The White Stuff...

Yes, all that white stuff.  There was lots of it by our standards but a very - very - mild year by everyone else's.  Not sure if we prefer that, we enjoyed watching the extreme cold kick in on the webcams last year, but I guess that's the key to it, we watched, from a dank & drizzly England - let's be fair, it was a dank & drizzly season in our neck of the woods last year... a winter that was pretty non-descript and dragged on for what seemed like an age...

So we only had a few days of lots of snow on the ground down here in the 'valley', ultimately I was thankful for that for practical reasons like I can't bloody drive in the snow, on the wrong side (and yes, it is still the wrong side to me...) never mind that we had to re-sit our driving tests again, the pressure on clear roads never mind if we had ice & snow to contend with, they may as well have torn up my paperwork there & then... yes, mild Kelowna winter worked for us this year, thank you very much.

Up on the mountain it was a different kettle of ballgames altogether.  Lots of the white stuff, plenty of good skiing at such a fab resort, and only an hour away on a slow day... needless to say my ideas of becoming pro-skier this season were rapidly quashed with a couple of very silly incidents that made me lose all confidence on those two planks strapped to my feet.  What is that all about anyway, I ask you...

I did migrate to one board - for about 15 minutes - until I took the instructor's advice in part and disregarded the rest, in hindsight I recall him saying when you want to stop "...point yourself up the mountain and then use your free foot (you learn with one foot out of the bindings) to stabilise yourself".  I got mentally stuck on the last bit & tried to 'stabilise' myself whilst hurtling downhill at speeds of up to, well, it had to be approaching 0.003mph, and my left leg (the loose one) rather attractively splayed up the hill whilst my right one continued going where gravity (and a large snow-board shaped bit of wood) took it. Down. I swear I heard the tear in my groin, I certainly won't forget that rush of hot pain in a hurry.  Mamma-Mia... Still, my teacher was very sympathetic... he laughed.  A lot. In fact I'm not sure he'd laughed quite that much since he landed in sunny snowy Kelowna from Cambridge UK a few months back.  He gave me the accolade of 'position of the season' and my money back... he was very sweet but I think there was a sinister edge to him, probably the comment "I killed one" that he bellowed for all to hear to a fellow instructor as I hobbled around the nursery slopes looking for sympathy...

So, whilst we took every opportuntity to play in the snow, tobogganing, sledding... with Andy & Tom making slow & steady - in fact quite exceptional - progress on their chosen white stuff mode of transport, I chose to find other ways of entertaining myself, snow angels, snow men...mulled wine.

Amelie & Tom, with a day of private lessons with the "Ninja" were rockin' on the snowboards... I must spend all my time & energy blubbing into my balaclava, so proud, so, so proud of my babies.... Tom, well, Tom, what a superstar. He'd already mastered the skis after just a few hours a couple months back & now decided that he'd like to try the board, how fab did he look?  I think I'd probably kill for those stomach muscles and that core stability, and I mean really kill somebody... he may as well have been held up on all four corners and escorted down the mountain with the grace & decorum he demonstrated, skimming the snow (technical term, sounds good eh?)...this boy did good, as ever.

Not to take away from his sister for one moment, the seven year old mini me, except she was a hot shot, all her worries and anxieties funnelled into impressing her teacher & her brother, by the time I caught up with her (tactical absence) she was hurtling down anything that resembled a slope, with a "yeah, whatever Mum..." snow-dude face on. Pass me those tissues, please...

So, the man of the moment, Big A, ground away at his technique, he was labelled quite innocently by a seasoned skier as a "Two Plank W*nk" (I kid you not) to the absolute innocent bemusement of the kids who just know that in England that word is something they'd be locked in a cage for saying... apparently this is not a word in the Canadian vocabulary.... So, he steadily improved, looked hot in his pants and achieved more than I could have dreamt of in the season whose finale is this weekend coming.  He'll make it up the mountain once more, this time alone, to wade through the record 47cm in 7 days and, I'm told, another 15cm overnight last night, before the mountain closes to ski tourism, the lifts get packed away and the shutters go down until next season, although someone did tell me about some funky li'l fish-scales that you can fix to your skis and carry on skiing up the mountain until the green stuff pokes through... I'll pass.

