Diary

We were flying business class thanks to buy one get one free offer! We have decided to splash out because of the occasion but were obviously trying to make out that we flew like that all the time. We have managed to get seats in the lid of the plane, so we settled down to enjoy champagne cocktails and to see if we could spot anybody famous.

We did manage to see the young star of a popular TV show. He wasn't bothering to pretend that he travelled like that all the time, as he was busy taking photos of the seat with his mobile phone.

Three films and too many cocktails later we landed at Vancouver airport, and the next job was to go through customs. The online forums had been full of advice on the best way to do this as had friends who had emigrated a few years ago. The general consensus seemed to be that you needed to have a comprehensive list of all your worldly belongings, including serial numbers. This had taken days to compile, and had been incredibly tedious.

We spent some considerable time hanging around trying to find someone to show a wonderful list to, but nobody was interested and just waved us through. Relieved, but feeling slightly unsure we went to check into our hotel.

The next day we had to open a bank account, which was an interesting experience as we had no address. The nice lady at the bank allowed us to use the banks address until we got one of our own. Then it was time to go car shopping.

A couple of test drives later, and the husband was anxious to do the deal as quickly as possible so he could play with his nice new toy. The negotiations began. This involved me becoming adept at kicking his ankles every time he looked willing to accept their new price. Eventually everybody was reasonably satisfied and the deal was struck.

A day later we were travelling to Vancouver Island to try and find somewhere to live and new job for me…

We duly told everyone of our plans, but they had a while to get used to the news. To be exact, the whole process took a little under four years. This included important letters going astray, and finally having to undergo a medical. This had to be done by a doctor on the Canadian Government recommended list. It was actually pretty basic stuff; we had to have a chest x-ray and had to give a blood sample. The husband distinguished himself by passing out on the doctors carpet. He left the surgery looking a little green around the gills.

The next hurdle was the sale of the house; the market had just gone down the toilet, and it was touch and go as to whether it was worth our while coming over. Its important to take the exchange rates into consideration, as well as all the costs of moving. Its very expensive to ship everything over as you are not allowed to pack anything; it has to be done by the removal firm so that they can produce a manifest for customs.

We had been told by friends who had already emigrated to Vancouver to 'bring everything', so we did. Even after a few weeks of selling all our electrical items on that very well known online auction house, we still had enough to fill a 40ft container. It would take the removal men three days to pack the house and load the container.

The day finally arrived, and three cheery men arrived to pack. I was a bit concerned about having other people pack for me, but I needn't have worried because they approached the job in hand in a thoroughly professional manner, with one of them wearing my old straw gardening hat while another danced around with one of my teddy bears. I have rather a large collection of bears; the husband calls them an 'infestation' which seems a little harsh. I just hoped that they managed to emigrate safely too. They were very hard workers, and soon there were boxes everywhere and furniture began to disappear under layers of protective wrap.

Its an odd feeling to wave off all your worldly possessions, not knowing where exactly you will be when you see them again. By this stage I had given up work, so I was unemployed, we were homeless with no keys of our own. The next few days passed in a blur, we had exchanged email addresses and promised to buy somewhere big enough for everyone to visit, and now we were at Heathrow, about to wave goodbye...

It is perhaps the first thing to check if you are considering moving abroad, as different countries have different rules, and it can even vary across the country. If you cannot make a decent living, then unless you have a burning desire to change careers it tends to make the whole emigrating thing moot.

I had trained for my profession a long time ago, and had not kept all the notes as they had gone for a ceremonial cremation quite a few years ago. This was bad news as I apparently had to take all of my exams again over a one week period. It sounded like complete hell and also made me feel a little bit whingy as anyone coming into the UK does not have to do the same thing. I could still work but only as an assistant. It would do but I didn't feel very gracious about it.

Maybe its a signal that I should become a lady of leisure I said to the husband. The grunting reply did not sound very polite.

“Why don't we cross that bridge when we come to it?” said he. “After all they may reject us”.

The form takes quite a while to fill in, and there are a lot of documents that have to be gathered up. They need all the obvious ones like birth and marriage, but also need a police certificate to prove you are not a criminal. You have to prove that you can support yourself once you are over there, and that means showing how much money you have behind you.

It costs a lot to apply, but you do get some of it back if they do not like the look of you. It is all done on a points system and we were okay on that part. If you get past the initial bit then you have the pleasure of going for a medical.

