Exciting News

I am so excited as last night I received an e-mail from CARNA the nursing regulating body in Calgary to say that they have now forwarded all my documentation to be processed!

Although it may not seem like a big thing to most, for us its another step forward towards our new life in Canada!!!!!

Ice Skating at Deeside Today

We've just got back from our third session ice skating and it certainly felt a lot better with just 1 fall each! The pictures below may not give the impression that we are nearly experts, but believe me, one more session and Torville and Dean had better watch out!! (well maybe we're being a little optimistic). Either way we're looking forward to all those frozen ponds and lakes!

This is the only picture of Nige where he doesn't look as if he's about to fall. He claims that is because most of the time he was skating too fast and that his mum, Pam (our photographer for the day) had forgotten her glasses. We believe you!

This was a friend of ours Misja who came to give us a few pointers!

I personally couldn't understand what all the fuss was about!!!

Operation - Alberta Sports!

We had noticed both in our research and our recent recce trip just how many outdoor activities there are in Canada.

I play a lot of sports here so was really looking forward to trying out some new activities in Calgary. Sophie on the other hand has always said that she gets tired just watching sports, let alone doing them!!! When we decided that we were going to move we knew we had to embrace the lifestyle and decided to get a head start before we arrived.

We wanted to become fairly confident with a few things before we moved, mainly so we didn't look stupid, but also so it would give us a way of meeting new people and socializing. First on our list was roller blading or in-line skating, whichever you prefer! Both of us had done roller skating as children but hadn't done any since, so off to the local sports shop we went to purchase a pair of in-line skates and protection kits, which we understand are compulsory in Alberta.

(Can I note now that we didn't get matching ones on purpose!!)

We are currently only practising under the cover of darkness to reduce the risk of ridicule from the neighbours, that is until we get to a reasonable standard (hopefully)!

Next on our list was ice skating. We had both been as children again, but also a couple of times since we met nearly 9 years ago, however again, neither of us had been for at least 5 years so we weren't quite sure what to expect. We decided to go on one night (Saturday - Ice Disco!) and thankfully there is no visual evidence of the event from Sophie's point of view as she'd managed to spend most of her time in a heap on the ice. Very elegant! I was also worse than I remembered, but only had one fall, however this was at high speed avoiding two teens heavy petting on the ice!! Sophie's knees were black and blue the following morning from the number of times she had fallen and we were still finding bruises two days later!! We had been told by one of the stewards that the best thing to do was to buy your own skates as the ones that you hire are really poor quality to learn on (that's what we thought). So two days later and after a fair amount of time on the web we bought 2 pairs of ice skates. (I won't bore you with another picture!) We have now been once more and have dramatically improved, with a minimal fall count!!

Last on our list was Skiing or in my case snowboarding. Now for me this was completely new, but Sophie had been for a weeks skiing whilst in school so was quietly confident on the skis. We looked at lots of different options but decided to do the days learning course at the snow dome, Tamworth in the Midlands. That way we would be on real snow and would get it over in one day.

Well what can I say, I spent most of my time on my bottom, although I am assured that all snowboarders start off like this.

(I'm the one in the red and black. I think this video was taken later

on in the day as I appear to be doing ok!)

Sophie on the other hand took to it like a duck to water being able to use her past experience and really improved as the day went on.

So after a fantastic but very tiring day I had picked up the basics and Sophie had made real progress and we are both looking forward to getting on the slopes in Canada.

We are going to try and go every couple of weeks to build up our confidence and skills but will be ice skating once a week and roller skating as much as we can during the week. We'll keep you posted on our progress.

A Paperwork Update

As I am sure you are aware the date on which we move is completely reliant on the date on which our paperwork is all completed.

As far a Nige's goes, he is just waiting for the formal job offer in writing to come through, then he will formally accept it (much like the UK), the company will then sort out the Labour Market Opinion (LMO - basically meaning there are no Canadians available to fulfil the position) and only then can the application for a work permit begin. He spoke to the company earlier in the week who informed him that his details had been given to HR for them to complete the job offer, then send out to Nige. Well, we still haven't heard anything but we'll keep you posted.

As far as I go, before I can be offered a job formally I have to gain nurse registration with CARNA, Alberta's regulating body. In order to get this I had to gather obscene amounts of paperwork from my own governing body, university and previous employers. I have now received confirmation either written or verbal that this has all now been sent off. It takes around 2 months (hopefully no more) for all of this to be processed before getting the job offer, then they will apply for a work permit on my behalf (hopefully, from what we can gather, this will be quicker than doing it personally).

So we are still on track if not as quickly as we would like!

Recce Trip to Calgary, 28/9 - 5/10 2008

Our week in Calgary and our first in Canada EVER!

This trip was made to give ourselves an insight into Calgary as we were intending to emmigrate to the city in early 2009, having never visited before, or even the country.

With Sophie already having a job offer with the Alberta Health Region, it would hopefully prove a good opportunity for me to try and find work myself, or at least make some contacts. We also wanted to try and set up a bank account, visit friends of ours, look into property and areas to live aswell as having a day out to what would be our new backyard, The Rockies!


So, above is a picture of us on our way from Manchester to Calgary with just a few hours until we land and when we did, we were greeted with bright blue skies and a temperature of 18c. The weather would be very kind to us all week, topping out at a record of 27c!


This is our hire car that we picked up at Calgary Airport which we upgraded to, a Dodge Charger! A little bit of overkill for what we needed, but proved to be very comfortable for the 700km+ driving we did. This was taken in the car park for the Banff Gondola, from where you can see part of the Rockies and also the beautiful autumn colours, without a whisp of cloud in the sky! More to come from here.