So, we did the white stuff, conquered it all in our own way, Andy & I diversified and went cross country skiing (huge fun and great exercise) as well as spending our 17th anniversary snow-shoeing, we looked very silly and clearly went very late in the season, more like mud-shoeing... but a great, fun & happy time was had by all in this strange wintry land.  It's good to be alone on the top of a mountain, with nothing but a few munching chipmunks, cougars... awakening bears....

Now we have opened the pool, bought our seeds for planting exotic vegetables and are dusting off the suntan lotion in preparation for the next big phase...

That was the white stuff story... next stop, friends & high places :)

As ever, keep commenting, love to hear it....x

Friends & High Places...

I can't believe it's been so long, did I really only write back in February? Sorry chapettes, that really isn't good enough, is it?

I'll bombard you now, just wait & see...

To be honest, I've been at a loss as to what to say for a wee while.  The whole 'new Canadian' thing must get a tad boring, compare this & that, "Oh how wonderful it all is... blah blah blah", and how we miss you so... but it's kind of what it's all about really, isn't it?  Without that what to blog on our 'Big Canadian Adventure' blog? So there we have it... I'll tell some more stories, draw a few more comparisons and place you in our world for a few gentle minutes so you can get a feel for where we're at. All of which should be bed-down on a foundation of "we miss you terribly" and, at any given moment one, or all of us, are struggling with the move in some guise or another... I won't harp on about all that, but just know it's there. Clearly I'm working on the assumption that you're here because you're remotely interested....

So to cast my mind back there seems an age, and yet our day to day has appeared so... so... routine.

What have we done, I scale the diary for retrospective reminders.  Oh yes, there was the Olympics, that was cool - very cool (although, apparently not cool enough on Cypress Hill in the midst of a seasonally uncharacteristic warm spell... can you believe they had to bring snow in?)  Should've held it at Big White... apart from that & birthdays there were a few themes; snow, friends, and high places... let's start with the snow...

Canada, according to the new Canadian…

A few observations of late...


The first & most pressing question for me is:

