On Sunday our daughter Stacey and her girlfriend Amy were due to arrive from the UK for a long-awaited two week trip. On Sunday morning we started the day with a phone call to my aunt and uncle in Spain who seem as excited as us regarding our visitors although I think they wish it was them coming here. Soon I hope!

Anyway, we set off for Toronto having looked on the web at traffic conditions to see everything was moving great and with it being a Sunday we hoped it would stay that way. Well, traffic was great up until we got right into Toronto on the 401 when it stopped. Apparently there is construction along the route and lanes were closed and everything was getting snarled up. At one point we were only a few km’s from the airport but at a total standstill and wondering if we would ever get there.

Stacey & Amy’s plane was due in at 5:10 and we eventually got to the airport just before this. We knew it would probably take them an hour to get through customs so had plenty of time in the end, especially as the plane actually landed at 5:22. As it was they didn’t come through arrivals till 7:10. We were beginning to wonder if they were even on the plane!  Lots of hugs and kisses and we were finally all reunited and ready for the long drive home. Although traffic was congested on the way home we didn’t encounter too many delays and got home late evening. After a little more chatting we all went to bed exhausted.

Monday rain was forecast all day and as the girls were still a little tired we decided to pop into Belleville, especially as Amy had never been before so Stacey wanted to show her the lay of the land. We also went grocery shopping for things the girls wanted. The rest of the day was spend just chatting and general stuff.

On Tuesday more rain was forecast which put paid to our plan of going to Toronto Zoo. So instead we went to Kingston for a little shopping and a drive round the city and a scenic route drive home.

The weather for Wednesday was again rain for Belleville and Toronto, so we decided to go east to Ottawa for the day. Stacey had loved Ottawa last time she was here and was eager to show Amy all the sights. We took the scenic route via highway 7 and encountered showers, but by the time we got to the city it was warm and dry. We all ventured over to the canal, then Parliament Hill where lots of photos were taken. This is Stacey (right) and Amy outside the Parliament buildings.

We then went across to Byward Market and at this point we decided to split up and meet later. We wandered around the mall for a couple of hours and then the market and had dinner at The Exchange which was very nice. After some more walking we decided to get a Tim’s at the food court and came across the girls. They had eaten at the Hard Rock Cafe. All of us had done what we needed to do and so decided to head home once beverages had been consumed. As we left Ottawa it started to rain, so our timing was perfect.

On Thursday we drove the girls to Toronto as we had booked them into a hotel for a few nights so they could explore the city. In order not to waste the day we all went to Toronto Zoo as the weather promised to be a bit better. As it turned out the weather was magnificent. Bright sunshine, temps in the 20′s, in fact almost too hot. I know it sounds silly but I had really forgotten what it felt like to be out in the heat.

The drive into the city after the zoo was pretty uneventful, but the DVP leaving the city was like a car park, so we decided when we returned home we would take a different route. We dropped the girls off at the hotel after checking them in at around 4:30 and after a detour though the city, hit the 401. Guess what – standstill again. After we got past the main toronto area it thinned out and we picked up speed, but then near Ajax it stopped again. In the end we didn’t get home untill 8pm, just in time for the last episode of The Big Bang Theory.

Yesterday (Friday) we didn’t do too much. I went shopping to stock up the cupboards and Chris tried to fix Stacey’s laptop for her. Alas it seemed it was a futile attempt and he decided it would be easier to give her one of our old laptops. So he spent the rest of the day transferring stuff from one to another etc.

Today Saturday, I have been spring cleaning and Chris is on his tractor mowing the lawn. Once again the weather is stunning, lets hope it stays like that for next week.

I feel so bloody useless. I am trying to offer as much support as I can to Chris whilst coping with my own feelings, neither of which I appear to be doing very well. Neither of us knows really how we feel or how we should be coping. This is so different to loosing a parent or grandparent and it seems so senseless. One minute you feel reasonably okay, then bam it hits you all over again.

