You can't eat the scenery Jobs, jobs, jobs - that's the crucial element.

The same goes for anywhere you choose to live, surely?!

I'm just suggesting that if people can be happier with lovely landscapes around them, they could move to the Yorkshire Dales.

You seem disappointed with some reality-check posts on this forum. You do need those too .....

Look, this obviously could turn into a tit-for-tat post. Maybe best left for another thread...

My intention was to offer my best wishes to Lorraine and her family.

I have to agree with Ali R, this thread was originally posted to wish Lorraine and family all the very best for the future, not as an excuse for a slanging match between people. Public forums are a great way to express the goods and bads of emigrating to another country, but they should not be used as a method of venting one's own displeasure and regret at the choice they themselves have made. For a lot of us thinking about moving to Canada from the UK it is hard enough to decide on whether it will be the right choice without the interjection of unwarranted comments, keep them constructive please.
I myself am an Ex British Serviceman who has served in Canada and who is now considering the move to this beautiful country, I have seen it in blinding sunshine and bitter cold, it is still beautiful and it has a lot to offer a young family. Life is what you make it!! no matter where you are. Throughout my 24 years as a Soldier I have served in places most people would have nightmares about, so is Canada really that bad? No it is not, I know jobs are hard to find, I know the cost of living is high, I know life isn't all about Mountains, bears, skiing and sunshine, but life goes on no matter where you are. Period!! I will continue to research the country and the pros and cons of moving there, I have booked a holiday for April 2011 and will be staying with friends in Red Deer near Calgary, I am also attending the Canada Expo in October this year. This is all part of the very important process of considering a move abroad and it is what everyone should be looking into. Don't get me wrong I love my country but the fact remains it is not a great place to be at the moment, is the new government going to sort it out? Who knows and who cares? what I will say is, that if there are people on this forum currently living in Canada who are fed up with their owe so bad lives, please contact me and let me have your visa, I will gladly take it off your hands and happily live the rest of my life in a place of natural beauty and friendliness. In return you can come back to the UK and the Yorkshire Dales. Quite frankly you are welcome to them, believe me they are not all that.

OK - this is obviously aimed at me - so I have to respond - and apologise to Lorraine G if the thread has momentarily gone off track.

Where is the slanging match please?

AliR - on her third or fourth post on this forum complained of all the doom and gloom on the forum - and that "it must be easy to be happier in a place with wonderful landscapes". Bless her - she's in the excited phase and who wouldn't be?

I merely suggested - with a winking emoticon - that you can't eat the scenery, ie, that's not enough to make you happy in a place (or not enough to make most of us happy in a place). How is that an unwarranted or not a constructive comment please?

Before you both leap in and accuse me of going "tit for tat", I would invite you to take the time to read some of my (admittedly inane) posts or read my blog for my views on my little chunk of Canada. I am a hugely easy-going, helpful member of this forum most of the time - but do take exception at your jumping-in-with-both feet tone - the pair of you. (Are you related by the way? Two newbies from Essex).

And I would have sent you private messages but you don't have enough posts yet, so I have responded on this thread - apologies again to Lorraine - and shall say no more on this particular thread.

That's OK then....

Thank you all for your good wishes and I have no problem if the thread has gone 'off topic'.

ann m is right - you face many, many 'reality checks' when you move here, not least the impact upon you and the rest of your family of moving away from friends and family that mean so much. And no matter what you read, what anyone else tells you, how much you plan etc. etc. you cannot possibly judge how you will feel and react UNTIL YOU ACTUALLY MOVE TO CANADA!

I consider us lucky, yes we had a very hard time when we first moved but we have never regretted it, it has been the right thing for us as a family. But it is not for everyone and there is no shame in that.

Anyway, we are enjoying fall at the moment and looking forward to what the winter months will bring (and busy stacking wood in preparation!)...

Once again, thank you all for your good wishes...ditto to you all...

Lorraine.