In total last year we paid $2,500 for both car and house insurance. That price includes taxes etc. This year we have renewals for a total sum of $1,650, so we will be saving $850 on last year which we thought was pretty good.

I also got a call from the doctor I saw at the hospital last week. She rang to say they had studied my ultrasound further and come to the conclusion that I have two wombs, one cyst and fibroids. When I get something I don’t do it by half measures!

I still have to have the MRI just to make sure and also to see what the next stage of treatment will be. I am still in some discomfort, but not to the extent of last week. I just hope I do not have to resort to surgery.

Anyway….. the killdeer babies in our garden are growing so fast it is now hard to tell the difference between the parents and the babies. I suspect they will be leaving us soon. We still haven’t seen them actually fly yet, but it won’t be long.

The robin is still on her nest and we expect to hear the sound of cracking shells next week – can’t wait.

One of our squirrels must also have babies as she has droopy teats, poor thing. Mind you she still spends all day stuffing herself with nuts, so the poor babies must be lonely. We also caught two squirrels bonking in the garden this morning, so they are either later at breeding than the others, or just having a good time!

Ronnie the raccoon is still coming on his evening forages. If there is still plenty of food about the stays for about two hours, going through every feeder in the front and back garden.

We haven’t seen the deer for a few weeks now. I suspect that now the weather is good they have found food in the woods and won’t come to the house if they don’t have to.

Talking of weather, it has been lovely here for the past few weeks. Temps are in the mid twenties and today it was 29C. Apparently the average for this time of year is about 20C, so we are doing well so far.

My husband has bought me a lovely new camera for our wedding anniversary, which will be at the end of June. I only have one of these small pocket digital cameras and wanted something with a better zoom etc. I am really getting into photography since being in Canada. He has a really nice SLR digital but I find that too complicated. I needed something better than mine, but as easy to use. Hopefully this will be the answer – so I apologise in advance if my blog suddenly becomes a photo gallery!

We have now arranged to collect them on Monday, as by this time will have possession of our house so we can take them straight there.

A big sign of relief all round. We just hoe everything is in good condition when we collect. The amount of stress the baggage company caused us yesterday was totally unacceptable. Also, their couldn’t care less attitude really annoyed us.

After this we had to take our new Ontario driving licences to our insurance broker, so he could have copies on file. It was pouring of rain today, exactly as it had been on Monday when we saw him last. He and his secretary blamed us for bringing bad weather with us and asked us not to visit again! They thought it was really funny.

After this errand, we drove over to Prince Edward County to see our realtor who sold us the house. We parked our new truck outside and walked in and both of them went into minor hysterics at seeing us. There were hugs all round and lots of catching up. They really are lovely people and we hope to keep in touch with them both for a long time to come. They have invited us out for dinner once we are settled in our house. Obviously this sort of hospitality and friendship would happen with estate agents in the UK too…NOT!!!!!

After this we drove across the island to Picton where there is another furniture store, but we didn’t find anything we liked.

Next back to Quinte Mall and spend the next two hours in Sears. We sat on every sofa, laid on every bed and opened a lot of freezers!

We have now found a really nice and comfy mattress and a great sleigh bed (when in Canada) and have ordered them. They should be delivered in a week or so.

Now at least we will have something to sleep on once we leave the hotel in just over two weeks, just have to find everything else now!

So far, so good.

We arrived at the lawyers at 9.40am for our 10am appointment. The lawyers secretary is an expat who emigrated here three years ago. We had a good chat about moving to a new country and got the low-down on where to shop etc.

When the lawyer arrived we went into another room and he went through all the paperwork we needed to sign in order to take possession of our house. We must have signed 30 sheets of paper. We will be able to pick up our keys on Friday.

We left the lawyers about 10.45 and as the rain had stopped we decided to walk back up to the hotel and on the way collect our new vehicle. We got to the garage at around 11.45 and had to wait for the sales guy to finish with another customer. Another sales guy gave us the keys to the truck so we could have a look round. After ten minutes or so, our sales guy was available and he went through all the paperwork, gave is details of the recovery service and then took us to the car to show us how everything worked.

