First of all thanks for the kind replies and PMs regarding my brother's health. He's been transferred to the Royal in Liverpool and is getting world class treatment. He's making slow progress but is heading in the right direction. Once again thanks.

This has taken my mind off Canada and one more distraction has been a Calgary IT agency. They get a very good write up by Eamonn, who has used them and I tried to register with them. However they require you to be located in Canada and have a visa. Try and get a visa without a job (or job offer). Joseph Heller would be laughing in his grave. On top of this our house sale is moving at less than a snails pace. First week, two couples looking round, second, one and third none. Now the fourth weekend and not a sniff. It would be a good time to view as the family have set off for France today and the chances of keeping the place clean and tidy increase exponentially with fewer feet to dirty it. Lots of other unrelated irritating things have occurred. A routine service for the car ends up costing £600. I have bought cars for less than that! Our front door has decided to stop closing. The locksmith (a genuine guy) says he can't fix it as that lock is no longer made and we may need to get a new front door! I have just set up a wireless router which went OK until I tried to login to work using a VPN (don't ask!). No luck. I call work, they say call Virgin Media. I call them and they say call Netgear (the router manufacturer). I call them and they say call my work. Is that Joe H I hear sniggering? Being able to login from home means I can work from home. Not being able means travelling to Canary Wharf, no fun there.

All in all I was beginning to cool on the idea of a move when we got good news from Calgary. My wife's brother and his wife have have been renting for a couple of years and have just had an offer accepted of a lovely house in the South of the city. Photos look great and it would be in our price range as well. Reminds us of why we are looking to move. Just the lift I needed.

I'll be booking my flight for the September job hunting trip next week. I hope to line up some proper job interviews and try to firm up the visa application side of things. So if you know of any firms looking for a Data Architect (don't ask), data modeller, business analyst, or even turner/miller/driller (no not that, I haven't done real work for about 20 years!) drop me line.

Nil desperandum.

SM