The autopsy did not reveal a cause of death and so far it is looking like she simply went to sleep and never woke up. The best possible way for anyone to leave this world, but all the more devastating to those left behind as we cannot see a reason for it. A few more tests are going to be carried out which might shed some light, but who knows.

It is at times like this though when friends and family really show their true colours and ours have been wonderful. We have had so many people expressing their sympathy and support  in many different ways. It doesn’t make anything better but it certainly helps.

There have been lots and lots of phone calls to and from the UK and to make everything worse a volcano erupted in Iceland spewing out volcanic ash and grounding all air traffic to and from the UK, so we cannot get there at all. More than anything we want to be able to give support to Stacey, Chris’s other daughter who is suffering badly. Hopefully she will be able to come over to us for a couple of weeks in the future. She is being amazingly strong for her mum and we are very proud of her and love her to bits. All in all this is a really bad time for us all.

I was cooking dinner and just happened to look round out the window and there it was – stunning.

On a completely different note, we have recently joined the Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners which is a group set up to help British expats in Canada to get fair rights to their state pensions. There was a special feature in Muchmor Canada Magazine which highlighted the problem of Brits who leave the UK having their pensions frozen at the time they leave. If a Brit moves to most other countries this does not happen but is a problem in Canada.

The CABP charges members just $20 a year for membership and sends out a great newsletter and lots of info, so any other Brisith expats in Canada reading this – you should check them out too.

Yesterday we had another power outage for about 2.5 hours as it was very windy. Apparently 30,000 people were off with us and some had been off for many more hours.

Today we have great news – our house sale has gone through in the UK. After several offers falling through and this one dragging on for months it is finally over. We no longer have to pay our UK mortgage and we get some equity, although you will remember we released a lot of the equity in order to purchase our Canadian home.

It is such a relief to know it is over. In the UK you can never be totally sure the sale has gone through until the money is in the bank – in our case the solicitor still has it but it cannot fail now. Why the system cannot be more like Canada, I don’t know.

It is a glorious day here, sun is shining and no rain is forecast, although there is some forecast in the coming days, there is even a mention of snow.

Hubby’s daughter is coming over with a friend in December and we are hoping that the weather is going to be ok and not too much snow so we can take them places. They really want to go to New York, so we are hoping we can drive down there for a couple of days, but it all depends on the weather.

Saw a huge deer wandering across one of the major roads here yesterday. He was huge and just sauntered across. If a car had hit it would have done some severe damage – to both parties!

It means that we will kiss goodbye to our UK mortgage, mind you, with the UK property laws we won’t go spending the cash till it is in the bank!

I think we had our first frost last night. When I took the dog out at 2.15am it was very cold and this morning the deck was slippery with frost. Fall is here, just got to wait for the snow next!

On a lighter note, most of our American Robins seem to have left for warmer climates. We did have loads of them in the garden, but down to a couple now. However, we seem to be seeing an increase in chipmunks.

I just love the chipmunks; they have real personalities and are very comical to watch. This morning I put out some corncobs for the wildlife in general. Less than two hours later the chips had stripped them bare. One was even trying to carry the whole cob off on its own – I would have been well impressed if he had managed it!

No sign of the coons lately. Taking the feeders in at night seems to have done the trick, although it means the birds don’t get breakfast till around 7.30 am, although they seem to be coping.

We have both seen something in the garden at night that we cannot identify yet. It seems to be about the size of a coon, maybe slightly bigger, but it definitely isn’t one. It is very timid and shoots off as soon as we make a move. It looks very dark in colour (probably black) and bounds more like a cat type animal than anything else. Not sure what it is, but will keep trying to see it and identify it. It isn’t a cat by the way – too large.

On Thursday we will have been in Canada for two whole months! In one respect it seems much longer, as we have achieved so much, but in other respects it seems like only yesterday that we arrived.

