Finally landed a job.......

Following on from the last installment, I have managed to get some photos of the other acreage on here. This is the one which we have decided to buy, and the plan is for construction to start on May 1st 2008. As you can see from the pictures below, the land looks a lot like a cornfield (for the very good reason that it is a cornfield at the moment). Plans are already in motion to get some vegetation on the site, and we hope to be able to plant 4000 trees, which will be provided free of charge by the local power company!! How we are going to manage to plant 4000 trees I'm not too sure at the moment, but if anyone wants a working holiday next summer you know how to get in touch with us!












It seems like a long time ago now, but at the start of October we headed over to Nordegg to spend Thanksgiving with Simon, Arin and James. We managed to use the weekend to get some construction practice in, putting a railing around the decking in their yard. Simon also managed to make use of us by hauling a load of rocks for the landscaping of their yard, althought he job still isn't finished, so he still has a lot to haul by himself. We had a pretty relaxing weekend, but failed to take too many photos so there isn't much to show. Lea and James did manage to pose for one though which you can see below.















The trip to Nordegg was a 1500 km round trip, so we now have a pretty good idea of what we will be faced with when we head over to the mountains for Christmas, and if we plan any skiing weekends. Luckily the roads are so much quieter here, so the driving doesn't seem as stressful.

Lea continues to enjoy her work. Below you can see her hard at work, and not messing around with the girl who sits next to her at all!!










Probably the best bit of news we have had since we arrived here in Canada is that I now have a job too. Lea is already planning her retirement, although I intend to keep her working for a few years yet. I am starting work tomorrow (Monday 5th Nov) as an Aquatic Scientist here in Saskatoon. I expect the winter to involve mostly report writing but the summer fieldwork season sounds like it should be very entertaining indeed. It seems as though most of the fieldwork is carried out in the far north, with trips of up to 3 weeks spent electro fishing and other such fun activities. Mine monitoring seems to be the normal work, and Lea has already asked for extra diamonds and gold if I manage to come across any on one of my trips.

In other news I have started to play football (I can't bring myself to call it soccer yet). The indoor season here has just started, and following a promising pre season where the team went undefeated, the first league game of the season ended in a comprehensive 5-2 loss. I did manage to get my name on the scoresheet, although it was an own goal. I put it down to poor goalkeeping myself, and any keeper who concedes a goal to me needs to take a long hard look at himself!!!!!!
Lea and I have also started playing squash as Lea has free facilities where she works. Hopefully regular trips will allow me to improve on my poor levels of fitness. I don't expect to see any signs of improvement any time soon though.

The construction of the house continues to dominate all the rest of our free time. We are currently trying to get quotes for various aspects of the house. This may lead to a radical redrafting of the plans as we find out that downsizing is required. This is something that Lea is not looking forward to doing, as she feels that we can't possibly go any smaller than a huge 4 bedroom mansion! Maybe there will be some plans available by the next installment.

We have also included a few photos from our wanderings around downtown Saskatoon. It really does seem to be a great place to live. We are both very happy here, and now we are both working seem to think that we will be staying here for many years to come.

Finally, the weather here is starting to get a little colder. We woke up to snow this morning and the temperature didn't get above 5 degrees all day. We are wondering when the snow will start to linger a bit more. No doubt when it does there will be plenty of snowmen and snowball fight pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Until next time.........

The great land hunt

So after only one month in the country Lea decided that we had better find oursleves a piece of land, otherwise all the plans for building would be miles behind schedule. As a result we found ourselves driving around on gravel roads looking for the perfect plot.
An early favourite can be seen in the pictures below...

This plot of land was 7.5 acres, 0r 330 ft by 990 ft. Only 25 minutes from downtown Saskatoon it had everything that we were looking for, but unfortunately it also had neighbours to the south. After speaking to the neighbours about their plans we made the decision to avoid this plot even though we both liked it. Leas plans for the house mean that the south facade is all important, and nothing is allowed to be in our line of site as this may spoil the feeling of tranquility that we are after.

