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Moving to Canada

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On hold…

April 17, 2012 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Kickass Canada Girl is the proud owner of a mobile phone of the ‘i’ variety – more specifically a version with a ‘4’ in it. She acquired this in the UK some time ago on a contract – indirectly – with one of the major mobile telecom providers here. I say ‘indirectly’ because she actually purchased it through one of the UK’s largest retail outlets – formerly just a food store but these days – like everyone else it seems – dabbling in all manner of services.

When she realised that she would be re-locating to Victoria the Girl took steps to ensure that the handset would be appropriately transportable – a process apparently known as ‘jailbreaking’, though one which is – I am reassured by Wikipedia – not actually illegal. She had no clear picture at the time as to what exact use she might make of the phone in Canada, but wanted to leave her options open.

On taking up her new post (if you need to get up to speed on all this please do start here) the Girl found herself the proud possessor of a company Blackberry. (Cue stirring rendition of ‘O Canada’!… Incidentally, I had always been slightly sceptical of the Girl’s claim that very few Canadians actually know more than the first line of of this rousing roundelay, but she and I recently attended a rugby match in Victoria and it has to be said… she’s not wrong! Still, Wikipedia reveals the following: “There are no regulations governing the performance of “O Canada”, leaving citizens to exercise their best judgment”… so that’s alright!).

Where was I? Oh yes…

I am sure that there are some very good Blackberry handsets – in fact I know that there are. This one, unfortunately, was not one of them. Put frankly, this one was a crock of… well – I am sure you get the idea. Let’s just say that after the iHandset this left something to be desired – or so the Girl forcefully informed me.

We dug out the iJailbreak and visited the charity’s telecom provider. ‘No problem’, they said, and happily sold us the required microSIM. They also informed us that we would need to activate this SIM – online or by phone – but that we would have to wait for three days because their network management was ‘undergoing annual maintenance’ over the Easter weekend (huh?!). Wait we duly did, however, and I subsequently found myself endeavoring to activate the new SIM the day before I headed back to the UK. That’s where things became tricky.

The online activation appeared to work, but the phone could not find the network. I called the helpdesk. They were closed for the night! I called the next morning. I was taken through an extensive diagnostic process, at the end of which the (most helpful) techie informed me that though the phone was jailbroken it was still actually locked to the previous network. They could see the SIM across the network, but the handset itself could not.

Two possible courses of action became apparent. We could try to find someone in Victoria to ‘unlock’ the phone or we could wait until I returned to the UK, where I could contact the carrier there to ask for the unlock code. Not being willing to leave the iPrecious in the hands of the type of uber-geek with which I am (sadly) all too familiar we opted for the latter course. The only problem, of course, was that now that the microSIM had been activated and the old SIM terminated we could not use either handset.

Back in England I called the network operator. ‘Yes’, they said – ‘because you have had the phone for more than a certain time we can arrange for the unlock code to be sent to you’. Naturally they made it sound as though they were doing us a huge favour. ‘But’, they continued – ‘it may take up to 28 days’. Twenty eight days?! This was not going to go down well with the Girl, who is pretty fiesty at the best of times!

One of my bright young things at work suggested that we should – in the meantime – purchase an adapter for the microSIM so that it would fit the Blackberry. At least then the Girl would have a working mobile. As I could see samples online for only a few pounds (dollars… much the same!) I suggested this to the Girl and she went hunting in Victoria. After being bumped from one store to another and back again she was on the point of giving up when the incredibly helpful assistant at the Fido store on Yates Street (name check for going above and beyond) pointed out that the adapter – merely a small piece of plastic designed to make the microSIM bigger than is really is – was strictly unnecessary, and that by judicious insertion and a bit of jiggling the microsSIM would actually work just as well in the Blackberry!