• ...Why have some of the Canadians still got their Christmas lights up? Is it not enough that they came out at the beginning of November but to still be up in the middle of February… ho hum.
• Teenagers here are very cool. They are articulate, respectful (and respected, probably a hand-in-hand thing) intelligent and have sacks-full of common sense.
• Education is amazing. Never mind dropping our standards, we’ve had our eyes opened to how amazing it can be. The schools are quiet, calm places. Students respect teachers and rules. Teachers respect Students, it’s a very inclusive environment and I, for one, love it.
• Kids have a plan. They subscribe to a cause, off their own backs, they see the power of ‘we’ not ‘me’ and they take in the bigger picture. I have been overwhelmed with admiration of how these kids, and they are as young as eight or nine and up to fifteen or sixteen, who are raising money for Haiti, organising enormous events, and hosting them without adult input, they could teach me a thing or two.
• And it’s not just the kids. At Christmas there were more volunteer opportunities than I have ever seen. More charitable events raising more money for local and national causes than you can imagine. Everyone was doing something. Each school does a ‘hamper drive’ whereby each child brings in something from a pre-issued list, from a small toy to food for a Christmas meal, and all the donations are collected up and delivered to the less-than-fortunate families in the school or, in our case, the nearby areas. There is some poverty here but it is not frowned upon (or milked by an over-dependence on a faulty state-system) and those in need don’t mind saying so. Everything is done very respectfully but the end result is that those families who couldn’t have put together a special meal or give their kids much for Christmas have a turkey, and fresh vegetables. And their kids have presents to open. It doesn’t take much to make a difference.
• The lake is quite the most beautiful thing I see every day.
• The unity of this place, which is probably incapsulated in all the above comments, is mind-blowing. I get tingles just thinking about it. The 2010 Vancouver Olympics are almost underway and everywhere you go there are messages of support for the teams, flags flying, Go Canada signs everywhere. The Olympic torch came across Canada and we were lucky enough to see it here in Kelowna, in fact we ran behind the torch bearer for a while, with ‘O Canada’ booming out over the PA and the Canadian flag wherever you looked, the 20,000 strong crowd all whoop-whooping, cheering and generally building that esteem that carries this country forth. I felt honoured to be part of it.
• There are too many bill-boards obscuring your vision of the stunning scenery.
• My prediction for Kelowna in 20 years is a sad one, it’s turning into a mini-LA with lots of boob-jobs and enormous unnecessary chromed vehicles… the decadent homes are fighting for remaining land resulting in smaller plots and larger homes wedged in. It’s up & coming, sure. When it arrives we may just move on to quieter pastures…
• When the devastating fires took hold here in 2003 everyone came together to offer shelter, not just for people but for their animals, horses, vehicles. The same was true of last years' fires and wherever you looked there were billboards offering help, adverts placed in the local papers, notices up on walls and street corners. I love how this community comes together. The fires this time were contained with little structural damage, although so much forest was devastated, and with it the habitats and lives of so much wildlife. The stories of burning animals are horrific. The fires of 2003 instigated an action plan for future fires, which was put into action last summer - most of the firefighters were volunteers. When I watch this on youtube it makes me cry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVp80WCU-mY (turn up your volume) The fire line was extinguished just a couple of hundred feet behind where we live now, so many homes were burnt to the ground. This is so Kelowna, so Canada for me. I forgot this for a while.
• Some things remain constant despite the change in continent. Politics generally, for one. However good it is – and it’s damn good on the whole – the people will campaign for more. More rights, more funding, more voices. I say look at what you have. But then I would, life’s pretty easy here (in my humble opinion) compared to the two continents I have lived in before North America…
• Oh, and Doctor’s receptionists. We still owe them a living, and don’t forget to apologise for bothering them if they happen to answer your call….
• Canadians trust the English accent. Apparently we’re well educated. Cool.
• Travel broadens the mind. Emigration strips you of your identity and you have to fight to get it back. It’s tougher than anything I’ve ever done before. And I’ve done stuff.
• In Canada the customer is always right. Companies and government bodies do the ‘right’ thing.
• This country amazes me everywhere I look. The future is so bright it’s gleaming. I’m so humbled to be a part of that future, I hope with all my heart that our kids grow up here; that they take the space, the scenery, the politeness, the mutual respect for granted. I hope they never have to encounter a ‘computer says no’ shop assistant or government official, have to be sworn at because they forgot to change lane in time, or worry for their safety on a dark night. Utopia, perhaps not, but we may just have turned back the clock for our kids, its life as we knew it 30 years ago.

It was worth it. Remind me I said that. That's your lot for tonight :)

Those mountains aren’t clouds pretending to be something they’re not…

What a tumultuous few weeks that was… but I’m back! Full flow. I see the wood despite the trees everywhere, in fact even that forest is beginning to thin out a bit… hurrah. Really thought it wasn’t going to happen for a moment back there...

Stuck in a bubble, looking out at the world, rolling along, not feeling, experiencing, touching, just watching. Hearing the world through muffled ears, putting one foot in front of the other, existing, not sad, not happy, just existing. That was life in my head for the last few weeks, existence.

I had actually come to expect it, it was on the cards, I felt it brewing, mounting, and then just rode the storm. A couple of times Andy asked me what he could do to help & I honestly didn’t know, didn’t even really need any help, I knew I just needed to get past this phase with as little ricochet onto our lives as possible. And I did, I’m out of that ‘phase’ of culture shock and it was pretty shocking, I should coco.

So, how did I get here… well, I guess it started with a trip to some lovely friends’ beautiful B&B and home in Revelstoke last weekend. Out into the fresh air. Beyond the oppressive claustrophobia that is Kelowna in the depth of Winter when the sun doesn’t rise high enough to burn off the cloud in the entire Okanagan valley, all ninety miles of it. I knew I was getting desperate when I migrated towards a newspaper in a favourite lunch venue of Andy & mine, it was calling me with the headline “Gloominess nearly over” and continued to explain that give or take a day or two 22nd February was the day that the meteorological centre of Kelowna expects the sun to reach a height sufficient enough to poke through and burn off the moody stuff until Spring arrives. Phew. I have a date. Structure. I’m counting down, no really, I am.

