Well it's been a looooong year and a half, waiting for Canada to decide if they want us to become permanent residents.
Today they made their decision, and it's a YES!!!
We need to send off copies of our passports to London office, so we won't get the confirmation back in time to take with us for landing, so we'll need to get them posted off to Canada. Then all we have to do is take a trip accross to the USA, do some shopping, then activate our PR's on the way "home" ;-)
In other news...
We have a signed lease agreement for a house in Ancaster. It's a minimum 2 month lease, which is perfect, and we might find our dream home to buy in that time.
So just some direct debits to cancel, and some address changes to do. What a doddle!, lol.
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Last family get-together
We invited everyone to our favourite restaurant for a last family doo. We chose the "World Buffet" round the corner from us. If you've never tried it, and there's one near you, DO IT NOW!!. It's amazing. I think it's the same people who owned the Ashoka, but so much better.
Ok, before that, Ailsa's mum treated us to a show at a nearby park. The event was called "Electric glen", and you will see why when you look at the photos I took:
Ok, before that, Ailsa's mum treated us to a show at a nearby park. The event was called "Electric glen", and you will see why when you look at the photos I took:
Friday, 15 February 2013
2 weeks on Thursday
Yes, less than three weeks now.
Still to finalise our lease agreement for our rental in Canada, but almost there. Big thanks to Krista our realtor for helping us get this setup.
wee plug: Krista's page
Our house sale will hopefully be finalised soon. It would be nice to be heading over to Canada with a nice wee bank balance to get started with.
On the subject of the house sale. When you get your home report done, make sure you ask if the surveyor is on the lenders list for "rent to buy". If not, the purchaser will need to send out another surveyor (at his expense), and this can slow things down a little.
We are surviving at Camp Scott, but we are really missing our bed. Everything else we can do without, but you really need a good nights sleep when you are this stressed. As it turns out we are probably moving into a furnished house for a couple of months and could have held on to our stuff till we left here, but you just don't know what the future holds, despite your best planning.
Looking forward to Sunday night. We have arranged a wee get-together for the family at a local place called "World Buffet". It's an everything you can stuff in your gob affair, but there are stations all over the place offering everything from Pizza to Curry. I'll get some pictures.Oh, and they have a chocolate fountain with marshmallows and fruit, yum.
Hope you all have a nice weekend, and watch out for that meteor that;s going to narrowly miss flattening London, lol. Stupid news reporters
Still to finalise our lease agreement for our rental in Canada, but almost there. Big thanks to Krista our realtor for helping us get this setup.
wee plug: Krista's page
Our house sale will hopefully be finalised soon. It would be nice to be heading over to Canada with a nice wee bank balance to get started with.
On the subject of the house sale. When you get your home report done, make sure you ask if the surveyor is on the lenders list for "rent to buy". If not, the purchaser will need to send out another surveyor (at his expense), and this can slow things down a little.
We are surviving at Camp Scott, but we are really missing our bed. Everything else we can do without, but you really need a good nights sleep when you are this stressed. As it turns out we are probably moving into a furnished house for a couple of months and could have held on to our stuff till we left here, but you just don't know what the future holds, despite your best planning.
Looking forward to Sunday night. We have arranged a wee get-together for the family at a local place called "World Buffet". It's an everything you can stuff in your gob affair, but there are stations all over the place offering everything from Pizza to Curry. I'll get some pictures.Oh, and they have a chocolate fountain with marshmallows and fruit, yum.
Hope you all have a nice weekend, and watch out for that meteor that;s going to narrowly miss flattening London, lol. Stupid news reporters
Sunday, 10 February 2013
Ship details
For anyone sad enough to want to follow our ship's progress, here what you need to know...
Dave n Ailsa's Container ship tracking website!
The ship's name is MSC Alyssa you just type that in a box on the left (Go to vessel) and hit enter.
Bon Voyage!!
Dave n Ailsa's Container ship tracking website!
The ship's name is MSC Alyssa you just type that in a box on the left (Go to vessel) and hit enter.
Bon Voyage!!
Ailsa says....
3
and a half weeks to go till move day and we are still fighting to get
past every step of this journey!! Loving every minute though!
Still no sign of Passport requests unfortunately, still stalking the postie on that one!
Our house here in the UK is still "under offer" taking an age to get through the legal stage, we are both starting to get really concerned that it all falls through and goes back on the market just based on how long its taking.
Finding a house on the other side has been equally challenging, I think we have tried to rent 4 or 5 now and something has gone wrong in the last stages, our Realtor (Krista Hann) has been awesome and so helpful, feeling bad for putting her through the mill just to find a short term rental! Most rentals want you to stay for a year and don't like letting for less time. Really what we want to do is buy though so we start looking as soon as we land, have a few lined up to see but its so had to tell from pictures.
Got our bank account and a credit card set up when we were over in Dec (Scotia bank... great deal for immigrants) and now also have provisional approval for a mortgage so we know our budget which is great. Even that was traumatic though as our Canadian credit check came up with debt that wasn't ours, which we had to have unpicked and we also had to send a copy off our UK credit history to help solve that.
We have calls next week with tax experts on either side, apparently you have to complete a leaving the UK form for tax purposes... who knew?? lol
Having the relocation package really helps and is worth the 2 years of hard graft and politics to get it! Doing all this without a job lined up on the other side we were absolutely prepared to do, but would have been even more challenging, greatest of luck and respect to you guys going this route...