Neither of us has missed the UK so far. I have not missed my old job one bit, although I thought I might as I really liked it and worked with some great people. Hubby hasn’t missed anything, other than his daughter, but then she is on MSN nearly every day, so in regular contact and hoping to come out in the next month or two.

So, no regrets so far!

Whilst we were in the mall, we decided to order our new phone line from Bell. Well, we had heard all sorts of things about Bell on the forum, but after all our experiences so far in Canada, this was the worst.

Everything we have ordered or brought so far has been sold to us with the utmost courtesy and been overall a pleasant experience, even down to ordering our SIN cards. Bell was another matter.

First you have to take a numbered ticket when you enter the shop, just like being at the Tesco cheese counter. You wait or them to shout your number and then the fun begins.

We explained that we needed a phone number for our new house and she asked for three types of ID. I gave her my passport, temp Ontario driving licence and credit card. She then said she would have to type everything in the computer to see how much deposit we needed to pay. After several minutes and a couple of questions later, she said we needed to pay $200 deposit. We asked why so much, she said because the computer said so! We asked what happened to this deposit and she said we keep it till we know you pay. You can claim it back after a year if you have paid on time.

Not happy, but what the hell, I told her to take the money from my credit card. She said they didn’t accept credit cards. So I said we would pay in cash and wait for it, they don’t take cash. Who, in God’s name doesn’t take cash? She said we had to get a money order and bring it in.

Not knowing what a money order was, we asked and she said “you get it from the post office and bring it back to us and we fill it in” So, now all was crystal clear!!!!

We then asked how much the phone would cost. She said it depended on what service we wanted. Well, we knew that so asked what services they offer, she said she would go through them when we came back with the money order as there was quite a few.

So, off we went to the post office and very easily obtained a money order, which we now know is similar to Postal Orders we get in the UK. The man at the post office told me how to fill it in and was most helpful.

Back to Bell. Saw a different assistant who slightly more pleasant, but still had the Little Britain “computer says no” attitude. Had to show all ID again and wait for ages for the paperwork to be completed. Eventually she got to the service we wanted. We were given a choice of voicemail and/or caller ID. Wow, what extensive choices.

Eventually we were given a contract to sign and a form with our new phone number on. Trouble was the phone number may be changed, they cannot promise that the one they gave us today will be the one we end up with. So, logically I am thinking why bother to give us a number at all, why not just wait till it is competed?

We asked when the number would be available and she said they could not fit us in till next Friday. Hubby asked if someone would therefore visit. She said no, they activate it remotely. One has to ask the question as to why you have to wait a week for someone to flick a switch.

After this delightful experience, we were notified that we could collect our house keys, by now it was 3pm. We went to the lawyers and had a chat with the British secretary there and had a laugh about Bell.

Then it was off to our new house. Had a wonder round and reacquainted ourselves with the place. I was surprised that generally the house had been left quite grubby. The fridge had not been cleaned out, nor had the oven or washer & dryer. The floors had not been washed either. Also, although they had kept the front garden reasonably tidy, the back was very unkept. Perhaps we are expecting too much, but when we left our house in he UK, we cleaned it from top to bottom, weeded the garden, cut the grass and generally left it in very good order. Also, because the sale is likely to take a few more weeks, we have arranged for a neighbour to come and keep the gardens tidy until the sale goes through. I suppose we are the stupid ones.

All was going great with then house until we turned the tap on in the kitchen. It poured for a few seconds, then stopped. Hubby guessed that the water had been turned off, but when he checked, he could not find anything to indicate this. Everything else in the house was working, including the air con, which we were very grateful for. Try as we might, we could not get the water to work.

So we headed back to the hotel to get contact our realtor and ask her to contact the vendor to ask where the water stop tap was. She could not get hold of them straight away, but after a couple of hours she came back to say they had not turned off the water. However, they suspected that there may have been an interruption in electricity supply which may have turned the pump off. We were given instruction on how to turn this back on.

