h_henry

Frozen dead grass. Never thought about that - too used to UK living where snow only on the ground for a day or so so it's all green underneath (purely pyschological need for green grass in case you're wondering).

Patsy

didnt u know they had christmas in canada?

Butch Cassidy

Last I heard it had been replaced with 'Winter Holiday Season'

scimdarren

We have been here a total of 5 months, spending the first 4 living in a friends basement (the 4 of us) we finally have our own place- now we are starting to learn fully the Canadian experience of running your own home and budgeting etc.

Have you made the transition to Canadian way of life?
No, not fully, we have got used to driving in the city but still have the occasional wrong side of the road flashback.
For me, a practical guy, I still feel pretty inadequate walking in to Home Depot (the B&Q Equivalent) not understanding the different DIY methods and terminology, just plumbing the vent in our clothes dryer was an epic!
Any regrets about the province you chose?
Not at all, Manitoba (clearly not everyones first choice) has been kind to me, my PR has been fast tracked (about 1 year) the people are just so friendly here, our new Canadian friends are the best friends we have ever had. Oh, and the cost of housing here, makes us grin.
Have you managed to secure work, and if so how hard a task was it?
I came here on a work permit, so yes I had some luck in securing a job, but I am also fortunate to be in a high demand job (Electrical).
Is coping with the Canadian weather harder than you thought?
Just like my dog getting used to the cold on his paws! I think it is all about acclimatisation, no one can prepare you for the realities of driving into snow filled ditches (not fun) and having to venture out into the cold, early in the morning, snow blowers and -70C boots are just some of the other commitments that you have to get used to, on the positive side, I want to get into Snowmobiling, my wife is interested in dog sledding so you find your Canadian friends looking forward to the winter so they can have fun.
Is there anything that you should have bought with you and didn't, or visa versa?
No point looking back here, there are lots of things that we would have liked to bring with us, but it was not cost effective, we came with 8 suitcases and our dog, I really miss my Scimitar sports car that I sold, but one day I plan to import.
Are you getting homesick?
Yes, every now and again, I have nice memories about my old surroundings but I do not miss them, however I really miss my close family. Sometimes that is very hard to deal with.
Finally, for those of us who are still stuck in the UK, do you have any suggestions/advice to offer, and given the chance would you have done anything differently during or prior to your move?
Dont 'spend spend spend' when you first land, we are glad we did not as you only have your UK exchange rate advantage when you work in the UK. So, watch the pennies from day one (sorry cents)!
Don't give up, you will have some tough times at first, but if you ride through them you will be rewarded.
...The words Quiff and Twot are not to be used lightly!

Darren

macadian

Yup, belated happy holidays pilgrim...PC blight thriving here too...

JoD

[QUOTE=R2D2]Hi Jo
Is there anything you can do to stop these feelings of isolation you have. Its very hard to be on your own in a new places with very few true friends and no Mum to fall back on. It has helped me loads as soon as my son started kindergarten in Sept. He just does half days and I take him and pick him up everyday, so I can meet up and chat to the other Mums and just get to know everyone. Is your child pre-school ? Do you get out to the park/ or pre-school groups ? on a regular basis so you are seeing the same faces week in week out.[QUOTE]

Hi R2D2. Thanks for your advice. I have met a lovely family via this web site that live close by and I have joined a Newcomers Club with them and gone to their Moms and Tots get togethers. I have also taken my daughter to Kindergym with one of my neighbour's kids who is a bit younger than my daughter, but I still don't feel that this is "right" for us. At the end of the day the thing that matters most to us is being with family and friends and no matter how long we are here, that is the only thing that makes us happy. Unfortunately, although we were always close to our families it's only something we have just come to realise being so far away from them!

So, I think it is a big possibility that we'll be heading home this year. I don't see this as a failure, I see it as an adventure that has opened our eyes and made us realise the people we really are.

Good luck to all of you making a go of it, or in the process of.

TrishP

[QUOTE=JoD][QUOTE=R2D2]Hi Jo
Is there anything you can do to stop these feelings of isolation you have. Its very hard to be on your own in a new places with very few true friends and no Mum to fall back on. It has helped me loads as soon as my son started kindergarten in Sept. He just does half days and I take him and pick him up everyday, so I can meet up and chat to the other Mums and just get to know everyone. Is your child pre-school ? Do you get out to the park/ or pre-school groups ? on a regular basis so you are seeing the same faces week in week out. I know we're living at more or less opposite ends of Ontario, but we found the best thing we did to meet people was to go to church. We arrived in Red Lake on Saturday, wandered into the local church on Sunday morning and ended up at someone's home for Thanksgiving dinner that day, someone else's the next and so on... These people have now become good friends and have introduced us to lots of other folks. A lot of people up here are inomers like ourselves and are aware of the isolation thing when you first move into an area.
Keep at it with the newcomers thing - if there'd been one here we would have gone along. As it is, there isn't much of anything here!!!!

