Hi BE forum,

I have posted on the introductory site, but thought I'd better give a bit of background before asking my question.

My partner and I, along with our 4yr old son, are going through the PNP route and are planning to end up in Hants County, NS. I have been perusing this site for ages and have been a little tentative to start posting as some of you guys are ruthless, albeit pretty funny. However, I have yet to be on the receiving end of such acerbic wit.

Our current position is that we have received nomination, sent all the relevant documentation to Sydney and are now waiting and waiting and waiting for London. We have done a recce and lots of research, but realise this is never the same as actually living somewhere.

I am currently a teacher and my partner works as a PCSO and Union rep for the police. Before you start flexing your typing fingers, we know there are no jobs in those fields, but neither of us want to continue in our current careers either. As a teacher, that would be a whole new thread on its own and would break practically every site rule that I've just read.

Anyway, at the risk of rambling to the point, if any of you are still with me I would be really interested in knowing if any of you are living in or have knowledge of the Elmsdale or Enfield area of Nova Scotia and what the schools, community, travelling to Halifax and general day to day living is like there. As we have a four year old we really want to be somewhere that has a community feel, as he is an only child and likely to remain so. Unbelievably, he gets bored of our company and so I feel it only fair to give him the opportunity to talk to children who know far more about the importance of riding a bike, sledging and how you can avoid having a bath.

Any comments would be appreciated (even the sarcastic ones). I have loads more questions, but thought I'd dip my toe in the Atlantic water with this one.

Thanks for reading.

Maplease

Easy. Most Canadian homes have showers.

hi, we live in Lantz which is near Elmsdale. I work down by exit 0 on the 102 and my travelling time is 40 mins roughly which is fine.
Its a really lovely area. My two children play outside a lot - 7 and 4 years and have lots of pals in our road.
There is a wildlife park up the road (which I am sure you already know about) and all the elementary schools in the area are excellent.
Theres a real community feel, we went to the local church for a pancake supper on pancake day and we dont really go to church (only on Christmas eve). It was good fun.
We have a new sportsplex which a great ice-rink - indoor - that you can use and indoor football pitches and a running track.
Its a good spot for beaches south and north, we frequent the South Shore and Melmerby in New Glasgow equally.
Our neighbours are great and everyone looks out for each others children.
There is a pool close by which isnt great (but they all seem to be like that - a bit old and tired) but we have our own in the summer. Theres space here.

Hope this helps

Thanks Howefamily. Great information.

JonBoyE, you're one of those funny ones, aren't you? I think you and my four year old would have lots to talk about. What is your view on nose picking? To eat or not to eat?

'Snot a nice question.

<sorry its Friday afternoon and like summer out there in March>

We're building a house in Grand Lake, which is not far from Enfield, but not in Hants County. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
My kids are 5 (in 2 weeks) and 6.


All the best.

Not living there but own a house there. It is nice and you have everything within easy reach without being in a city... Won't mention any names but some of the neighbours are quite nice too!!!

What is your motivation for moving from the UK?

Hants county is a very laid back place to live and it has a very good community feel to it . I have lived here for 3 years after moving over here from Blackburn.(my wife is canadian and i came over on a family visa ).Day to day living is less stressful than England .You have close acess to the supermarkets Sobeys and Atlantic Superstore and you are about half an hour from Halifax .The houses in the area are mainly dupelx (semi detatched) or detatched and are in sub divisions .THey tend to have more land and bigger square footage than british houses

Thanks so much for your responses. Really useful.

Oink, in answer to your question I/we have a myriad of reasons. When I first met my partner (close to 19 years ago) he was being posted to Canada for 6 months but, for various reasons, never went. He has never liked living in the UK and has always been trying to get me to move to Spain, which isn't somewhere I can picture myself living. I have been to Canada four times and he twice, and we both really liked it. Although, I realise living there is somewhat different.

Neither, as I previously mentioned, like our careers. We are looking at starting up our own business and buying a house that enables us to be mortgage free. We are still toying with lots of ideas as to what we can do, but are trying to research what we feel the area could do with (I'm sure I've left myself wide open to some dodgy comments there!)

My partner is of the 'I hate the UK, chavs etc etc' school of thought, which has come about from dealing with them on a day to day basis. However, he isn't naive enough to know there aren't similar problems in Canada. We don't feel it is quite so prevalant though. We live in a village at the moment, which we really like. However, we do feel that every time you leave it you are faced with some real social problems that just feel so much worse than they did even five years ago. Being in education, I have noticed a massive difference in the students and, even worse, in their parents.

There are lots of things I love about the UK and I know I will find difficult to leave behind. There are aspects of Britain that you can never recreate or find elsewhere, but (and I think the most important reason for us) we have the 'itch'. We just want to give it a go. We have both decided that we will go with the intention/mindset of it being a permanent move. Although, we have said that once we have citizenship for ourselves and our son, we will decide if we are content and it is for us. If it isn't, we take the financial hit and move on, but at least we will have tried it and our son will always have the option of returning (isn't choice what makes life more agreeable).

I know I may be about to get a complete influx of 'you have rose tinted glasses' type comments, and they could be right. This could be the biggest mistake of my life. I read a thread recently about someone who had been through an awful time and how they wouldn't have coped without their family around and it is incredibly sobering to empathise with that predicament. We just feel we want to try.

I am now taking a deep breath and waiting for the onslaught to commence. However, I will be doing it whilst eating cheese and drinking reasonably priced wine (I told you I'd done my research).

You seem to be doing OK onslaught wise - Just dont mention working on the "grip" or getting something accidentaly for free out of Walmart

It sounds as if you have a fairly balanced and educated perspective so its probably just matter of time and paperwork. Good luck.


As a side note, I'm sort of in education both here and in the UK and while I don't deal with parents everyday, I haven't found that the pupils have changed much in the last 15 or so years apart from their proficiency with communications technology. As for parents, you get stroppy ones everywhere.