Revelstoke, good friends; English friends, and fun in the snow helped my head, that and the jaw-dropping scenery up there, scale our mountains up by ten and you might come close. As I’m often heard saying; those mountains, that scenery make me feel insignificant in this world, I like that feeling, it makes me understand that there is one life to live, get living… those mountains will see a million more lives after mine and will stand tall over every one of them, time is limited for us…

And then it all fell into place. Great school reports for our little heroes, two months in for them and they are already thriving, popular, competent kids in a brand new and, in my opinion, rather intimidating place for a village child. If they can do it so can I.

The school has also been a ‘way in’ to the community that I had orchestrated for my own involvement too, I find myself heading up the school Spring-Dance for the PTA equivalent, nothing like jumping in the deep end without my arm-bands, yes I can do it. I can do it.
It’s not without humour, I hasten to add, after several ‘footballers wives’ incidents (we hadn’t seen this side of Kelowna, it can be like LA, poodles & all…) I decided stuff it, no more Mrs Ditsy, stand up & be counted, so I became the arsey Englishwoman for a week or two after my birthday, much to the horror and amusement (in varying degrees) of the ladies who lunch. The horrified ones moved quietly away and the amused ones welcomed me with arms-full of invitations; evenings out, coffee and movie offers… I finally made some proper friends and they are a giggle, and they know the Jules that I am, not the one who had the sickly sweet aura of naïve new girl…

So pounding the streets, drumming up business – successfully (killer heels work worldwide) is beginning to pay off, social events on the calendar for the next six weeks, employed the services of a great babysitter so new life, real life begins here…

When we lived in Greatham I used to travel down the A3 on a cloudy day and imagine that the clouds were really mountains.. if you squint it works. I’d daydream I was here and that was my vista. I’m here & those clouds are really mountains now, they’re not pretending. Time to start enjoying them and everything else this beautiful country has to offer.

The only way is up…

Actually, I hadn’t meant that last post to appear so down in the dumps. That’s not to say we weren’t feeling it but I had waited for a while before I wrote it in an attempt to tone-down the morose nature of our feelings… there you go, from the emails I have received and the lovely, lovely messages, I guess the sadness seeped through a bit. Thanks y’all, you’ve made a big difference to our lives, we know we’re loved, wherever we lay our woolly, fur-lined, tog rated hats.

So, not to be kicking around in that smelly old gutter for long, you know me, hate dirt, [shudder] what did we do to pull ourselves up… well, I guess it started in an unexpected way with a couple of really positive ‘girly moments’ with two completely unrelated, unsuspecting (and to this day oblivious to their input) female interactions which made me understand that there are lots of people out there with which I can be friends and have a giggle… said two were part of the school contingent, which is fine & dandy as a lot of my best UK friends were found in this way, there’s hope for me yet I thought.

Teasing apart the sadness and overwhelming sense of loss is the catalyst for forward motion for me, it’s the way I operate, so, my sifting through the furball unearthed a few unsuspecting needs and desires like friendships, interests, more reliable and frequent contact with home, and work, work, work – I need something to spark this brain matter, the same mushy stuff that has been overloaded in the last few years with psychology degrees and ‘new life’ preparation.. this baby needs some mental stimulation.

Funny how it happens with me, usually it involves a lack of proper clothing – explain later – and a ‘light-bulb moment’ in the shower. No disappointments this time then. My whirling dervish starts with a solitary thought upon waking and there’s no stopping me, it must be amusing to watch… I get out of bed with a head brimming with ideas, business ideas, marketing ideas.. the world is my oyster kind of ideas, there isn’t anything I can’t do when I’m in this frame of mind, I guess it’s what gets me signing up for mad half-marathons and stomping into big corporate entities in my killer heels… if only they knew those ‘introduction’ calls were generally made in my half undress, yesterday’s mascara under my eyes, tangled hair… when you have to seize the moment there’s nothing else to it.

So, from stagnant pool we moved to Andy passing his BC driving test (don’t get me started), my girly encounters, breathing life into my old mobile phone (I wrote cellphone then deleted it…) so I can better communicate in the way that I used to, ensuring the laptop was on at all times to receive those skype calls and be able to share a moment – at a moments’ notice. Proper, focussed visits to the grocery store and meal planning for a whole month – don’t laugh it removes the chaos from this situation, everything is chaotic, from answering a phone-call to visiting the grocery store, this week was about calming that chaos and we won.