It was done and sent off. You can hear back in as little as three months, or it can take years. We took years. You can use a specialist firm to help you through the process, but we naively thought it was better to do it ourselves. On reflection this may not have been such a brilliant idea.

Waiting to see if you can emigrate puts you in a strange kind of limbo. It is difficult not to feel as if your life is on hold while you are waiting. You start to put off doing anything major around the house in case you do not get your money back later on. You put off buying electrical goods because they may end up on eBay a few months later. Now we had to break the news to everyone...

By this time we had got married, had lots of great holidays and generally had a lovely lifestyle in Brighton. It is a wonderful city to live in and it was a lot of fun.

We had spent several of those holidays in Canada. My husband had lured me over by telling me that I could see bears. I know there are lots of other different animals in the country but bears are just the best creatures ever. For a start they are sensible enough to sleep through winter, and then they have all the fun of getting very fat before hand as they enter a state called hyperphagia where they never feel full. They get to spend the spring, summer and autumn eating, and then they sleep it off during the winter. While some of us humans spend all our time eating we are not lucky enough to be able to sleep it off. If there is reincarnation I really want to come back as a bear.

We had seen bears in Whistler, as there is a thriving population of black bears there. You can book tours with local bear expert Michael Allen, and he will take you up into the mountains to view the bears. They all have names, and he knows all about them as he has studied them for many years. If you are watching a BBC programme on black bears then his name is frequently in the credits.

We had also seen grizzly bears in a remote part of British Columbia. Getting there involved travelling over to Vancouver Island where we stayed in the capital city of BC which is Victoria. We then travelled up the island and stopped at a town called Nanaimo. It was completely unmemorable and seemed to have nothing to recommend it. It was then on to Campbell River, which seemed to be a logging town where if you listened carefully you could hear the banjos playing, just very quietly in the distance. From here we caught a float plane to the middle of nowhere. It was a half hour flight over some of the most picture perfect scenery you could imagine.

We stayed at Sailcone fishing lodge with a shared bathroom. I could only contemplate suffering like this to see the bears. To be fair it really wasn’t a problem. The lodge was very clean and comfortable, and the food was excellent and all freshly prepared, and they would even cater to for any special dietary requirements. Our fellow guests were all very well travelled, all were American and very pleasant. Each day we were taken out in a boat , just us and the guide, through stunning scenery to see the wildlife. We saw plenty of it. We had a day of seeing the killer whales, and a day of seeing the grizzly bears and black bears doing their stuff on the shore. This mainly seemed to involve flipping over boulders with a paw to see if someone tasty was underneath. There was the occasional curse when a boulder landed on a foot.

It was lovely to see the bears, and it was tempting to move to a country where they were able to run wild and free. But was it enough? Could I live and work there. It wasn't just a question of getting accepted for immigration although the form was daunting enough. Would I be able to work there and what would I do if they did not accept my qualifications? A cursory search on the internet revealed some unpleasant news.

Things were progressing well with the husband to be. In February he had to travel to Canada to see a man about some work. The man in question was an ex colleague who had emigrated with his young family, and the htb had been doing some software development with him. We caught a plane to Vancouver airport where the friend picked us up and took us back to stay in his huge house. We had the guest wing. However Vancouver in February is not for the faint hearted. It was not enchantingly snowy and crisply cold, but was dank, wet and grey. Oh yes and it was cold.  The heating over there was not the warm comforting radiators of home, but pathetic little base board heaters or vents in the floor that wafted out a gentle breeze of luke-warm air. I was therefore enchanted when the htb announced that he would like to move to Canada. Seeing my horrified expression he hastily backtracked with a sort of mumbled “well not for a few years “.

Back home and it was early summer. My house had just gone on the market and we were busy looking for our new home together. We were looking in Brighton, so we saw period homes on the sea front as well as homes on the outskirts. While the period homes were enchanting they were also grade two listed, and were almost certainly haunted. Then we found it, our perfect home was...a bungalow! Bungalows had not featured high on our list of must haves, and we only looked at this one because it was in the right price range while nothing else seemed to be.  It was not particularly large, but had a very big kitchen and an en-suite bathroom which seemed like the height of luxury. I already had a buyer for my home so it seemed like it should be an easy move. It wasn’t. My buyer turned out not to have the cash until they sold a property. It took ages and things turned a little frosty between us all.  We moved in just two weeks before Christmas. It was great. I absolutely loved our new home, and throughout the years it was my sanctuary.