Sadly that meant that we had to look elsewhere. In the meantime we decided to have our first cultural experience here in Saskatoon. We got tickets to go and see the Shaolin Warriors here in town. Apart from nearly missing the performance as Les and Sherry led us to the wrong venue, this was a great show. Fighting monks, beds of nails, people being balanced on spear points, all these things were very impressive. However, the high point of the show has to be the moment when one of the monks wandered into the audience looking for someone foolish enough to be dragged up on stage. At this stage I was desperately looking away, and praying that he wouldn't come anywhere near me, but one of the downsides of sitting on the end of the row is that I was a pretty easy target for him! Now I'm sure Lea found this whole section hilarious, but to be perfectly honest with you all I was a little embarrassed at standing on stage in front of hundreds of people and having to copy crazy monks and their fighting exercises!!! Luckily for me though, photography wasn't allowed so there is no evidence for you all to look at.

The hunt for land continued west of Saskatoon. We eventually stumbled across some lots about half an hour from downtown. The beauty of these lots is that they are 10 acres (660 ft by 660 ft), and there is no development to the south of them. There will be photos of these for your viewing pleasure soon. It's a really secluded spot, with great views to the south. On the downside the lot is completely bare at the moment, and will need some landscaping, but the owners have offered us as many trees as we like from one of the wooded sections of their land. Anyone who wants to come over to Saskatoon and plant trees some time next year will be more than welcome!

In other news Lea has just passed her written test and has her proper driving test next Thursday. She will get some driving practice in over the weekend as we have a trip to Nordegg to look forward to. It's canadian Thanksgiving this weekend so we are off for our first family gathering. No doubt there will be news of that some time next weekend.

Also I have a job interview tomorrow, so fingers crossed I may soon be back among the ranks of slaves to the wage. As much as it's nice to have a bit of free time, it's getting to be a bit much now and I am desperate to get back into work!

That's about it for now. Until next time.........

Getting started with our new life............

A month ago, on 16th August, we finally left England for good (well, until December, but we'll ignore that for now). Following an early start for a 10 am flight from Gatwick, we arrived at the departure gate to be told that we would be delayed until midday. Suspiciously, we were given no information as to what was causing the delay, and by the time midday rolled round we found ourselves facing an extended delay, with news of whether we would take off or not to be given at 4 pm. By this point we were resigned to not flying at all, but, amazingly, we managed to board the plane and be in the air by about half past 8 that evening.

Note to everybody, 12 hours at Gatwick airport is NOT something you should ever do with your time!!!

Fortunately, the flight passed pretty uneventfully, and before we knew it, we were facing the Canadian immigration officials at Calgary airport. Immigration was a breeze, and we strolled out into the fresh air of Calgary airport concourse full of excitement about our big adventure.....

Sadly, we had missed our ride from the airport to Simon's place in Nordegg by about 8 hours. This left us with 2 options: a night in a hotel in Calgary, followed by a greyhound ride, followed by another greyhound ride until we met up with Arin in Rocky Mountain House approximately 36 hours later; or hire a car and drive the 3 hours to Nordegg straight away.

There are many reasons why we should have stayed the night in Calgary, mostly involving 12 hours at Gatwick, followed by a sleepless 9 hour flight, and it being 11 pm when we cleared immigration. However, Lea wanted to go to a land auction the following morning and Rob wanted to go hiking for 4 days so really we had no choice. As a result we were both more than a little tired when we rolled in Nordegg at 2 am, and duly rolled straight into bed.

What a joy it was when we were woken up at 7:30 that morning so Rob could pack up a bag, and head to the trailhead with Simon to meet the rest of the hiking group. After less than 12 hours in Canada we had decided that it was time to have a bit of time apart, so the story diverges for a few days...