We had planned to do this tomorrow, but hubby had itchy feet, so off we went back to the house. We followed the instructions, but still no water. The lever we had been told to move, didn’t seem to do very much. However on one occasion, we did get water for about a minute, then it turned itself off gain. Every time the lever got switched to on, it almost immediately turned itself back off again. Eventually we gave up and came back to the hotel. We will have another look tomorrow, but may have to call out the pump man to take a look.

Oh, the fun of owning a new home!

This morning we had received an email from our shippers, Excess Baggage (EB) to say our goods to follow had arrived and to contact Air Canada (AC) on a certain number to arrange collection. Great we thought.

I phoned the number given, but was informed it was “out of service”

Then I had to phone EB in the UK to ask for the correct number. I got a new number.

Phoned new number and told the man who answered that I wanted to arrange collection of my shipment. He asked for the waybill no which I gave him. He said, “You have already collected these boxes”, “No I haven’t” I replied.

He checked the number and it related to a shipment of 24 boxes weighing 889kg for a company based in Toronto and the boxes had been collected the previous day. Our shipment was 15 boxes weighing 440 kg!

He gave me a web address to input the waybill no into to show that it was incorrect – it was! I thanked the AC guy and said I would check with EB again.

So, another phone call to the UK and spoke to a guy at EB and explained the problem. He said that the waybill number was correct; I said it couldn’t be because when I called AC, they said and proved that it belonged to a completely different shipment. He said he would need to check with their shippers and would come back to me in a couple of minutes.

Twenty minutes later, no call, so phoned them once again. Spoke to a woman who said that the guy I had been speaking to was on the phone dealing with my query and would call me back soon.

Half an hour later, still no call, so phoned again. The guy I had been dealing with answered the phone and said he had been trying to phone me (yeah right). He said the waybill number was definitely correct.

At this point I was starting to loose my rag and hubby was going bananas. I explained again that something was wrong because when I called AC with that number they had it tracked to a completely different consignment. SO WHERE WAS MY BAGGAGE????

Again, he said that the number was correct and that was all he could do. Now I really did loose my temper and asked how I was supposed to collect baggage from Toronto with a number not belonging to my goods and with him obviously not giving a toss about the problem. I demanded to speak to his manager – was put on hold.

I was on hold for 10 minutes and eventually got another woman on the phone. I explained that I had been on and off the phone to various parties for the last 75 minutes and that I wasn’t prepared to wait any longer on the phone and that they should sort out the problem and leave a message on our hotel answer phone and back this up with an email. She said she would and I ended the call.

Now I was so stressed, I had a thumping headache and we still had loads of things to do.

We jumped into our new truck and went to a couple of furniture shops and looked at sofas etc. We then set off for Kingston as we had to pick up our cards and cheques from the bank and also register for health cards and SIN.

Went to HSBC bank and met woman who had our cheques waiting, however she did not have our temporary debit cards which we need in order to use the cheques! After some debate she said she would try and get them issued. More stress! Eventually we got the cards and was on our way. Our real ones will be sent to us once we have our house.

Then went over the road to the Service Canada place to get SIN numbers. Handed in our paperwork and ID etc and she completed the forms and said that our SIN cards would follow in 6-8 weeks. We explained that hubby was self employed and needed to be able to work. She said she would rush his through and that if we popped in on Thursday she would issue him number (the card would still take 6 weeks). Got receipts and left. No problems for once.

Next we went to the place to register for our health cards. Again we were seen pretty quickly handed in the paperwork and ID. Guy completed the forms, took our pictures and samples of signatures and gave us receipts. Another very easy process. The card will be delivered in about three months as in Ontario the health card does not click in until after three months.

After this we drove back to Belleville and had dinner, then returned to the hotel.

First thing we did was check the phone for messages – none! So out comes my laptop and hey presto an email from EB. It says that we need to call some woman in Toronto tomorrow. Will just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Sorry to waffle, but aagggghhhhhhh!