By this time it was raining again, so he told us to come back when it was dry to go through the exterior stuff and the boring things like the engine etc. The truck is very nice and shiny and the interior is nice and the seats very comfortable. I think it will do us just fine. We left the Ford garage at 1.20 for our 1.30 appointment with our insurance broker.

We met the insurance broker and he went through all the details of our car and house insurance. We paid him the required sums of money and left about half hour later.

Next it was off to get our Ontario driving licenses. When we arrived it was quite busy and we had to wait in a queue for about 20 mins. When we were seen, the woman took our UK licenses, filled in some paperwork, got us to complete a questionnaire regarding our driving history and sign some documents. We had to complete a sight test by looking down a tube thing (a bit like a pair of binoculars) and saying what numbers we could see and then which eye we could see lights flashing. We then had our pics taken and were given a temporary paper license. This is valid for a maximum of three months, by which time we should have our proper Ontario licenses. Each license cost $75.

After doing this we went to see our house. Because it is not ours till Friday, we could only drive by and be reminded of what it looks like. All the trees and shrubs etc look much greener than when we saw it in April. Can’t wait to get possession.

By this time we were hungry, so we went to Kelsey’s for dinner. Whilst we were there the rain started again with a vengeance. We had thunder, lightening and short power interruptions. After this we went back to the hotel to settle for the night. Trouble is there is no internet connection. Apparently the storm has knocked it out, so I will be posting this when we get back online.

A very productive day!

Giving the baggage company a ring tomorrow to come and collect everything. They will then have to weigh everything and come back to us with a final cost. We estimate about £1200 + insurance.

Also, we have another offer on our house, higher than the previous offer. We are not celebrating yet though as we know from past experience that things can go wrong, so we will have to wait and see if all goes through ok.

We sent them the lease forms, our passport and visa details, info relating to our house purchase and mortgage approval from HSBC Canada. We also sent details of our UK driving licenses and just about everything else except our DNA, although we did suggest that they could get that from CHC if they needed it!!

After three weeks of going backwards and forwards, chasing emails and phone calls that were not returned, they finally came back and declined our finance. The reason they gave was we have no SIN number, as we were not Canadian citizens. AAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH. As this fact was obvious from the outset, we were a little cheesed off to say the least.

After moping around for a day feeling sorry for ourselves, we thought back to our visit to Ontario in April. We had visited the Ford dealership just down from our hotel and had a lengthy conversation with the sales guy about a new Ford Explorer Sport Trac they had. Chris liked the idea of owning a real North American truck and so we had a look round it etc. However, we had somewhat dismissed this idea as we felt the truck might be a little over-the-top for us.

Due to being rejected from Suzuki, we contacted the Ford guy, explained that we would be interested in the Sport trac and asked him to send details of delivery times and costs etc. He came back pretty quickly saying he had one in stock and could offer us a $4k discount. We then broached the subject of leasing and he, like the Suzuki guy said it should not be a problem.

He sent us a leasing form, which was very basic and only asked for our address, salary and reference details. We completed this and gave our HSBC Premier Account manager as a reference and faxed it back last night.

I then contacted our HSBC manager and warned him that he may get a call from Ford over the coming days, he replied an hour later to say they had just contacted him – very fast. We heard nothing more last night, but to be fair it was getting late by this time.

Tonight, we got an email from Ford to say that our finance had been approved and when did we want to collect the truck. To say we were shocked is an understatement. Suzuki took three weeks to faff around and say no, Ford came back in less than two days with a yes, based on far less info than we sent to the others.

So, we are now able to collect our brand new truck on arrival in Belleville in three weeks time!

We now have our house and car sorted!

Oh, the bad news is that the people who made an offer on our UK house have pulled out. Don’t you just love the UK real estate trade! This would not happen in Canada.

So we are back to square one with the house sale. At least they pulled out almost immediately and not right at the last minute.

By the way, we have been quoted $1,440 to insure the Ford, which we didn’t think was too bad considering all the horror stories we have heard from others.