People & Places
Hobden's Canadian blog November 2007
Darren Hobden's been gardening, Mette's been selling houses, and Daniel and Anja have been limbering up...
We had our Thanksgiving Dinner recently, writes Darren Hobden. It consisted of roast turkey with all the trimmings and followed swiftly by a nice pumpkin pie and cream. Delicious! When we had our first Thanksgiving Dinner in 2004 we bought a pumpkin pie but dreaded actually eating it because it looked disgusting but we in fact found it very tasty and we all look forward to our pumpkin pie now. We enjoy Thanksgiving as it feels like we are having two Christmas meals a year! We basically had a lazy day chilling out and playing games. Mette, who is a realtor, (estate agent), had to do a couple of house showings on Thanksgiving Day. Real Estate sure is different out here!
I've been working on our land, getting final things done before the Winter sets in, such as pruning, weeding, tidying, mowing and a few minor repairs. I had to rotovate an area of the field and plant 364 garlic bulbs so we are hoping for a good crop next summer. This year we grew 54 so we are expanding. We are still enjoying the parsnips we are growing and it is nice to pick fresh veg and have it cooked on a plate an hour later. It certainly beats all the transportation that shop-bought produce goes through. We have enjoyed growing a few different vegetables and fruit this year and definitely want to get into it more.
The weather is still having some wet moments, some sunny moments and some frosty mornings. Overall, though, it's not too bad - so gardening hasn't been a sodden nightmare.
Halloween has also come and gone. Where we used to live on a sub-division we would have around 200 children knocking throughout the evening. We now live more rurally and we get a grand total of… two. We still get in the spirit of things and decorate the garden a bit but in all honesty it's probably more for our own entertainment! We went to a friend's house in the evening and drank hot chocolate around a bonfire. Our children are older now so they went trick or treating with their friends and we picked them up later.
Daniel is playing soccer and is getting back into the swing of basketball training as their season starts the end of November. Anja is doing lots of dancing and is busy preparing for a Christmas show.
We also participated in the live webcam seminars at the Coventry Emigrate Shows and it was nice to talk to you and answer some of your questions – which were still arriving into November.
Tip of The Month: This month's tip comes fresh from a question we were asked by a friend here in Canada. His parents are British and are now retired and they receive their pension from the UK. Until lately they have had it wired direct to their account here but now there is a charge for doing this. Our friend asked if we knew of any ways around this. What we told him was that we still have a UK bank account and to cash a foreign cheque here at most banks is free (check before you open an account). So if they still have an account in the UK, they could get their pension paid directly into it and then write a cheque out here and cash it with no charge. It may take a week or so to clear but if it solves the fee paying problem it will work in the long run.
If you have any questions about Canada and would like to ask an expat please send us an email. Please check out our website Emigreat for information about Canada and links to services here.
We'll be in touch again next month...
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