Yesterday, in my previously mentioned state of undress I began the task – the long awaited and previously worried about task of setting up the business so we can ‘trade’. What an enormous can of worms that was. Please imagine it, no really, imagine opening a can and inside it were worms, all intermingling, when you move one out of the way there’s another to take its place and – once you’ve emptied half the can on the floor and boxed them up again you look back in the can and there’s still so much to do. The task in hand was to pin these suckers down and that’s what I did.

[How do you know which end of a worm is its head? Lick it & see which end smiles…. Amélie, Jan 2010]

So, no more boring you with the detail, the end result once those worms had been tamed was that GallowayCAD Partnership is pretty much up & running now, all legitimately & above board. We have registered & had approved our business name, acquired GST numbers, business licences, we have spoken with tax consultants, municipal, provincial and federal government departments all of whom, wait for it, grab the table, all of whom seem to know exactly what they are doing and, oddly, appear to be singing from the same hymn sheet, shock horror. From knowing nothing I now know everything – yep, everything there is to know about the hoops that we have to jump through to start up our business here.

Business cards are being printed as we speak, by a nice man from Lancashire, and my first potential Client has said I sound ‘perfect’ for his organisation. How about that. I’m perfect don’t you know. Let’s hope he calls me back, it’s been 24 hours now, panic is rising… or I could just call one of the other twenty companies that fit the bill tomorrow, before I get dressed of course....

We went to the library again today, which is in the same building as the ice rinks, and indoor soccer pitches, and indoor running circuit.. to check out the action. Came away with a new membership to the soccer for Amélie, a few library books and a desire to learn basketball from Tom, two company names as potential clients from my perusing the sponsors and Andy wants to learn to ice-skate and to help out with the coaching of Amélie’s team…

I got a book from the library entitled ‘British Columbia from the Air’. I think it just sunk in where we live, this place is amazing. We need to get away into the wilderness for a bit… going out for a while, we may be some time…

♥ Keep on posting, we love your feedback ♥

To blog or not to blog....

Right. Here I am, sitting at my desk for the third evening in a row, glass of wine at arm’s reach, trying – once again – to blog, I’ve written & re-written too many times. It’s all about choosing a theme, for me.

Blogging is just not blogging if you don’t grab a theme of the last few weeks and ponder on it. That’s the problem though, that’s been the delay; the theme of the last few weeks has been a sombre one, not all lows but a considerable amount more of the low stuff than has been so far in our blogging history.

It’s not that the shine has worn off, nor that the people have become less friendly, less unbelievably generous with their kindness, nor is it that the house has become small or the scenery less dramatic or awe inspiring, it’s none of the above, Canada is still amazing Canada and we’re still blown away by our move… but. You knew it was coming, that ‘but’, it was staring us in the face too and quite ridiculous to think the bed of roses would smell so beautiful for every second of every day. This is real life, right?

Through those perfect rose-tinted glasses, every now and then a shard of loneliness seeps in; we are, in the truest sense of the word, pretty lonely at times. We have some good friends already – goodness only knows what we’d do without them, but there is no way of avoiding the fact that we tucked our lives up into ten previously-owned suitcases and left our comfortable lives, our family, our friends, oh so many wonderful friends, and moved half way across the world to a rather lesser-known world with only each other for comfort on ‘rainy days’…

I guess that Christmas and all it’s ‘familyness’ (I’m allowed to make up words, it’s my blog) was always going to bring it home rather rapidly that we didn’t actually have any family close by, and I also know that after the last year of preparation and the last three months of screeching through life in top gear was bound to slow down at some point and reality was going to hit, we just didn’t duck in time and some days in the last week or two have been pretty hard for the grown- ups in this equation… the smaller ones (with one or two emotional exceptions) seem pretty unaffected, so far.

The book (our emigration ‘bible’)(don’t snigger) says we all experience Culture Shock in one guise or another, let me elaborate, if I may. I’ll try to keep it brief:

Stage One. The honeymoon stage, lasting from a few days or a few weeks, uses words like ‘positive’ and ‘euphoric’ ‘insulated from everyday life’… I think we can safely say we experienced this stage.