Kudos to Fido for being massively helpful for no real gain (other than attracting a potential future customer) – boos and hisses to Apple for adopting the microSIM in the first place (sheer bloody-mindedness I reckon) – to the UK carrier for taking 28 days to send a few digits by email (what on earth do they do all the time!) and also to all carriers who do not automatically unlock handsets once the initial contract has expired, thereby indulging in what I consider to be absurd and restrictive practices.

Phew! Time to lie down in a darkened room…

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SitRep

April 15, 2012 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Returning to the UK from Victoria has not been easy. Some of the reasons for this need little elucidation – I do not like having to leave Kickass Canada Girl again, particularly as my next trip to BC will not be until the very end of June (the day after summer term ends). Being together again – particularly in BC – was such a sweet experience that we are now both finding ourselves – to put it mildly – rather glum and listless.

I also find the jetlag particularly difficult to deal with when travelling east. On this occasion the first few days seemed relatively straightforward, though a closer examination would have revealed that my sleep patterns were far from normal. Just at the point at which I was congratulating myself on having escaped the worst effects the lack of sleep caught up with me and I crashed. I am now fighting to get things back into a regular pattern. I have been going to bed late to try to ensure that I sleep though the night, but then – finding myself awake at 4:00 or 5:00am and unable to get back to sleep – have been suffering through the days.

Jetlag makes no sense to me in any case. Why should I wake in the middle of the night on return to the UK? Exactly the same happens when I travel to BC and neither time corresponds to my normal waking hour at the other location. Methinks the body simply doth protest too much at being made to alter its habitual routine… Methinks I am getting old!

On this occasion the fact that I tweaked my back moving furniture in the Girl’s suite the day before I left – and that I then had to sit for 10 comfortless hours on the flights back – only made things worse. My back is slowly recovering, but the discomfort has not improved my mood.

Still – enough complaints. I should take the opportunity afforded by writing this post to reflect on the progress that the Girl and I made during my visit to BC. Read on…

 

In an admittedly small – though significant – step towards becoming a resident, I now have a Canadian bank account. The Girl and I opened joint chequing and savings accounts with CIBC, who were – it must be said – incredibly helpful. Since returning to the UK I have transferred to the new account – through the same currency exchange that I used previously – a fair sized chunk of our savings, so that we have monies ready in BC should we need to put down a deposit on a property or to set in motion any other course of action that would lead to us becoming properly resident. At this point each small step forward seems significant.

Over the last few years the Girl and I have looked at a fair number of properties on the peninsular, and we viewed several more on this occasion. The main difference this time was that we saw two properties that we would happily have purchased immediately. One – in Brentwood Bay – would have been a most practical proposition, with good potential for rental income. The other – north of Saanichton – was set in particularly beautiful gardens and had a breath-taking view over the Haro Straight. We both fell in love with the latter and would have made considerable sacrifices to acquire it, but someone else clearly had the same idea as another offer had been made even before I left Victoria.

We had hoped that the Girl’s new position – with its commensurately higher salary – coupled with her renewed status as a Canadian resident, would have facilitated the acquisition of a mortgage – which we would currently need to cover any purchase until such time as we can sell our  property in the UK. It seems, however, that mortgages in BC are now harder to come by – a position that mirrors that extant in the UK. We were forced – reluctantly – to accept that we could not make an offer on either of the properties that we had viewed. It seems that we must again first concentrate on the sale of the apartment in South Buckinghamshire.

Each time I visit BC we initiate further advances and, of course, with the Girl being there full time things are that much easier. Still much to do, though, including applying for permanent residency – of which more later.

 

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We’re not happy…!

April 10, 2012 in Moving to Canada | 2 comments

When one of my IT support engineers advises a user to power off and restart his or her computer, my reckoning is that this is pretty sage advice. The strong probability is that the user has by this point issued such a convoluted and illogical set of instructions to the poor machine that it has completely tied itself in knots and only a full reset will restore normal service. The other possibility – that the problem is caused by the vagaries of the software products of our major computer corporations – will keep for a future post.

