People & Places
Hobdens' Canadian Blog May 07
In their second blog all the way from Vancouver Island, the Hobdens tell us what they got up to in April.
Doesn't time fly when you are having fun! We have just celebrated our third year living in Canada. Lot's of good times, a few not so good times. A very positive experience overall.
Good times are very many and include arriving here, meeting up with friends and family we had here, meeting new friends, experiencing Canadian culture (from Canada Day celebrations to First Nations Pow-Wows), being able to explore and take in the nature of this beautiful country and enjoying the better lifestyle and standard of living than we had in England.
Bad times have been a lot less but include trips to the dentist, trips to the hospital and watching our pool dome collapse in the winter snow and having to make our first Canadian insurance claim.
April has been a funny month weather wise. Normally by now it is shorts and t-shirt weather, whereas we have had nearly every weather system you could think of. There has been sun, rain, wind, frosts, hailstones, more rain; about all that has been missing is snow. We did manage to squeeze in our first BBQ of the season though.
Anja is still enjoying her dancing and has been in a show. Here dance group are busy practicing for their big end of year performance in June, which is held in the Cowichan theatre.
Daniel's basketball season never seems to end. The school season finished and straight away they started the regional teams. Vancouver Island is split into 3 teams and Daniel plays for the Mid-island team. They are busy practicing for a tournament in Vancouver later this month against 15 other regional teams, where they will pick the British Columbia team from. So no pressure on Daniel then…On top of this he is playing in a local spring league and another extra school league.
We have been busy around the garden planting flower bulbs, vegetables and fruit trees. We always wanted to try and grow our own but never really had the space, so we're making up for it now! We have garlic, onions, spring onions, lettuce, parsnip and radish in the vegetable garden. We have planted an assortment of fruit trees including apple, cherry, pear, hazelnut, nectarine, apricot and peach to go with our plum trees. We also have pumpkins growing!
Each month we have decided to give a 'Tip Of The Month' to try and help you either in your emigration application or something that would be useful when you land here. This month's tip is: car insurance is expensive here compared to the UK, even when given the appropriate discounts. You will need a letter from your insurer(s) for the last eight years stating your driver history and continuity of insurance. You will need this for each driver. When we arrived we had a letter from our insurers who told us "we deal with this all the time, this is what you need." When we got here it wasn't accepted (it was for five years history), so we had to pay full price (around CDN$2600) until we could get another letter faxed over. Once we received that we was given a 30 per cent discount (not the 40 per cent we had in the UK). Be aware that certain areas/places will cost more than others and make sure you insist on getting the correct letter with the correct information from your insurers.
If you would like to e-mail us with any questions please do on emigreat@shaw.ca
Also have a look at our website Emigreat. We are putting on useful information and links for anybody who is emigrating to or visiting Canada and we update these as often as possible.
Speak to you all next month!
Read other emigration blogs