And the price of chicken too. Should have a chapter on the CIC website informing us Brits of the huuuuge pitfalls - it's disgusting and misleading

You know, I think you should take your friends thoughts with a pinch of salt - what wee they missing electronics wise? We find insurance on par with UK insurance, but then we're not in a regulated insurance Province, again, I feel TV/cable is as much of a muchness as the UK. 6 weeks is hardly time to get your bearings and check the stores out. DIY stuff is available, but around here DIYing isn't a huge thing (well maybe more so since the recession) and the fashions are very different, it takes a while to get used to it. As others mention culture shock has a big part to play, it could hit you straight away or it could take a couple of months or more.

And what about the bacon and the baked beans and the cheese and the...the list is endless ? I sometimes wonder how I have managed to stick it out for the last 40 years having to put up with hardships like that. Regrets, I've had a few, but then again too few to mention. Actually I have none. Never have had. Life is good !

Funny you should mention that Simon. My son has just been visiting (he's 32) and he took some tins of Canadian baked beans back to England with him - he and his fiancee loved them!! They also loved the bacon and our toilet rolls (he even took a roll of that back with him ..... ) - apparently they are not as "dusty" as the Andrex ones

J

Was that before or after?

In many cases I would agree that there is a lot of hecking on here when people ask honest to goodness questions. However sometimes the questions are a tad redilculous and its hard to suppress that inate British quality (Sarcasm!)

Six weeks is a really short time.

The first couple of months are about sorting out insurance, unpacking your stuff from your container, looking for rentals etc etc.

It is stressfull, very stressfull.

It seems at the start every hurdle you jump over there's another one right in front of you. Even tougher and higher than that last. But you know what, you can do it if you put your mind to it.

What makes me carry on is the fact that I love living here, its taken time but I have a great circle of friends. I'm going through a bit of bother at the moment after nine months, without my friends and BE I don't know how I would have managed.

One bit of advice I am always giving people is to "put yourself out there, NO ONE is going to come to you".

You need to make 100% of the effort, you control your own happiness. What is one mans misery is another mans pleasure.










Sorry folks, I'm having one of them weeks

There may be more to why they decided to go back, as pointed outed a persons perspective can change a lot in 4 years. I doubt they left because cable was more.

Had to laugh at this, my parents are moving to Bulgaria next year and everytime they visit they ALWAYS pack english bacon, sausages, tea, baked beans you name it!! Took them down to the airport yesterday as they are going for a month this time, still packed all their British foods! I did ask them how they think they are going to cope when they move if they can't even go over there for a short period without some bacon

Andrex, what luxury, dusty and all ! Do they still have that gawd awful San Izal shiny stuff ? Almost like greaseproof paper ! I remember that stuff as a kid. Interesting that we have toilet seats inbound and toilet paper outbound. Different strokes for different folks eh !

you can still get Izal loo paper! and it's still as unabsorbent and slippy as ever

The only stuff to fold over a comb and make a mouth organ

As far as cable goes - we have been with Shaw for six years for our phone, including international, high speed internet and TV with all the bells and whistles. Charge: $180 last month!

Telus are so desperate to regain their customers after their strike that they kept ringing me with offers.

Last week I changed over to them and I'm getting the same package for $95.95...with three free months and the price is held at that for three years!

Blimey, that is expensive! Sorry. We pay Sky £17.50 a month for the same thing.

Still, at least I know now so we won't have to return after six weeks!

It all depends on your circumstances and where you intend to live. We are a family of five . We have 3 children 16, 12 and 4 and although we loved where we lived in England and had comfortable jobs, we wanted to move to provide a better life for our children and in the hope that we could spend more family time together.

For us the pressure on the kids in UK was immense. The drinking culture in particular was a worry (especially having a teenager). I'm not saying that children don't drink alcohol over here. But it is deffinitely harder to obtain and you need a car in any case to drive to the liquor store!

So yes we feel we had done the right things for our kids. They are doing very well at school and have settled in well. Yes we have spent more time doing things together as a family. There's always some festivel or other on to go to.
But it's not all a bed of roses. My OH is in a job that he doesn't like and is not in his usual field of work. I am not working at mo. but will get myself an evening job to help financially.

Although I am a fully qualified, experienced teacher(gave up my job to emigrate) the Canadians want me to retrain in order to teach here (Yeh right!!!)

Things are more expensive than we were expecting. But we are here for the long haul. Put in for PR in June this year and hope to make it our home.