Lea spent the morning bonding with James, and Arin as they went off in the search of some land. Requiring a large deposit in order to be eligible for the land lottery, Lea found herself clutching $5000 and hoping that her name came out of the hat. The odds were against her, with around 200 people all hoping for one of 25 lots which were available. As a result, neither Lea nor Arin were lucky enough to get a lot and had to go home empty handed.

At this point Rob was heading off into the mountains as part of a group of nine hikers in an attempt to take in Banff National Park, Jasper National Park and the Whitegoat Wilderness in a 4 day odyssey. Simon had planned a nice easy first day for the trip, climbing all day and camping at about 2200 metres. The second day was a bit easier, with a second night of camping in the same spot allowing a day trip up to a pass overlooking the valley of the lakes. However, by the end of the second day Rob was struggling (almost as much as at the end of the first day!), so it was with much joy that the third day was almost entirely downhill.

Back in Nordegg, Lea was kicking back with the canadian side of the family, Anne and Arlene having come over for the weekend. Walking around the bustling metropolis of Nordegg (pop. about 200) wasn't enough for Lea, so jogging became the exercise of choice. Taking onboard the advice from the locals, "You can't get lost, but if you go past the llamas and into the forest then you've gone too far.", Lea set off, and subsequently got lost, but luckily the canadians are so friendly, and even more luckily, she found someone in Nordegg to ask so she got home unscathed.

Meanwhile in the mountains the hikers were bushwhacking their way through the 'Valley of the Grizzlies' (named by Simon). There was a huge amount of evidence of bears, but luckily none were encountered. If the size of the bear scat that we saw was any indication, there were some very big bears around the area!

By the fourth day Rob was pretty pleased that the hiking was coming to an end and had two things on his mind: a shower and a comfortable bed for the night (away from Simon). It was with this in mind that the hiking finished, and we headed back to Nordegg to see how the Lea and the others had enjoyed their weekend.

On the morning of the 21st, we left Nordegg and headed for home (for the next 10 days) in Meadow Lake with Arlene. This gave us plenty of time to ease ourselves into canadian life, and get to meet a lot more locals. A week before we were due to move to Saskatoon, we had a day trip with a couple who until two days before were complete strangers, and were treated to a guided tour, seeing where we would be living and where Lea would be working. The rest of our time was spent walking around town (something which the people of Meadow Lake seemed never to have seen before), car hunting, and generally taking it easy. Eventually though, it was time to leave, and on Sep 1st we jumped on the bus and took the 4 hour ride into Saskatoon...

As with everything involving this trip (that didn't involve Gatwick airport) our arrival in Saskatoon went very smoothly. We picked up the keys for our new flat, and moved in with all our possessions (1 suitcase, 2 backpacks and a laptop). It may surprise you all to hear that the flat felt pretty empty! Some shots of the flat...

It was an amazing stroke of luck that Lea enjoys shopping so much, so we hired a car and started to stock up on essentials. It was on one of these shopping trips that we managed to find our first friend (without the help of anyone else), so a random meeting in a supermarket led to an evening stroll by the river with ice creams courtesy of Ken, another ridiculously friendly canadian.

Our arrival in Saskatoon also meant one more thing: Lea had to start work! Again, this has all happened with a minimum of fuss, and Lea is thoroughly enjoying her new job. Rob however, is not experiencing the same work related happiness. There is something remarkably depressing about the job centre, and it seems to be a regular haunt. As yet, Rob is still 'between jobs' but hopefully this situation will improve in the not too distant future. Some shots of Lea's walk to work...

Finally, we managed to get our new car this week, so now we feel fully canadian, and will never walk anywhere again! We are now the proud owners of a Honda Fit, which is allowing us to spend the weekend driving around looking for the perfect piece of land on which to build the dream house. More news on that next time though...

If anyone is interested (we know some people are, we've had requests) our address is as follows:
#407 906D Duchess Street,
Saskatoon,
SK,
S7K 6K3,
Canada

And our phone numbers are:

Rob 306-880-4528
Lea 306-881-5323

Until next time.................

Rob and Lea