Stage Two. Rejection or Distress stage. The complete opposite of the above. A period of crisis. Starting to deal with the normal pressures of life – except that this life does not resemble your life. Possible regression into your culture (what do they mean, like my desperation to find the equivalent to Jonathan Ross & a curry on a Friday night, never..…?) Seeking out other expatriates (not on your nelly)… only good things back home are remembered…

Stage Three. The flight Stage (“because of the overwhelming desire to escape”). This section uses words like ‘Depressed’ ‘Angry’ ‘Impatience’ ‘Focus on negative aspects’ ‘Sadness’ ‘Incompetence’… I’m not going to go on, you get the picture… it’s not a nice place to be.

You see, Andy & I have discussed this at length (as you might imagine..!) and we have followed this ‘stage’ path, albeit on a fairly minor (although still quite distressing) level… We accept that we are not coming into a brand new culture, with a different language or an entirely different way of life, it is, however, still unbelievably exhausting to have to re-learn everything you took for granted. We are quite firmly, placed at Stage three, having experienced one & two almost in-sync over the last eight weeks. Somebody said to me recently (in jest… don’t want to make them feel bad!) that some people are never satisfied… we are so satisfied, truly, we are, satisfied, fortunate, living life to the full, don’t want to come home, but still we can feel frustration… incompetence – (that’s my one, Oh yes, I forget by the hour that I am a competent business woman, wandering around here sometimes like a ditsy blonde without even trying to engage my brain, it’s so befuddled with everything else), and homesick. That’s Andy’s department, and mine I suppose if only I was to admit it…

So there you have it. What’s that? You want to know about Stage Four? Oh yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel, in fact we’ve even been tasting the air over the last few days, yes, Stage Four is much more like it… and we know we’re nearly there;

Stage Four. Recovery Stage. Integration, adaption, “the environment doesn’t change, what changes is your attitude towards it..” You attain more competence in your surroundings (I’m still not measuring my butter in ‘cups’ for goodness sakes.. what’s up with weight??!, OK, perhaps I’m still at Stage Three..) Feel more ‘at home’ realise the place has good and bad points like any other…

Yes, we dip in and out of Stages Three & Four, at ease, no real stress but just a realisation that this is kind of ‘it’, what we worked for, saved for, fought for no less, you all know what a struggle it was, we did it & we have it, so no more complaining (that’s what my book says, think yourself positively out of the negative.. it works, really) we just wanted you to know that there are lows to these highs, what goes up must come down and eventually re-balance ( – I made that bit up) – it’s the law of physics and we’re at its mercy…

Now what is that scratching under my house? I think we may have visitors… large visitors… tune in again soon :)

Bundle up, it's cold out there...

A month? Never… really? Yup. A month it is. We have been ‘landed immigrants’ of this beautiful land for one whole month. Our eleven suitcases decanted & lined up in the garage, our home has slowly filled room by room, we’ve bought everything from tin openers to TV’s and everything in between. It’s amazing what you take for granted, years of growing a home, I need a paperclip – Oh we don’t have any.

As I sit, the children and Andy are watching a movie and the roast is bubbling away, the house is full of competing smells from the oven to the Christmas tree – I’ve never had a Christmas tree that smelled – and smelled good! At first I thought someone was smoking marijuana in the basement, seriously, I couldn’t understand what this massive smell was, hanging in the air. Did you know they could smell so strongly? It’s beautiful. The tree, quite the most perfect Christmas tree I ever did see.

We looked forward to the tree buying day… they grow here all over the place (funny that!) Christmas tree ‘we cut’ signs everywhere. We just had to do that, experience the ‘cutting’ – an “I want that one” moment, if you get my drift. Off scurries the man in dungarees and a checked shirt, hands so rough that he probably hasn’t even heard of Swarfega…. (that’s for girls) off he kerthumps with his saw, one zip & it’s yours. Timbeeeeeeer.

Well, as it goes, we had none of that! We did try, we drove in, looked at the trees all lined up waiting for their fate (I swear they drooped deliberately) felt completely out of our depth and then drove out again, wheel spinning out of the driveway like Thelma & Louise – straight to the local supermarket & bought our beautifully coiffed, stunningly scented, Canadian Christmas Tree. Cop out? Well, probably, but there’s only so many times a day you can blame your naivety on being “English”, sometimes you just want to ‘be’.