Gray C

I have had the Cardinal from when I first joined. Your avatar is a funny looking cardinal though, I must say!!!

gooding

Been here 4 weeks ( but visited 5 times for 2 years) it was and is I suppose my personal dream, ( as my daughter keeps telling me and not hers!)

Have you made the transition to Canadian way of life?
Hubby and I were always prepared to give 100% from day one. We picked a wonderful neighboured and have great neigbours all around, something we did not really have in UK. Best news we have had to date. Our house has just been valued at 30% above what it was one year ago. Pretty good return on our money! I am working from home in a my original profession as an artist. Something I could not afford to do in UK! We are debt free and have time to explore the area, meet socially with neigbours, and take time to find work. So from a purely financial point of you, we can enjoy Canadian life.


Any regrets about the province you chose?
None at all, we are on Vancouver Island BC. Stunning scenery rain or shine. 30 minutes from ski slopes, across the road from the ocean. Evey day is different and an inspiration to an artist like me, and why I chose it really.

Have you managed to secure work, and if so how hard a task was it?
I am working from home and my husband is yet to find work, but to be honest has not been actively looking, as we have quite a lot to do around the house, and have investments. We gave ourselves 3 months to settle in wait for SIN numbers and retake driving lessons. Without either SIN or BC drivers licence you may find it hard to apply for any jobs around here.
Although we are possibly starting our own business in future, and easiest route if this is what you already do like me.

Is coping with the Canadian weather harder than you thought?Is there anything that you should have bought with you and didn't, or visa versa?
Climate her is similar to Dorset in UK. Although it has been very wet of late here, we have odd dry days sunny days and one of snow. It is never very cold here really.
Are you getting homesick?
Me and husband , no. The relief to be out of debt for the first time in our lifes, has lowered blood pressure, and stress levels dramatically!!!!! We actually can look forward to the future. Our family is small, and all well travelled, so distance is not an object.
I never think of Uk, I never like life there for me, glad to see the back of it. I love it here so much. This is my home , and I believe I was destined to come here .Husband has no regrets either. My teenager daughter however is missing home terribly, and all her friends. Life here for a 16 year is not as good as in UK. For first few weeks she was enthusiastic, but now wants to go back to Uk to finish college.
School is not the same here, and lifestyle a bit behind. That is my only regret, and I had a feeling it was wrong time for her to come here, but she wanted to give it a go. So we are considering letting her return to complete Uk education as we feel she is actaully going back almost two years here education wise if she stays.
She hates the school here, and I am not that impressed either. She is far more mature than people her age, and until the spring or summer there is little to do when you dont have friends around.

Finally, for those of us who are still stuck in the UK, do you have any suggestions/advice to offer, and given the chance would you have done anything differently during or prior to your move?
[/QUOTE]

Do no underestimate what you ship, fill every hole box drawer etc with everything you can.
Just because you have visas in hand, does not make it the right time to move. You have have one year to land.
Consider children, jobs, money etc. If you dont have sufficient funds for at least one year without work to live on, and money to buy a car, electrical equipment, insurance etc etc. wait until you do. Compare one years living costs in UK. Cost of living is not cheaper here. Houses are not cheaper to run. They may be cheaper to buy but are going up fast, everything is relative.
This is a complete life change. If you are close to family friends etc in England, question why you are coming and what differences you think it will make. If you come with money or investments, then it is easier than coming without, if you come without, make sure you have a job lined up or you may realise that you have made an ireversible decision.

I have no regrets I did not come with rose tinted glasses and visited several times before moving. You have to be prepared to give up saying "home" -England. You have to look at the long term picture, where you want to be in 5 to 10 years time, not right now. If you cant then it might not be the right move for you.
Once you have asked yourself all those questions and you still want to come, then do. Enjoy , jump in 100% feet first. if , and only if things dont work out in future you can always go back. This is not an option for us, Life is for living, and we like our life now one hell of a lot!!!!!!

daisymoll

Have you made the transition to Canadian way of life?
We feel completely settled in here, although still do get the occasional stint of homesickness which passes pretty quick. Been here now a year in Ontario. Before that we lived in NS before returning to UK because of homesickness but decided pretty quicksmart that we had made a huge mistake and were lucky enough to return to Ontario. I dont think we would really consider moving back to the UK now. We love it here.[/I][/B]

Have you managed to secure work, and if so how hard a task was it?
HUsband was able to secure work fairly easily luckily as environmental engineers seem to be in demand.

