West Bound and Up!

So this is our first post that will cover a lot of what has happened in the last week - and a bit!! I promise this will be the only really long post! The blog is here to keep in contact with people who don't use Facebook, and also give a much more in-depth goings on in to our day to day/week to week lives here.

Packing

Just over a week ago we watched the removal company pack up the whole of our house into a van and drive away. We were left with a kettle, toaster and pan - and managed to survive for 3 days! 

For those who have never moved country before - it was interesting to watch the removal men wrap large and weirdly shaped items in bubble wrap. There can not be any gaps in the wrapping to prevent bugs etc travelling abroad. Check out the bike: 

Our last few days were spent saying goodbye to friends and family we had not yet had chance to, re-homing our fish (thanks Mo), waving good bye to Gizmo for the next month, frantically cleaning, giving away items we were not taking and many trips to the dump! We finally finished on Friday evening near midnight and managed to get a half decent nights sleep before our early start on Saturday.

Goodbye Kendal Road

(this photo was taken some time ago, it was actually a rather sunny and warm morning when we left!)

Alastair and I have lived in this home for the last 3years and only since the birth of Imogen have we gotten to know our neighbours better and developed an emotional attachment to a house. We were both surprised about how we felt when we were leaving our home for the last time knowing we will never return to that house.

Departure, Flight and LANDING!! 

Our flight went with out a delay or problem! Imogen was pretty well behaved and we managed to watch a film whilst she slept!
We landed local time 11.30 am and got a lift from one of the very helpful White Hat Volunteers  from the airoplane to imigration - normally a 6minute walk so we were very thankful for this!

And..... We're in!!

We joined the very long immigration queue excited and nervous as this is it, this was the moment we had been working towards for what seemed like forever! 3 ques, countless questions, signing of official documents and list checking we were granted Permanent Residency, yippee! And whilst we were waiting in our many queue's a very helpful attendant had off loaded our mountain of bags, push chair etc and was waiting for us at the other side! Now all that was left was to go and get our free cow boy hats! Oh and wrap up very warm as it was in the minuses and snow!

Downtown Calgary

We spent our first few days in downtown Calgary so we were in easy reach of all the places we needed to go to get our SIN numbers, phone contracts etc We woke up Sunday morning to fresh snow fall on the street below, and by dinner time (it being Sunday so they were a little less prompt) street cleaners had been out clearing all the snow off the sidewalk.We were very impressed, tho still left wishing we had taken the big push chair and not the stroller! 

Although extremely cold it was bearable as long as we dressed right for the temperature .Imogen all snug in her cosy toes and several layers and Ally and I with thermals and fleeces. The sun was shining so we really didn't care too much!

Cochrane

We - or rather Alastair - had arranged to stay out of town whilst we searched for a car and a house. We are staying in a Small(ish) town 40mins out of Calgary in a walk out basement/garden room. A short walk from the Bow River (pics to follow soon).  We are planning to hopefully find our permanent accommodation as it is close to the area we would like to live in.
When we arrived we felt that we would like to live here as it has a lovely feel about the town, it isn't over populated and close to the Bow river and the Mountains, however, the commute to work for Ally would take the best part of an hour.

Spot the Newbys!

Ally and I were very kindly invited by the owners of our accommodation to a party to celebrate their birthday. So upstairs we went with Imogen in arm. We soon noticed that no one was wearing shoes, hmmm. And then as I thought back in the day I had noticed that all of the houses we had gone to look at the owner or re-alter had taken their shoes of on entry to the house (even if it was empty!) Ooops! 

We soon rectified the problem and discovered the practical reason for this - It is because of the salt on the road to clear the snow, it helps to save cleaning/damaging the floors with dirty foot prints.

At the party we met some other British Expats who live in the town and were able to share our thoughts/experiences and advice.

Easter

Happy Eater everybody!

Our first Easter away has passed with out us really realizing, it really didn't feel like Easter to us because of everything going on. We spent Good Friday house searching, Saturday in Cochrane shopping and then at a B'day party, and on Sunday we went to Canmore where we had lunch and had a stroll around town. We were kindly invited to a BBQ by a family we had met the evening before. They lived a 40min drive away from where we are staying, they were really in the sticks, so much so that they don't have an address, no post is delivered or garbage collected, but my was it a beautiful setting. There was still deep snow on the ground, but again the sun was shining so the cold didn't really matter. We were invited to go and look at the Red Deer River that flows near the property. On the walk down thru the thick snow we saw a Bald Headed Eagle fly above us, it was amazing.

Ok.. so I'm going to leave it there, Today we went to the Zoo but I will write about that in a few days time.  Oh I nearly forgot - I drove an automatic car for the 1st time on the 'wrong' side of the road!! Quite impressed with my self! I hope this hasn't been too much to read at once and I promise to make them shorter and more regular from now on!!