That must be awkward. You might get the prescriptions mixed up.

Or worse.

So I'm going to take a different stance to others in a been there, done that experience. My first post on here was expressing my very strong doubts (you can search for it if you want). Having initially been the driving force in moving to Canada, it was my idea, by the time the idea was coming to fruition I had totally changed tack and was deeply sad about what I was giving up. However, my husband really wanted to come, and so the decision was based on to fulfil his needs or mine.

In a situation like this, for me I felt like I needed to let him have this. I wondered how I'd feel if I had been the one to vetoe something I had never experienced years down the line, if the shoe was on the other foot.

So we moved about two years ago. I keep meaning to do a Canniversary post but I'm too busy to collect my thoughts. It has been, at times, a very traumatic move. I've had some episodes of terrible homesickness which have been nearly disabling at times. I say episodes because that's what they've been, just episodes, most of the time I have been happy here. I would say looking at it objectively two years later that we made the right choice to move. My husband's work life balance being in the same line of work as Stinky is heads and tails better than the UK. The stress he used to be under was impacting heavily on our family as was the lack of time he spent with the kids and us.

Here, he is actively involved with all their sports, gets to spend way more time with them. We spend a lot more time as a family actively doing things together whether it's skiing, toboganning, ice skating, water sports in the summer etc.

I wouldn't know how much I would love it here unless I tried though, but the caveats I would add in are if you do give it a go are , DO NOT buy a house here regardless of whether you need to sell back in the UK, and do give yourself enough time to make a decision based on enough time to settle in. I think two or three years is enough time to get over homesickness, start to find some friends and look at things without a haze of emotion.

We recently made a trip back to the UK, I wouldn't want to move back to where we used to live now despite my rose coloured memories of the place. It was small and dirty and noisy. My husband's former work colleagues are even more stressed than when we left, one doesn't see his kids for days in a row and the rain, my god the rain...

Hope that helps a little..

The receptionists and the typing pool.

I'm going back about 25 years here but keeping the typing pool happy was critical. I travelled a lot then. No way did I need all my duty free allowances. The girls got their cheap perfume/cigs. My typing always got done first.

Never experienced a typing pool, the nearest it came was a shared printer. While fags were never much of a currency as they were ridiculously cheap in the US, bottles of duty free booze funnelled to maintenance and janitorial staff made and still make for a more comfortable environment. Its the logic my nan taught me, tip/reward accordingly to those who can do you the most harm.

So, were are narrowing your nan's identity down to Sun Tzu, Petrarch, Machiavelli or Michael Corleone?

Either you are lot older than I thought, or you worked in very traditional-to-the-point-of-being-10-years-behind-the-times organisations. Typing pool? You are Reggie Perrin AICMFP.

I am going back to the early/mid-1990s here!

Things have changed a bit since then.

You have minded me of a conversation I had with my MD earlier this week, largely as a result of my missus' obsession with business continuity planning and disaster recovery. It's her field these days.

I asked the boss how badly we'd be affected if the building burned down. The simple answer was, basically, not at all. Our tangible assets are negligible and the important stuff is backed-up in some bunker hundreds of miles away, which is also backed-up.

Not having a physical mailing address for a little while could be an annoyance but that's about it.

To answer another point. I'm not yet 53 (not quite yet!). I just look older. I always did. Lifestyle choices...........

Blimey. Our typing 'pool' - all one and a half of them - was long gone by then.

Must have been your industry/organisation then. I started work in 1990 and the typing pool was dead and buried by then at least in my part of the automotive industry. Secretaries went shortly after.

I've posted this before, our first email system was "Wang Office". Cue much hilarity .... "I'll wang you" etc.


Quite. Souvy must have worked for a really old school company!

As to the above, you would be less than human if you did not have some collywobbles.

As to work-fife balance that will vary depending on the industry, your employer and your position with the employer. It is very difficult to generalize. If you have in-demand skills you will be in a much better position to negotiate.

Also, a happy wife means a happy life (as she keeps telling me).

Firstly thank you all for you responses. I was hoping for a variety of views across the spectrum so thank you.

I thought I'd try and reply to some of the questions to give some greater context with the hope of getting some more opinions on the matter. Apologies if I fail to address everything;

The plan is to move to Alberta, particular somewhere outside of Calgary (i.e. within an hour commute). I been over the Canada three times now and experienced a winter, summer and Autumn so I have a feel for the place. My wife has lived in Canada for a number of year in her late teens working as a nanny and then as a genuine cow girl on a ranch. This purpose of her work then was to allow her to see Alberta at least and do some general exploring. In short while I think exploring more of Canada would be a benefit it's certainly not the reason for us moving and with two young kids I think in the short term the amount of exploring may be a bit limited. There's no quick way to sum it up but my wife feel in love with the place during her time there and has always wanted to go back.