It is a different matter, however, when the captain of an Airbus A330 – sitting on the tarmac at Calgary for well over an hour with full complement on board – shuts the whole aircraft down to complete darkness three times in an effort to restart a recalcitrant computer. Despite the fact that the machine in question merely powered the entertainment system this extended procedure naturally did not fill the assembly with confidence, any more than did the pair of puzzled looking mechanics who wandered the length of the aisle – the ‘engineer’ clutching a screwdriver and the ‘oily rag’ keeping his place by means of a grubby finger in a vast orange reference manual. Hmmm!

Their efforts – you will be unsurprised to read – were not successful. The flight consequently suffered a total lack of entertainment (the stewardesses declining the suggestion of one male passenger that they dance for us instead) and had no reading lights! I was not particularly bothered by the lack of movies and so forth – I rarely watch them in flight in any case – but as I am a poor sleeper in transit the inability to read for the eight hour duration of the flight was pretty frustrating.

Fortunately the Galaxy Note was fully operational and I was thus able to compose this somewhat irritable diatribe for later posting.

Way to go, Air Canada…

 

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Pearl’s a singer…

March 27, 2012 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

Gerald Levert/Andy Gibson – sung by Janis Joplin

It is surprisingly difficult to find statistics on worldwide open-top ownership, so my gut feeling that the English must come somewhere near the top of the league when it comes to this peculiar obsession must remain purely subjective. At this time of year the merest hint of the sun peeping through the murk is enough to bring to the roads an epidemic of rag-topped roadsters that have presumably spent the winter months hibernating in warm, dry garages.

Why it should be that the English are thus so afflicted I am not sure – particularly given our infelicitous climate. Perhaps it has to do with wishful thinking, or the lack of a pertinent contemporary mythology – or perhaps our midlife crises are just more acute than for other races. Either way, those from sunnier climes who might be expected to embrace the joys of wind-in-the-hair motoring instead tend to eschew these delights in favour of air-conditioned homogeneity.

I am, myself, a long standing convertible convert. The above is my pride and joy – the other lady in my life – and she is called Pearl. You probably don’t really need me to elucidate the origin of the name, but (for younger readers)… ‘Pearl’ was both the title of the album that Janis was recording at the point of her untimely death, and indeed her nickname for herself.  For those that care about such things my Pearl is a 1986 300SL. I have owned her for around ten years now and she has given me a great deal of pleasure over that time.

Regrettably, any thoughts of bringing her to Canada in a couple of years time really are a non-starter. If I wished I could pick up a North American version of the SL for somewhat less than it would cost to ship her over and do the necessary work to register her.

Which leads me to this observation… My perception, rightly or wrongly, is that – for a state that has a mild climate and considerably more days of sunshine than we do in the UK – British Columbians do not seem particularly keen on open top motoring. Yes, there are enthusiasts, but nowhere near the numbers that we see in England. Pickups are all well and good, but – for me – just do not hold the same appeal.

So – what should I drive when I finally make it to Victoria? My instinct is that I should run a 4×4, and I will certainly need it to be equipped to tow a boat. I am no stranger to the breed having previously owned an old Landrover 110 Station Wagon, which I really enjoyed both on and off-road. Unfortunately the fact that it boasted a 3.5l V8, weighed over 2 tons and had the aerodynamics of a block of flats (Canadian: Condo!) meant that it averaged only around 12mpg! In the end I could no longer afford to run the beast – even had my conscience allowed me to do so.

Trouble is, I still hanker after a rag-top – and whereas there used to be quite a range of 4×4 convertible options, as far as I can see there is now only the one…

Hmmm! What to do?

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Anchors a-weigh

March 22, 2012 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Thirteen boxes containing 180Kg of Kickass Canada Girl’s wardrobe and personal effects (and no – I won’t be drawn as to what percentage of her wardrobe that represents!) have taken wing and are – as I write – migrating to Canada.