Camping in the house is certainly interesting... Oh to
have a couch and a bed... the luxuries of life!! We have found ourselves
going out for a drive just to get a comfy seat in the car - lol!! Last
nights awesome Saturday entertainment was watching a little green boat
shaped graphic of the container ship destined to transport all of our
life long collection of belongings, docking at Liverpool. Lol!! What did
we all do before the internet provided such entertainment!! Its due to
depart today... so i'm guessing the next couple of weeks will include
much little green boat tracking!!
Now am off to go find a bed for the night, our air mattress has a puncture, not the best nights sleep ever, waking at 5:30am with half of you on the floor and the other half squished off the semi flat bed by a large dog isn't the best!!
Ailsa.
Still no sign of Passport requests unfortunately, still stalking the postie on that one!
Our house here in the UK is still "under offer" taking an age to get through the legal stage, we are both starting to get really concerned that it all falls through and goes back on the market just based on how long its taking.
Finding a house on the other side has been equally challenging, I think we have tried to rent 4 or 5 now and something has gone wrong in the last stages, our Realtor (Krista Hann) has been awesome and so helpful, feeling bad for putting her through the mill just to find a short term rental! Most rentals want you to stay for a year and don't like letting for less time. Really what we want to do is buy though so we start looking as soon as we land, have a few lined up to see but its so had to tell from pictures.
Got our bank account and a credit card set up when we were over in Dec (Scotia bank... great deal for immigrants) and now also have provisional approval for a mortgage so we know our budget which is great. Even that was traumatic though as our Canadian credit check came up with debt that wasn't ours, which we had to have unpicked and we also had to send a copy off our UK credit history to help solve that.
We have calls next week with tax experts on either side, apparently you have to complete a leaving the UK form for tax purposes... who knew?? lol
Having the relocation package really helps and is worth the 2 years of hard graft and politics to get it! Doing all this without a job lined up on the other side we were absolutely prepared to do, but would have been even more challenging, greatest of luck and respect to you guys going this route...
Now am off to go find a bed for the night, our air mattress has a puncture, not the best nights sleep ever, waking at 5:30am with half of you on the floor and the other half squished off the semi flat bed by a large dog isn't the best!!
Ailsa.
Saturday, 2 February 2013
Day 3, in the Big Brother House...
The Scott family are getting used to their new surroundings. There's a sense of excitement in the air, and even the dog seems more settled.
The next challenge is finding somewhere to live in Canada when we get off that plane.
The house sale is still moving along as it should, no surprises so far. Still don't know if it will be concluded before we leave the country.
Starting Monday, I will be contacting all the companies we pay each month, to cancel, or change addresses.
Tick tock! only 32 days !!!
The next challenge is finding somewhere to live in Canada when we get off that plane.
The house sale is still moving along as it should, no surprises so far. Still don't know if it will be concluded before we leave the country.
Starting Monday, I will be contacting all the companies we pay each month, to cancel, or change addresses.
Tick tock! only 32 days !!!
Thursday, 31 January 2013
Container Day
The run up to the container coming was a bit stressfull.
We had no idea how everything was going to happen, and what, if any preperations we should make. Should we file and sort everything in the house? should we put things in boxes or neat piles etc.
As it turns out, when a packing company says "we take care of everything" they actually mean it, lol. The guys from Allied International (they bought over Pickfords) arrived promptly at 9am Monday, with a truck full of paking materials, introduced themselves, had a walk round with me and got started.
End of day one they left one of the couches un-wrapped, and the beds.
Day two was similar, arrived on time, worked all day.
Here's a word of warning though if you have pets: I had been keeping Hemi out the way for the two days, but towards the end of day two we thought he would be used to the guys. Unfortunately he snapped at one of the guys when he tried to pat him and gave him a nip. He obviously thought they guy was trying to put him in a box.
So, no matter how friendly you think your dog is, just keep him out the way for the entire time. This incident was reported to their head office, but hopefully it will go no further.
Day three Container Day!
This is the 40 foot container, which is the biggest you will get for shipping. It's a little big for our needs, but we wouldn't get everything in the 20 footer.
Hemi was supervising operations:
The rain stayed off for the whole time the container got filled! yes, SHOCKER!, lol
Within 2 hours they were shoring it up and putting the security seal on it.
And then it was off, on it's 5 week voyage accross the atlantic. I will ad the vessel details later so you can track it, if you're sad like me, lol.
So that left us with this, and a very confused doggy:
We still have 5 weeks before we head over, so we went to Ailsa's folks to scrounge some temporary furniture. Full details of Camp Scott coming soon!
We had no idea how everything was going to happen, and what, if any preperations we should make. Should we file and sort everything in the house? should we put things in boxes or neat piles etc.
As it turns out, when a packing company says "we take care of everything" they actually mean it, lol. The guys from Allied International (they bought over Pickfords) arrived promptly at 9am Monday, with a truck full of paking materials, introduced themselves, had a walk round with me and got started.
End of day one they left one of the couches un-wrapped, and the beds.
Day two was similar, arrived on time, worked all day.
Here's a word of warning though if you have pets: I had been keeping Hemi out the way for the two days, but towards the end of day two we thought he would be used to the guys. Unfortunately he snapped at one of the guys when he tried to pat him and gave him a nip. He obviously thought they guy was trying to put him in a box.
So, no matter how friendly you think your dog is, just keep him out the way for the entire time. This incident was reported to their head office, but hopefully it will go no further.
Day three Container Day!
Hemi was supervising operations:
The rain stayed off for the whole time the container got filled! yes, SHOCKER!, lol
Within 2 hours they were shoring it up and putting the security seal on it.
And then it was off, on it's 5 week voyage accross the atlantic. I will ad the vessel details later so you can track it, if you're sad like me, lol.
So that left us with this, and a very confused doggy:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)