Once we'd got the car we drove into the city to find our hotel in Downtown, The Sandman. The hotel was well located, although I did manage to drive down the Tram line (7th Avenue), followed quickly by a trip down a one way street in the wrong direction! Soon got used to it and driving in and out of the city was quite straightforward. The hotel itself was o.k. and the food in Moxies downstairs was excellent and reasonably priced. After settling in at the hotel, we drove to the South West of the city to visit an ex' work colleague of mine and his wife, Haydn and Deedee, who relocated here approx' 6 years ago with their two girls. We had plenty of questions for them and after a superb steak for dinner, they were more than happy to help us anyway they could and we got an itinerary set up for the week ahead. Once again, a big thank you to you both!

On the Monday, we basically got a feel for the city and got our bearings aswell as having a look around a few of the shopping malls etc. Tuesday, we decided would be our 'Tourist' day when we set off for Banff and Lake Louise. Some of the following pictures are awesome, but still don't do the scenery justiceThe drive to Banff.


$19 for entry to the Banff National Park. Money very well spent!


A glacier in the foreground!

Our first view of the fantastic and breathtaking Lake Louise!

Nige's arty shot at Lake Louise. This place is simply stunning!

On the Banff Gondola, going up!

The magnificent Banff Springs hotel below us and Banff in the background.

On the Gondola, overlooking Banff.

Sophie enjoying both the views and the weather.

Wow!

Some of the friendly locals above and below.

The Bow falls in Banff.

Banff high street.

The week also gave Nige time to visit prospective employers and after speaking with a few, he was even happy to fly over on a Spousal's Open Work Permit via my job with the Calgary Health Region before actually having work in place as the opportunities are everywhere! However, after he visited the company of our friend Haydn, Enerflex, he was told that they could offer him a job if he was interested, which of course he was. After discussing it that night back at the hotel, Nige phoned Enerflex the following morning to discusss it further and now he is waiting for their formal Job Offer!

We also took the opportunity to look at some properties in Okotoks (south of the city, but we felt too much of a commute for us with our prospective employers) and in the southern half of the city, namely the communities of Evergreen, Somerset, Chapparal, Cranston, Auburn Bay etc. Evergreen appealed to us the most and you can get a detached 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 1800+sqft home with attached double garage for anything from $400k CAD up (approx' £200k GBP). On top of this, there will also be a basement which once converted, can add up to 45% more living space for that all important pool table, gym or bar, aswell as an extra bedroom and bathroom! Unfortunately, due to no credit rating in Canada, we will need to rent initially for approx' 6 months to build this up so we will be renting something similar to the above for about $1750-2000 CAD/calendar month. Sounds good to us, although not cheap, with our improved salaries, it should be fine financially!

We also managed to set up a bank account with CIBC which should help as this process continues.

A little bit of background information for those who are not up to date with our situation:

In May of this year Nige found out he is being made redundant in early 2009, as the factory in which he works is closing down. This news had been expected for sometime so he took it as an opportunity for change rather than the loss of his job. We have discussed for many years working abroad but we had never really agreed on where we could go. With Niges' brother and family in Australia it had appealed to him, but the distance for me had been too far. I on the other hand had always loved America but Nige, although he had enjoyed holidays, had never really wanted to live there. Canada had never really been somewhere I had considered but Nige had spoken to many people that had holidayed' there, all of whom only had positive things to say.

Nigel looked into the possibility of us going out there to work and did some research on the opportunities for us, both work wise and with the lifestyle. The positive response from this prompted us to pursue the idea more closely. I still had reservations myself however, having just settled into a new job as a community nurse in Ellesmere as well as just getting the house re-decorated how I'd always wanted.

After joining the expats site http://www.britishexpats.com/ we found out that our quickest option would be to get a secure job offer then apply for temporary work permits. We got info about the Canadian Expo in Leeds in June, so we booked our tickets. The expo was informative but not really as much as either of us had hoped. It was smaller than we had imagined with no real representatives for the type of industry Nige wanted. I however, went to have a quick chat with someone from the Alberta Health region, and after a quick interview was told that as soon as I was registered with CARNA (the College and Association of Registered Nurses in Alberta) they would be able to offer me a job and would help with my work permit application and would also be able to offer Nige a permit in order to get a job. I'm sure Nige felt a bit down hearted although he wouldn't have admitted it, as both of us had only really gone looking for a job for him.

Due to my apprehension, I decided to book a hotel for the night for just the two of us so we could discuss the situation, with no distractions.

The break away in the Cotswolds provided us with the time needed to come to the decision to give Canada a chance, as if we didn't, we would probably regret it. We also decided that we'd rent our house out instead of selling up, just in case things didn't work out.

I discussed the situation with my work who were really supportive, and my manager who had worked in Canada for 6 months, even gave me advise with various aspects of the application for registration, which was sent off in September.

We were also very lucky that someone who Nige used to work with Haydn, had been living in Calgary for about 6 years with his wife Deedee and two daughters and we got in touch with them to gain more information about living and working in Canada. We both decided that in order to think seriously about moving to another country, we needed to have been there (which we hadn't) so we booked to go on a weeks recce trip.

We left on the 28th September and arrived home yesterday. The trip consisted of a day being tourists then 6 days doing research, Nige visiting potential employers (which led to a job offer), looking round houses, opening a bank account and endless question answering for Haydn and Deedee (for which we are very grateful!) I will post more details and photos from the trip later, but suffice to say it's cemented our decision and we just want to get out there as soon as possible. Estate agent is booked for tomorrow morning and today I have been chasing up documentation requests for my CARNA registration. Watch this space!