British Expats - 17 Sep - 2 Years today.

Wow, where has the time gone!

We live in Douglas, New Brunswick (about 10 mins from Fredericton) and love it here. We arrived with 3 kids and no jobs to go, but have settled in really well. I work in IT and found a job within a few weeks and Helen is working in Finance at the university - we're both enjoying our work. The kids love their school and have very small class sizes (2 of our kids have 13 in their class!) and have also made plenty of friends. The school bus picks them up outside our house and drops them off at the child minder’s house a couple of streets away, so that’s great for us. Our oldest has just started in Grade 5 with mandatory French immersion (apart from a couple of subjects) and is really enjoying that. The kids are also involved in Sparks/Guides/Cubs which they are enjoying as well.

The kids made friends very easily and it’s great that they can walk/bike to their friends houses. We’ve also made quite a few friends - European and Canadian. There is a real community feel and people are always giving and returning favours to help each other out (such as taking it turns with kids sleepovers so the parents get a night off etc) . One example is when I got a rental car stuck in the snow (didn’t realize it had all seasons on!). I walked a couple of minutes to a friends house to get some help, but by the time we returned a guy had stopped and dug the car out, put some sand beneath the wheels and was ready to tow if needed! This gave us a warm, welcoming feeling! We’ve recently joined a supper club that we’ll go every 4-6 weeks where we take in turns hosting – that was a really good night. For us, making friends was basically saying a big YES to all invitations (which Canadians seems to be very good at doing).

We love the seasons here, although we don’t really get Spring! We’ve all started to Ski and skate in winter, so actually look forward to the snow. The snow is fine for the most part, but it did take me 7 hours to shovel the drive after we received a 52cm snow bomb last year! Winter does drag on a bit, when the snow starts to melt we just want it to go, but it takes weeks! I remember cycling from work in 20c, hot and sweating while listening to the gushing of snow melt in the ditches and being surrounded by snow. Late spring/early summer is nice, but June can be annoying with the amount of black fly and mosquitoes, but bug spray and going out at the right time of day makes a difference. I found that mowing the lawn at the hottest time of day is best to avoid flies, rather than in the evening when everything seems to come out!

We’ve seen plenty of wildlife which is fun. We see dear round our streets almost everyday. We’ve also seen Bald headed Eagles, Raccoons, Porcupines, Skunks, Moose and then a couple of days ago I was a black bear cub run across the road.

We moved for adventure and a change, and we’ve certainly had it! For the most part it’s been a positive experience and we certainly intend to stay. The 17 Sep has now been designated as ‘Armstrong Day’ in our household, so we’ll do something small to celebrate every year.

Fredericton is a beautiful and clean city, and there are plenty of lovely villages and towns surrounding it. It doesn’t have the hustle and bustle and night life that the larger cities provide, so you have to decide if that’s going to be a factor. But for the size of the city there is quite a lot going on. Last night we watched Joel Plaskett and the Harvest Jazz and Blue Festival. It also takes a while to get used to the nearest (major) town being over an hour away (Saint John about 1.25 hours and Moncton 2 hours) – so you have to like it here!

Anyway, I’ve got work to do!

Colin and Helen.