Diablo ²°°²

Thankyou for your informative reply to my last post.

I am very interested to hear of your experiences in Canada and it's
comparisons to the UK.

I have been in touch with a Hairdressing Salon 30 mins from Barrie, Ontario.
I explained that I have 17 years experience and I explained that I went to
College and have City & Guilds in Hairdressing. They have expressed some
interest and I have arranged to go in for a chat when I'm there this summer.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure Canada recognise City & Guilds
qualifications as proof of my skills, I did have a brief look at what
qualifications are required and I seem to recall College Training as one of
them. However, I would be prepared to do the Ontario course to get
accredited, but it does seem a waste of time and money.

As for the Police, my husband has been in touch via e-mail with a Police
Trainer ( my sister-in-law has contacts within the Ontario Police,
luckily!), he is prepared to re-train, and has been informed that some areas
he may be able to "fast track", he only completed his 2 years training in
the UK Police 8 months ago, so at least he isn't going to be throwing years
of experience away.

I did notice that houses got smaller and more expensive the nearer you got
to Toronto. We would be looking in the Barrie area, we have a Real Estate
guy sending us information on houses in our current price range. Barrie
homes are steadily rising and it's starting to become a fairly popular place
to live apparently (info from my sis-in-law), but house prices are
relatively low compared to Toronto and nearby. We wouldn't necessarily want
a house right on the lake, but within a 20 min walking distance would be
cool, we would like an older style house, maybe in downtown Barrie.

I suppose I didn't meet enough Canadians to make a true assessment of how
laid back they are. I must admit it doesn't sound like you get enough time
off for your holiday in Canada, am I correct it's 2 weeks a year? God knows
what I'll do with my kids in the 10 weeks summer holidays if this is the
case!

I'm definitely going to check out Toronto Zoo on your recommendation, we did
Wonderland last summer, luckily we got in a bit cheaper because it was
"Italian Day", even though we're not Italian! We had to queue for everything
for ages, but it was worth it. I loved barbequing, eating out and all the
takeaways, I was in my element! Enjoyed Niagara, of course.

The majority of people I have spoken to in UK are absolutely panic stricken
at the thought of snow for more than a week! I am not one of those people
and you have reassured me about the Canadian winters, as you say, I will get
used to it.

I'm happy to accept that financially, we probably won't be any better off!
It's going to cost a fortune to move all our stuff, support ourselves until
we can find work and buy new stuff for our house in Canada (electrical goods
etc). I suppose we could go for a smaller house and have a really low
mortgage if that, or go for a similar size mortgage to what we have now and
use our equity to have a spacious house, something that's out of our reach
here in the South East of England! I agree with you that the summer in
Canada is fantastic, we used to go to France every year for our holiday,
then we found Canada, that says it all!

Thanks again for taking the time to answer all my questions, any more info
you have is greatly appreciated.

I've also heard Glasgow has great shops and nightlife, I have yet to visit
unfortunately.

Diablo ²°°²

Sorry, see this reply under the original thread!!