My career is in procurement. I was reading through some other posts last night and I saw one from a "Chrisbrough88" who seemed to be having almost identical concerns and worked in procurement. I've been in this career for almost 16 years and am 35. I have a good salary in excess of £40k with experience across both the public and private sector. I've had a few rubbish jobs over the years but I really do love this job I currently have which is adding an extra dilemma. I've only been in the role for just over a year but everything seems to be going extremely well with the management team being very happy with what am delivering.

Ideally when moving to Calgary I'd like a job that wasn't tied to the oil industry. Probably sounds like madness to some but that industry doesn't appeal to me at all. Currently scouting out other potential sectors that would be of interest but I do like Public Sector work. For me personally I just find it more fulfilling.

The point you raised about living in paradise but not having the time to enjoy it is a real concern that I have. I was speaking to my wife about all the things I'd like to continue to do when we move over. i.e. Play football to meet new people, find other interested in regular badminton, seek out other interested in boardgames, again to meet new people. I got me thinking how am I going to do all this and have the family time with potentially far less time off. Never mind trying to keep in touch with friend and family back home. Hence the doubts started to creep in

Yes we meet the points criteria for the FSW programme without even needing a job offer. It helped that Procurement was introduced as one of the skills on the eligible list. pretty much just the medicals left at this stage. As the reality is getting closer though I've found my mind becoming very focussed on everything we have here. In short I think our life, while pretty difficult with our young baby who loves to cry a lot, is pretty damn good. I can also see a number of positives for us on the horizon which are all very achievable and will make a big difference to our quality of life. With Canada am just seeing the unknown and risk. I do have a good grasp of all the positives Canada and in particular Alberta has to offer but it's struggling to tip my scale when measured against what we have in the UK and in particular the work situation. Which lets admit it, time wise dominates a large portion of our life whether we like it or not!. But at this point the Canada option is very much unknown, and I just keep thinking this could be the best thing or the worse ever. Being slightly risk adverse it's easy to stick with what I've got and not take a risk.

One of the considerations I've had is that as I understand, in order to get PR status we would need to be there for 3 out of the first 5 years. My thinking was this gives me time to find a job and move. If we can have three years out there, the even if we want move back to the UK we could potentially come back at any point in the future should be decide to, effectively giving ourselves an open door.

The main concern I have here is loosing the current job I have to move across and not being able to get an equivalent job again. I have to admit am a little negative on this point as I enjoy my current job a lot and I've had such a bad experience with a number of previous jobs so am slightly burnt on this point.

We have friends here who have kids who can baby sit but nothing free unfortunately. My parents are brilliant to be fair and have help out a lot but they live in Cheshire so the distance prevents them being free to help on a regular basis. My wife parents don't help at all. In short we deal with most things on our own so not having friends and family wouldn't be too much of an issue. We also have some excellent friends in Calgary who I know would be able to help us out with occasional baby sitting duties. It really doesn't worry me too much this particular aspect. It more about having the time enjoy life.

Apologies for my ramblings and the length of the post but hopefully this give some greater context to some concerns. I can't imagine am the only one to have ever had these worries. It's just really good to get other people direct experience.

I must admit though I appreciate the short and obvious answer as to whether I'd prefer Canada to the UK is to simply try it!

My head hurts!

David

Thanks for your response. Thats some really useful experience you've shared. Hoping to see a few more of these positive experience post. Assuming we do go I'd be looking to stick it out for at least three years before I'd then decided enough was enough as I fully expect if we do go that we'd both be having our ups and downs along the way!

Everything in Calgary is tied to O&G in one way or another...

Friend of mine told me the other day that the GM dealership he works for let go of 2 mechanics and 2 service advisors...

I agree it was a great post that she posted. We love it here but life isnt always a bed of roses and we both wanted to be here with no reservations - I wanted to give you a balanced opinion from Stinky the realist not Stinky the optimist with rosy coloured glasses on. We have good, well paid jobs here but not everyone can be in that position

I could be really positive if that's what you want. Loved it from day 1, never had any of the homesickness that Tirytory talks about. Made some great friends straight away, kids loved their schools, and after 12 years here have turned into lovely young men with a strong work ethic to go along with their love of sports. But just because it suits me, it doesn't mean it would suit everyone. We both wanted to come equally, after 18 years in one company I was ready for a change and needed a kick to make me do it, and it was a job offer for my husband that brought us over here, so obviously he was keen. Even though it has been a great move for us, it has not been easy at times and I can't imagine how those times would have gone if one of us had not been 100% committed to the move.

I feel for you, I really do, as its clear from your posts that you are trying to do the right thing. Trouble is, there is no right answer.