Is coping with the Canadian weather harder than you thought?
Winter can be quite hard but it is fairly warm at the mo, expecting cold soon. Planning on putting in a backyard rink though if it gets cold enough. I get really fed up of having to wear shorts and tshirts every day int he summer!!

Is there anything that you should have bought with you and didn't, or visa versa?
NOt Really. More sandwich pickle!!

Are you getting homesick?
Yes, every now and again, I always find a really miss the stupidest things!!! Going back for holidays reminds me of why we came here.

Finally, for those of us who are still stuck in the UK, do you have any suggestions/advice to offer, and given the chance would you have done anything differently during or prior to your move?
Give it some time, more than a year really when you get here until you decide to go back to the UK and dont get disheartened when you first get here. Everything will seem really strange (First time I came I had massive culture shock) and it takes a long time to make really good friends but it will happen if you go out and make the effort to do it. We meet lots of people from taking our son to the park near our house etc. Look at why you left the UK, chances are if you left the UK because you were totally fed up of it, you will become totally fed up of it again when you return (as we did)

Cheers

Sonia

Tiaribbon

I have lived in Canada for just over a year now. I loved it from the moment I arrived from the UK with my young daughter and all our animals, and have loved it a little more every day since - this is my home, no question about it. I have never ever had any pangs of homesickness in the slightest.

I have loads of very good friends and I even get to see my husband once every couple of months LOL!! It will be perfect once he is living here permanently.

My horse-farm business is doing pretty well and money has been coming in for quite a while now, so have been surviving. I have quite a few horses boarding here and I have quite a few regular trail-riding customers. April 2006 is when we really start the trail-riding business proper, so if this is it now in the middle of winter, then I am very optimistic for a good season.

Money is much harder to come by over here - we moved from Hampshire in England where money is in abundance, to a rural community in Ontario where money is not LOL!! We couldn't have survived here, doing what we are doing if we had not arrived with a significant amount of money though. We chose to buy every single thing we own outright, so that we have no monthly payments other than taxes, food, petrol and utility bills and we have found that this was definitely the right thing to do and we live on our income from the farm without too much trouble.

The weather suits me down to the ground over here. I adore winter! Beautiful blue skies and sunshine most of the time with glistening white snow - fabulous! There is the odd cold day, although this winter has been incredibly mild so far. We have all the toys mind you; snow plow, new tractor with A/C and great heater for winter, loads of horses to keep me amused, 4x4's, ski's for ski-ing down our own hills and ice-skates for skating on our pond.

The transition has been simple and pleasant, actually life here is pretty much the same as my life in England........and I love it!! In fact I am having such a great time, I barely have the time to come on here anymore.

Very best of luck to you and I hope you enjoy life here in Canada.

joeboy_UK

Been here for about 5 months now. We live in Canmore in the Rockies, a lovely places to live.

For me life hasn't really changed. I loved life in the UK and I love life here. Have the same amount of money, live in a house of similar size. There are things that I can't do in the UK that I can here e.g. snowboarding and vice versa e.g. listen to a decent radio station.

We both got very decent jobs within a month of landing, jobs are great same as they were in England.

So to answer the question, the transition was easy, adjusting was easy, dunno where is better as the advantages and disadvantages balance each other out. So who knows what will happen?

:-)

CalgaryBlade

[QUOTE=joeboy_UK] There are things that I can't do in the UK that I can here e.g. snowboarding and vice versa e.g. listen to a decent radio station.


/QUOTE]

Most, if not all, UK radio stations are available on the net.

I listen mostly to R4 and Virgin (and local BBC radio for my home team's soccer games)

SUES

hi we are in the process of immigrating to Alberta, my husband is a truck driver, he has some concerns, like how many days he will have to work away from home etc. Is that what your husband didn't like, if you don't mind me asking? We have 4 children from 14-7 years how do you find the schools? How are you finding the weather, is it really cold?
We are all excited about our new lives ahead, and scared at the same time, we live in Cornwall in UK, Canada a Big place.
I would appreciate anyones experiences good or bad, who has moved for a better way of life.
Also we are taking our dog, has anyone Else took a pet and how did they handle the flight etc, A BIG WORRY he's my baby!

joeboy_UK

[QUOTE=CalgaryBlade] Yes you are right there. I listen on the net too while I wok all day, it's great. I was just using that as an example, can't get the net in my car though!