Ontario here we come...well for 3 weeks!

We're off to Ontario for a 3 week holiday next week. Its been over a year since we were last there which feels like forever. In my head I like to think of it more as going home for 3 weeks whilst we're temporarily working in UK (lol!!). Our plan now is to go PNP route which of course requires me to get a job either in a University or College....dead easy yeah? In the meantime I'm trying to complete a Masters degree in Online and Distance Education....trying being the operative word!!
Whilst over on this trip we're meeting up with friends, may view a couple of houses and are looking at Universities for our eldest two with a view to them starting in 2010/11. We're looking at the uni's now as we have no idea when we'll next get out to Ontario and the kids need to make informed decisions! So on with the packing.......

One year into the wait!!

This past year of waiting has been a rollercoaster to say the least. I joined a social networking site....mymuchmor.com.......which has been a godsend! Canadian Immigration is certainly not for the faint hearted and I definately need all the sopport the site offers. Being able to speak to people in the same boat as me makes all the difference. Its mixed emotions when others 'land'. I'm gutted that its not us but excited to move another place up the queue1
It is now looking as though the best way to enter Canada is with a job which is not as easy as it sounds. We are part of the September 2006 to Feb 2008 Simplified Skilled Worker Applications but the immigration procedure is now changing and we could feel the backlash.

The start!!!

Once back in UK Hubby made the suggestion of moving to Canada.... OMG!!! This was probably due to reading the emails that had been flying back and forth between me and 'S' on ways to persuade him to emigrate. So at the end of May 2007 we applied via the simplified skilled worker route with me as the principle applicant! The kids were all for going, even the eldest who I thought may decide against it. The youngest was a bit unsure but that was to be expected. Now all we had to do was wait for our AOR (receipt from the Canadian Embassy) which would tell us when we would next hear from them. We would then have about 6 months to add on to cover the submission of paperwork , medicals and visa's and this would give us an estimated date fro landing!!
On July 16th 2007 the AOR arrived and stated that we would next be contacted in 42-48 months time meaning we wouldn't be likely to land until 2011!!!

Home and back again!

On arriving home us girls realised that Collingwood would be a perfect place to live. However there was the small matter of persuading a husband and a son!! Putting thoughts of moving onto the back burner we got on with day to day things. As it turned out we ended up booking a trip back to Collingwood for the following Easter for all 5 of us and my parents too!

We arrived back into Toronto in March 2007. It was pretty cold but we were prepared for that. Collingwood was as we'd left it....it was a great feeling to be back! We explored everywhere and shopped till we dropped. My mum even went off in the car on her own to Zellars! I'd arranged an art lesson for my eldest daughter with a local artist Keli-Ann Pye Beshara.....and another friendship was made!! The highlight of the trip was hubby and son spending the day skiing together. My parents made a trip to Niagara for a couple of days and returned to Canadian snow flurries or as we Brits call them......snowstorms!!!















And then before we knew it it was back to UK.............

Colingwood cont.

We found the rental house pretty quickly and I became instant pals with the owner Sophie!! The house was fantastic with a view over the bay which was to die for. The weather was pretty cold and rainy but we didn't care. We spent the week shopping, exploring the area, eating out and curled up in front of the fire waching dvd's! Me and the girls greed that Collingwood so felt like home. So much so that we were gutted when the week finally ended and we had to head home.

Collingwood!

I'm extremely impressed with whoever came up with the design of Airport road.......it's the straightest road ever and stretches to the horizon which in Canada is for miles. But it is also a bit like a rollercoaster with sudden drops and turns........brilliant!!
It took us a good hour and a half to reach Stayner, a small town just before Collingwood but which hiad what we were now desperate for...Tim Hortens. By now it was around 5pm but of course our internal clocks were 5 hours ahead on UK time. It had been a long day since setting off in torrential rain to the airport near our home, then the 7 hour flight and the drive so we were hungry. I'd already decided on soup and hot chocolate to take to the house and have there so we were soon back on the road and entering Collingwood.
It is a great little town right on the edge of the Georgian Bay...well actually I think its on the Nottawasaga Bay which I've no doubt spelt wrong!!

Airport road to Collingwood

Once the littlest one was strapped in the back of the car plugged into the dvd player and the eldest one was sat in the passenger seat as navigator complete with GPS we were ready to go! It was pretty easy leaving the airport simply following the signs until the T junction came up: Airport road east or west?! My internal sat nav was looking for airport road north and although I knew east would take me into Toronto, west could me the QEW and that for me was a big no no!! So to be on the safe side I decided to pull into a garage/petrol station and asked the first man I could see. In the past I've found the 'dumb woman' routine often works best. When my car needs a service I always act in awe of the mechanics' skills and tell him how useless I am with engines but then let him know that if he were to suffer a cardiac arrest at this point he'd be grateful I was standing beside him as I could pretty much save his life thanks to my Coronary care experience.....
So off we set again on Airport road west. Traffic was pretty heavy so it was a slow crawl. I actually had no idea if Airport road was a highway, freeway or dirt track so I sat in the middle lane sandwiched between 2 trucks. The GPS system is my hubby's and comes complete with a voice that can melt a mans at twenty paces so I naturally refer to it as 'her' and with much contempt. Being a female GPS she retaliates by sending me off in any direction she likes, even up private driveways. On this particular trip she was in a huff at being separated from my hubby and was refusing to even find the nearest satellite!!! A few miles down the road and almost all the traffic disappeared leaving us on a 2 lane road in the middle of the countryside. You could see for miles and miles and yet there were houses at regular intervals. I had a little wobbly moment when I realised we were in the middle of rural Ontario miles from anywhere but it soon passed. You could see the road stretching ahead for miles and miles.






Airport Road in the Fall!!








As it was October time the colour of the trees were amazing as we drove along and we passed pumpkins on display everywhere....plenty of oohs and aaahs from the girls and me!!!