Thoughts After Recce.
 

We have returned after our weeks recce to Calgary and thought we would place our thoughts down.
So please find below our views, you may not agree with all or any of it but it was our experience and some may find it of help.

Firstly houses, we see why a lot of people in the uk head to Okotoks it is a reasonably, small town and has all the facilities you would want. Airdrie we liked as well. Cochrane has probably the prettist high street we saw but the massive factory, i think a lumber mill, in the middle put us off. We also looked around the new outskirts of Calgary a lot are still beinging built but they are all built of the same plan, same house different colour, shopping mall on corner, it became quite depressing. So for us Okotoks came tops.

You cannot compare houses, as Canadian ones are so much better and value for money, we feel in the uk it is how many bedroom you have is better, Canada all about living space.

Jobs, wife is a nurse, our meeting at hospital never happened as they werent told we were coming and they couldnt give us 10mins of their time, nothing different to the uk. Outside Calgary main hospitals we had much better experience, we arranged that all ourselves and through contacts made here. Again overall work/life balance in Canada seemed better.

After all this we are still unsure we have until March 2010 to apply for WP I think if i could get a job sorted we would go, wife isnt to happy she would be working and i would be at home.

We can see long term benefits of the move but still its a massive gamble with 2 young kids, our lives here arent terrible but may suffer in the next few years, due to more travelling.

It would mean a complete change of lifestyle from chase promotions and working hard. To working and enjoying your spare time. I know it sounds a no brainer but once you have to give up your job its amazing how much you enjoy the pressure, most days. Canadians seem so laid back sometimes it becomes a little frustration, we seem more used to getting things done and needing/wanting answers.

Again above is our thoughts and opinion so you might not agree.

Re: Thoughts After Recce.
 

Hi there, we are going through the very same proces. My husband has applied to calgary police and managed to secure a job, I am a nurse looking for work and we have three children we want to bring over with us. Getting nursing registration with CARNA is a long and complicated process- have you managed that already? We also were giong to look at okotocks and cochranewith a view to settling there. Did you look at schools we have boys of 6, 11 & 11 years old. Which hospitals did you go to, I have sent off my CV to alberta nursing website only to be told come back with your registration, I work in critical care and there were no jobs advertised in this specialty on websites. We have ben told that there is a shortage but they do notseem that keen despite all the adverts in nursing times!
Good luck to you all anyway and thanks for the insight.
regards Rugbymum.