bilingual.
• I don't miss my 7x8 bedroom
• I don’t miss being scared to walk around the town (here you are watching for bears when walking in the woods!)
• I don't miss the traffic and chance of being run over

What advice would you give to someone emigrating to NB?

• Understand the health costs
• Get full dental check up and work done before leaving
• Ensure you have a supply of prescription medicines and bring your own tried and tested medical remedies to tide you over. Anadin, paracetamol, alka seltzer, Andrews, benylin etc because there are differences and you may find you react differently to them.
• Understand the school regulations, our 18 year old could have gone into high school to finish her high school diploma rather than the local community college which would have saved us $5000!
• Check the job market and learn the necessary skills, get experienced / certificated in the required areas
• Learn French it will improve your job opportunities
• Be prepared to take things more slowly, except buying a house, that's much easier
• Understand the banking system, you pay for cheque books, you pay monthly service charge for the banking facilities
• Do not under estimate the how closed communities are. Because of the smaller size they are similar to villages in the UK where you are an outsider for 20 years. But they are friendly and helpful.
• Find and join the newcomers club, if it doesn't exist start one
• Try to time your move with children around school natural school breaks
• Get any qualifications for older children assessed for Canadian equivalence.

• Try and get all orthodontic work on your kids done before arriving. Dental work for orthodontic work costs a fortune in general in North America ($6500 per child).

• Bring a multi-region DVD player and a library of good DVD’s to watch because the TV is pretty grim. Apparently it takes a couple of years to get used to all the commercial breaks.
• Think about bringing over a couple building site voltage converters and keeping your power tools. Replacement is relatively expensive compared to using what you have. They will get you little cash when you sell them at car boot sales anyway. Although the cost of power tools here is low.

• Become people who actively seek out and do things rather than sitting back and waiting for the community services to put on events. You must be together as a family and find things to do together.
• Organise a pub review group with the newcomers and visit a pub per month to assess its atomosphere, charm, drinks, service, food etc…. good way to develop your friendships with the newcomers clubs plus a chance to meet locals.

• Don't have a boyfriend when you leave UK (Dad say’s … this advice is from the girls)
• Basically get used to driving slower and a slower way of life, people have conversations in the checkout queue. My mum has a chat with one check out lady at Sobey’s supermarket and she sometimes comes out from behind the counter and hugs us!

Summary

David:

A great year we have made amazing progress from arriving with no home and no job. I love it here, my commute is short, I seem to have more time to spend with the family and mostly work is confined to work time. There isn’t the expectation that you will produce for work outside work time. Family time is important and that is the view of employers here.

I find it very difficult to imagine moving back to the UK.

This coming year we have to become people who ‘get out there and do things’ rather than ‘watching and hoping to find things to do’.

Julie:

Canada is very nice, the scenery and wildlife are fantastic. Driving is an interesting experience and the social life is excellent only thanks to the newcomers club. We are generally happier than we were in the UK and all in all an excellent year!

Kathryn:

University is hard to get into, there seems to be little advice offered, you appear to have to dig for everything. However things have improved a lot in the last three months. The driving test is a lot easier and now I am mobile with a car and job things are looking rosier.

Gemma:

I love the wildlife and we all see more of each other, Dad especially seems to have more time.

I have more friends now and we are all looking forward to Christmas and our new friends have invited to their house for Christmas Eve and Boxing Day suppers. I am looking forward to the snow and trying out my skis, snow shoes and ice skates!

We will be back in the UK in 2007! 

Julie’s brother is getting married in March 2007 and David has the honour of being asked to be Ian’s best man.  The wedding is in Cambridge and there will be a reception in Edinburgh, so we will be around Cambridge, Nottingham and Edinburgn for two weeks in the middle of March. You can rest assured we will be stocking up on those food things we miss and are allowed to bring back.