It doesn’t do to speak too soon, of course, but thus far the experience of using Air Canada Cargo to ship these items has proved nothing but positive. Provided the Girl’s precious bits and bobs do not go missing en route I shall have no hesitation in offering my endorsement of their services. Given that my introduction to Air Canada was somewhat coloured by the infamous bastardisation of their erstwhile slogan ‘We’re not happy until you’re happy’, this counts as pretty good going.

The shipping procedure that I followed – which may be of interest should you ever need to do likewise – was as follows:

  • Pack, seal, weigh, address and number the boxes
  • Create a packing list – including dimensions and weights of the boxes and details and approximate values of the contents thereof
  • Book the shipment with Air Canada Cargo – by email – one week before required delivery date
  • Print off the packing list (several copies are helpful) and the confirmation details of the booking and quotation
  • Borrow a van from the School
  • Deliver the shipment to Air Canada Cargo at Heathrow (open 24/7) – 48 hours before required delivery date
  • Air Canada Cargo then:
    • Process the paperwork and produce transit labels for each box
    • Check the weights of the boxes
    • Charge for shipping according to their quote (easiest done by credit card)
    • Produce the Air Waybill (of which one gets a copy)
  • Scan and email the copy of the Air Waybill to Kickass Canada Girl
  • Sit back and relax!

Once launched the shipment can be tracked from the Air Canada Cargo website simply by using the Air Waybill number. A decent amount of information is provided at each stage. All that then remains is to arrange collection at the receiving end.

The Girl slightly complicated things at this point by contacting Canadian Customs to enquire as to the process for gaining clearance for the goods. She was passed between no fewer than five customs operatives, each of whom told her something different and the last of which said that nothing could be done without some item of information that she didn’t have. I advised her to talk direct to Air Canada Cargo in Victoria, and they once again came up trumps. A most helpful customer services operative explained the procedure:

  • The shipment would be held in a secure ‘cage’ until customs had been cleared
  • The Girl should visit Air Canada Cargo – taking the Air Waybill with her – pay the relevant fee and receive the necessary paperwork
  • She should then call on Canadian Customs who would either simply process the paperwork and give her clearance, or go with her to Air Canada Cargo to inspect the boxes before doing so
  • The boxes would then be released to her

So much for the theory. We will see how it all works out in practice. I will add an addendum to this post in a few days time if all goes to plan – or inflict a further post if it turns into a long and harrowing saga instead.

The other positive that should be commented on is that the cost of shipping the Girl’s goodies really has been very reasonable. So much so, it would seem, that the Victoria Air Canada Cargo man expressed surprise on seeing the documentation, and asked if we had been given a staff discount!

 

Addendum: All boxes duly cleared customs and collected to schedule. Smiles all round!

 

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Money matters

March 20, 2012 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

This is a big day for Kickass Canada Girl – the first day in her new post in Victoria. I feel sure that you will all want to join me in wishing her well. It has been eight years since she last worked in BC and it is probable that much has changed in the meantime.

For the School at which I work here in the UK it is the last week of a tough term. When the boys return in April the clocks will have gone forward, the cricket season will have started and it will be ‘summer’ – though the weather can sometimes take a while to catch up. Regrettably I do not get the same holidays as other teachers (we IT types enjoy what are termed ‘normal business holidays’) but this year I am taking some time off and will be heading to Victoria in the middle of next week to spend Easter with the Girl and our dear friends in Saanichton.

I hope to get some decent pictures whilst I am in BC which will, naturally, appear on this site in due course.

 

One of the many issues that concern those whose lives are separated by an ocean is the question of money… more specifically the transfer thereof from one continent to another. The Girl and I decided to experiment a little to determine what might prove the most efficient – and cost effective – means of moving funds.