We set off for the airport on Friday morning and I used my company’s car service to get us to Gatwick, which made the trip easier and stress free. We hit some traffic near the airport, but the driver went on a detour and we eventually got there.

Checked in ok, we were really concerned about the weight of our cases, one in particular as each case can only weigh a max of 32kg. Trouble was we had already thrown away our bathroom scales so could not weigh them properly. Hubby thought it was very near the limit, but there was very little we could do about it, so decided to see what happened and deal with it there (buy another case). However it weighed half a kilo under so we breathed a sigh of relief.

Had dinner at the airport and then went through to departures and eventually down to gate. Flight took off half an hour late, but the paperwork had suggested an 8 hour flight, but the captain said it would only be 7 hrs 15 mins, so would get in at the original time. Flight went well, but seemed to drag, eventually reached Toronto at 6.40pm.

Took a while for the plane to reach the unloading area and then had to walk 5 miles to the passport area (ok it wasn’t that far, but why can’t they park closer?) No queue at passport control, just one person in front of us. Went up to the woman and told her we were landing. She congratulated us and checked our customs form, scribbled over it in pink and told us to make our way to immigration where we would be processed.

Went to immigration – no queue. Went straight to a man at a desk who, once he knew we were landing told us to take a seat in another area and wait to be called. We didn’t even have the chance to sit as we were then called into a booth, even though there were other people waiting. The woman asked for our passports and the immigration paperwork we were sent with our visas. She looked at the photos and said she had to take new ones. Having been awake for nearly 20 hours, we were not at our best, so our PR photos will look awful.

She took new pics, then completed some paperwork, got us to sign the paperwork and then gave is a copy. She then told us to see a man at the end of the corridor who would give us our landing packs.

Walked along the corridor and a man greeted us with “Welcome to Canada”. He gave us paperwork to get our SIN number, health cards and other bits and pieces and a booklet giving details for general stuff in Canada.

We then collected our baggage and then had to go through the goods to declare customs section. Again, no queue and was seen instantly by a nice woman who asked for our goods to follow list. I gave her my home done list and she said it was perfect, one of the best she had seen. She filled in goods to follow form, typed some stuff on the computer and then stamped and stapled our lists to her form. I also gave her a list of items we bought with us, when she also stamped. She then gave us a computer printout, which we need in order to collect the goods when they arrive.

There, we were done and free to enter Canada. Whole process from getting to passport control, to walking out of the airport about 30 mins.

Got a shuttle to our hotel, showered and fell into a blissful Canadian sleep.

Woke early this morning and finally got around to reading through the booklets and paperwork we had been given. All seems pretty straightforward. We got ready and then went down for breakfast and then packed bits away and waited for a car to pick us up and transport us to Belleville.

Car came at 10am and after a stress free trip, complete with obligatory stop off half way at Timmy’s we arrived at our Belleville hotel at 12.00.

Checked in and after dumping all our stuff in the room, walked down to the Ford garage where our new truck is waiting for us. We had to sign some paperwork and show originals of our passports, visas and driving licences (they already had copies). Unfortunately the registration company do not open on Saturdays in the summer so we cannot collect the car today. However, now all the paperwork is complete, we are going back on Monday and will collect our new truck.

We then walked over to the mall and looked around Sears and other places for some bits and pieces for the house. Had dinner at Swiss Chalet and have now come back to the hotel to chill out for the night.

Will catch up tomorrow.

Our clearance guy came last night and took pretty much everything. We now have a TV (going tonight), 2 pillows to sit and sleep on and a quilt, very minimalist.

Today we are just going to clean the house from top to bottom, pack everything in our suitcases and we are pretty much ready to leave tomorrow.

We are going out with our neighbours tonight for a last supper (good job as we have no oven now).

Sometime during today the two phone lines will be cut off, the sky tv will disconnect and our internet will stop, we just don’t know when.

Oh, as I type this the sky system has just stopped, so only freeview stuff now.

Probably won’t have time to write again before we land, so see you in Canada!