July 2014

My previous post turned out to be a somewhat generic disquisition on the nature and uses of the ubiquitous shipping container. This one really should contain (see what I did there?) rather more in the way of specifics.

If moving one’s existence to another continent can ever be considered straightforward, then the engagement of an international removals company to bring a container to the door (along with a team of experts to pack it) prior to waving goodbye to it for however many weeks it takes to circumnavigate the globe for delivery to the new door – is probably about as simple as it gets.

For the Kickass Canada Girl and I – you will be unsurprised to hear – things are likely to be rather more complex.

Whilst waiting for the new owner of our splendid Buckinghamshire apartment to put in an appearance (to be followed shortly by a mutually agreeable offer and a grateful exchange of contracts) we have been occupying our energies with the consideration of a variety of alternate scenarios by which means our migration might yet be effected.

The simplest of these entails attracting a purchaser in short order and selling the apartment before the end of the year. We would then look to acquire a property in Saanich as quickly as possible before retiring and emigrating at a point of our choosing between January next and the summer of 2015.

Should Plan A not work out as intended we now have a full set of plans bearing alternate majuscules. These variously involve one or both of us retiring in advance of our being able to move to Canada – either staying where we are in Berkshire or moving back to our erstwhile apartment in Buckinghamshire. Some of these options are affordable; some – frankly – are not.

Were we to pursue any of the options that involved moving back to Buckinghamshire the business of shipping would inevitably become considerably more complex. To be able to present the apartment in its best possible light – ‘staging’ as I believe it is known – we would needs place some of our possessions in storage until we were ready to move to BC. The optimal way so to do would probably involve the acquisition of a container – the which would be part-filled and stored it until the time came to emigrate. This option would have the additional benefit of providing some flexibility at the Canadian end should we not have a house lined up ready for us when we got there.

This course of action would require either the purchase a container or the location of one that could be hired for an extended period at a reasonable cost. We would further need to find somewhere to store said container and contents securely once acquired. Again – the best solution would probably be to find a company that could deal with all aspects of the operation.

There is an abundance of information on the InterWebNet regarding such matters. I have found the MoveHub website to be particularly helpful – their site containing a useful shipping guide. Matters are not helped at this stage – however – by the uncertainly as to which course of action we may eventually follow. To gain a reasonably accurate quote for shipping it seems that we would need to get a company involved to a level that we would prefer to avoid at this stage – not least because we cannot at the moment give chapter and verse as to our requirements.

As with so much of this project just now it seems we must wait and see…

Deciding that I should direct my thoughts to more positive substance than has perhaps been the case over the past few weeks I have begun again to contemplate the complexities of moving our existence to a different continent.

When the Kickass Canada Girl arrived on these shores a little more than a decade ago she did so accompanied by nothing more than a couple of suitcases and thirteen cardboard boxes containing her personal effects. When she returns to BC, with the Immigrant in tow, at some point in the next year she will undoubtedly be closely (hopefully!) followed by a shipping container of some as yet indeterminate size. I rather hope that she will consider this to be a good result for all her endeavours here!

The shipping container – or Intermodal Freight Container as it is perhaps more properly known – is a wonderful thing. Based on designs that evolved during the 1960s and were codified in ISO standards at the turn of that decade, the intention was – of course – to provide a consistent and reliable means of transporting goods throughout the world without the need to unload and reload cargoes.

Constructed from corrugated weathering steel (developed to eliminate the need for painting and forming a stable rust-like patina after extended exposure to weather) the standard container is 8ft high by 8ft wide and comes in nominal 20ft or 40 ft lengths. They are designed to be stacked up to 7 containers high and the corners consist of castings with openings for twistlock fasteners by which means they can be fixed together. The containers are – when new and appropriately certified – both wind and water-tight.

There are – it is thought – now something in excess of 17 million shipping containers in the world!

It is a testament both to the enduring efficacy of a classic design and to human inventiveness that the humble shipping container – designed but with a single purpose in mind – has proved to be a fantastically flexible and useful resource. Aside from the obvious uses – for the actual shipment or storage of goods – I have personally seen containers used for the following:

• as a cricket club sitesafe – for the storage of mowers, rollers and other groundwork equipment.
• as an office. Our dear friends in Saanichton have converted a 40ft container into the site office at their smallholding.
• as a ‘green screen’. Pinewood Studios constructs enormous exterior ‘green screens’ using walls of shipping containers.

Indeed – shipping container architecture has evolved into quite a field in its own right – as can be seen from this Wikipedia article.

I had not – needless to say – actually intended to post here a general piece on the admirable container, thinking rather that I would go into some detail regarding the complexities of using such to facilitate our emigration.

A second post is clearly called for…