The Girl has an account with one of the major international banks here in the UK and, since they are also well represented in Canada, she thought it would be relatively easy to transfer money to her Canadian bank through them. She arranged a transfer immediately before leaving the UK in the expectation that the funds would be available when she reached Canada, and certainly by the time she arrived in Mexico. Unfortunately when I came home from work the day after she had left I found a voicemail from her bank informing us that there was a problem. Apparently the funds had left the Girl’s UK account but had been rejected by the bank in BC. She called her bank – from Mexico – and instructed them to abandon the transfer and to return the monies to the UK. When she next looked at the UK account, however, the funds were still missing. A day later – without any further action on her part – they appeared unexpectedly in her Canadian bank account.

This was not particularly impressive – and was rendered even less so by the exchange rate, which was distinctly on the miserly side.

I fared rather better with an online currency exchange that I found on the InterWebNet, which I used to transfer the funds to pay for the Girl’s new car. The operation seemed well organised, confirmed everything in detail electronically, transferred the money when they said they would and got me a decent rate. They now send me daily email updates on various exchange rates – including Sterling/CAD. They can also offer a potentially useful service for transferring pension payments abroad, which may come in very handy.

There are quite a number of firms operating similar services but this one has had some good write-ups. They are called Smart Currency Exchange, and if you are interested I would suggest you check them out thoroughly yourself before going ahead. Hopefully you will find them as useful as I did.

 

You might wonder why the caption picture is of a pile of Euros! Well – I just happened to find some lying about when I wanted to take a photo, and they seemed more photogenic than the somewhat rumpled and tarnished sterling in my wallet. Given the current state of affairs this side of the pond, however, little should be made of that particular analogue…

 

An addendum to my own post: This is a most useful comparison site if you want to contrast online currency exchanges.

 

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Shipping News

February 29, 2012 in Moving to Canada | 2 comments

As you would expect of a lady, Kickass Canada Girl does not undertake major travel lightly… nor indeed does she travel light! At the risk of offending it has to be said that this is true of many ladies; I myself have known of only one exception, and in that case I suspect that there was witchcraft involved…

When the Girl leaves for Victoria on Sunday she will be accompanied by three large suitcases (in addition to her hand luggage) and will be followed to BC after a week or so by thirteen good sized boxes. She is moving home of course so this is eminently reasonable, but the logistics of it all take some planning.

As an Air Canada Premier customer the Girl can take two cases under her baggage allowance and thus has only to pay an additional charge for the third item. The boxes – which weigh a total of around 180Kg – are more of a problem. Searching the web for helpful suggestions as to economical and effective methods of transportation merely confuses, revealing a plethora of shipping options. Obtaining quotations for many of these requires submission of rather more information than I care to divulge and then waiting for someone to make contact. Whilst doing so I followed up some personal recommendations but in each case the costs seemed to me to be on the high side.

In the end we decided that the best option would be simply to ship the boxes by Air Canada Cargo. As there is no middle man – and because they don’t pick up or deliver – their costs are quite reasonable. Our friends in Saanichton live within 10/15 minutes of Victoria airport and as there is always a pickup to hand (naturally!) the collection part of the operation should be quite straightforward. Getting the boxes to Heathrow will be trickier. We live reasonably close – about half an hour away – but I don’t have a vehicle that will take that many boxes in one go, so it looks as though I will have to hire.

The complication comes – you will not be surprised to hear – in the matter of Customs and Excise. Putting together a manifest for each box is straightforward enough – given the usual difficulty of ascribing a sensible value to personal effects that one may have had for years – but ensuring that the list is comprehensive is not so easy. Everything that the Girl takes back into Canada must be detailed on Canadian Border Services Agency form B4 and handed in to Border Control on her arrival. My understanding is that this list must also cover anything else that she may subsequently want to take back to Canada (remembering that many of her chattels may well stay in the UK until I move there myself in a couple of year’s time) otherwise she will be liable to pay tax on them. This means planning ahead for the next two years to ensure that she doesn’t forget something that she might need. The odds on this part of the operation going entirely smoothly are, I would hazard, slender.

Fortunately there is a wealth of information available online for Canadian nationals who are returning to Canada. This site (Moving Back to Canada) is particularly useful. Hats off to Paul Kurucz for the work that clearly went into it.

 

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