So, it’s here, it’s installed and it’s perfect. Twinkling away in the corner – the corner that was seriously lacking a piece of furniture, no need for that now for another few weeks. The house is positively Christmassy, it’s perfect. Andy borrowed a ladder from a kindly neighbour and spent a hilarious hour or two in the dark (he’s determined to be the ‘weird English neighbour’) installing the newly-bought (temperamental) Christmas lights onto pre-installed hooks on the fascia boards and plugged into pre-installed sockets – solely for the purpose of Christmas lights – switched indoors. They don’t just do Christmas here they do Christmas BIG – and I love it! Even the lawns peppered with herds of illuminated reindeer and “Happy Holidays” signs don’t make me recoil like they do in England, what’s happened to me? Aren’t I supposed to be all English and snobby about it? I just get into the spirit of it here and somehow it’s so inoffensive, it’s for the kids & they love it too. Bah Humbug. I’m not buying an inflatable snowman for anyone and you can’t make me. I’m only a teeny bit concerned that our house light are blue (my choice) and red (Amélie’s) making our roof apex look like it’s waiting for the ‘white’ to advertise the Brits have arrived. Toe curling thought…

So, a month of shopping, flat packed furniture, cars and trucks. A month of new schools, bus trauma and PAC (PTA) meetings. A month of old friends and new friends, of introductions and explanations, and a month of finding our feet – one step at a time. What’s been the hardest bit? I guess we’d all say different things. For Amélie, probably the forced independence of having to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ of bus rides without mummy and big schools, although she’d say she loves it, she’s made great friends already and thinks her teacher is wonderful. It must be pretty scary to be six here sometimes. For Tom, well, I’ll come back to Tom. For Andy, I’d say the worry of work, maybe.. ever the worrier, and lack of security – balanced out by the wonders of modern technology shrinking the globe and allowing him to continue to work for ever-faithful UK clients. Money out, out, out, he clutches his heart with every purchase…! For me? The hardest bit has probably been having to absorb so much of the ‘different’ all at once. I’m the kind of girl that has to stop and slowly take it all in, allowing my senses to build up the bigger picture; I’m easily overwhelmed with detail and emigration, new culture, new everything just isn’t conducive with my modus operandi. When you realise that a simple trip to Sainsbury’s when you grab the tea bags and the gravy powder without thinking is all out of the window. Now each & everything on the list has to be scrutinised, each label read, each price considered, nothing looks the same, you can’t just run and grab you have to read so many words, who would have thought that shopping would be so darn challenging. So that’s my hardest bit, and my take on Andy & Amélie’s, how about Tom? My portable mini-me. He is seemingly untouched by any of it. He is so unbelievably flexible and 'comme si comme ça' about the whole move. He has absorbed Canada like he lived here for the last ten of his nine years. I am truly amazed by his unflustered, pragmatic approach. He is the ‘head down, bottom up’ kind of kid that I never really saw in our Greatham bubble, he has just got on with it. When quizzed tonight about his best bit and hardest bit he shrugged his shoulders and said “..well, I guess the hardest bit was on my way to school on the first day worrying what my teacher was going to be like – and the best bit was when I arrived to see that she was great”. That’s my boy. Chill out mum, it’s no big deal, it’s not like we moved country or anything…

So, the weather has begun to turn, Autumn is fading, the beautiful leaves are all but gone, the temperatures are steadily dropping and the pool hasn’t thawed now for over a week. It’s minus nineteen tonight… We’ve had a peppering of snow with the promise of more on the way soon and have invested in much more sensible winter footwear. Christmas is around the corner and we’ll be stuffing our pockets full of tissues for the children’s school concert later this week, the big inauguration – never the same unless you have mascara streaming down your cheeks. Every time we pull up the driveway in my ‘van’ or Andy’s ‘truck’ it feels more like home, we miss it when we’re not here and Jules and Andy are bedding in, thinking of our family and friends a lot and finally being able to take my mother’s advice seriously – we’ll never go out without a shovel & a blanket in the car, somehow it seems a bit more appropriate here – thanks Mum!