Nomination Received ..........

After a couple of months of waiting and worrying about our application we got a wonderful email from Nova Scotia Immigration saying that we had been nominated by the Province to emigrate and that we should now submit our PR application to London within the next 6 months.

This was the great news we had hoped for and we of course were desperate to put everything together straight away but we realised there was no rush as I couldn't retire from the police until the summer of 2011. If we got the timing right we might even avoid having to pop across to Canada to 'land' before I actually retired. The worry with that was the chance that the rules concerning PR applications might change at the drop of a hat.....as they had done several times in the last few years.

We let Christmas 2009 come and go before submitting the next application pack to London. This bundle of papers was a lot smaller than the one we had posted to Halifax but just as important.

<-----Canadian High Commission , Grosvenor Street, London

The first news we received about our application was an email which the fact that we had to include Ellie in the application and have her medically examined even though she wasn't moving to Canada with us. Not too much of a problem, more forms, more photos but at least would give her the option of moving out to Canada later if she wanted.

The next news we had was our medical requests which arrived in late March 2010. We were given 45 days to have the medicals done and move to the next stage of the process. We left it a few weeks before booking in to the DMP (Designated Medical Practitioner) in Nottingham.

The date of the medicals was set for 15th April 2010.

Putting together our application

We returned to the UK after a great trip to Nova Scotia and knew that we had to continue and apply for permanent residence visas. We were confident that we would receive the Letter of Identification from Corda in due course and so we started collecting together all the paperwork required for the initial application to Nova Scotia Immigration in Halifax.
Finally after several weeks of rooting round in the loft, asking HR at work for proof of what I'd been doing for the last 20 years etc, we had all the necessary paperwork (127 sheets of A4 !!!) and we posted off everything on July 27th 2009. The letter of Identification had been sent directly to Halifax from Corda to await our application.

BE................ That is wwww.britishexpats.com now became a big part of our lives and provided us with loads of useful information and a few laughs along the way. It also allows you to help others who might be thinking about starting out down the same route. We had become members a couple of years before, but now we had applied all the things people were saying became that much more important.

A day out with the Mounties

Whilst in Antigonish I had arranged a day out

with Staff Sergeant Paddy McNeil from the local RCMP station.

What a welcome he gave me !! I met everybody at the station before dashing off with him to the Dr John Hugh Gillis High School to watch a mock fatal traffic accident.

All Grade 12 students and staff of the witness a mock car crash in the parking lot of the school.
The mock crash was presented by MADD (Mothers Against Drink Drivers) Canada, the Antigonish Detachment of the RCMP, the Antigonish Fire Department and Emergency Health Officials to show the consequences of drunk driving. I met with lots of local people including the school vicar.

Later we visited Paddy's house and he showed me lots of First Nation art that he had collected whilst serving in more northerly climates in Newfoundland and Labrador. He had a Timber Wolf Fur on one wall which was very impressive. Paddy also gave me some of wine to taste later that evening !!

The very low numbers of crimes recorded and the even lower number of prisoners arrested was very reassuring to see.

All in all it was a great day out with some nice people. I left with the wine and a carrier bag of Royal Canadian Mounted Police memorabilia.

Whilst up that end of Nova Scotia we popped up to the Canso Causeway and dipped our toes into Cape Breton, although in actual fact we didn't go too far and we only stopped for a coffee in Port Hawkesbury before returning to Antigonish.

Before heading home we caught up with Rob and Claire again in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia - alongside the Bluenose II a replica of the famous ship that appears of coins in Canada.

Hello is that the Canadian Coastguard?

The big attraction of staying at South Side Harbour was the proximity to the sea and the things that float that were at the house.

Rachel and Claire found out that they were potential medallists for London 2012 (No not kayaking....wine drinking !)

One day Rob and I rigged up the yacht and decided to put our extensive training and my 8 years in the Royal Navy to the test.

As you can see it was flat calm or at least it was when we started out. After gaining some confidence and looking like real sailors by spinning round the island and stopping the yacht, we decided it was time to take the kids out for a sail.

They loved it and we started to pick up speed as the wind picked up. We then thought we would sail along the coast and out of view of the ladies onshore. (This would turn out to be our first mistake) The wind picked up some more and the sails started to strain and we really were ripping along very quickly.

Time always goes quickly when you are enjoying yourself and we had forgotten we had been out of view of Rachel and Claire for over an hour. We had also failed to notice the Force 8 winds that had blown up.

We eventually sailed back from our epic voyage (Captain Cook eat your heart out) and into view of the house......we moored the yacht only to be informed that we had been literally only a few minutes away from having the Canadian Coastguard out. !!!! We laughed about it (well me and Rob did).

South Side Harbour.............

After a couple of days we travelled up the Trans Canadian Highway to Antigonish where we had booked a house by the sea for a week. It came complete with a 17 foot yacht, its own beach, canoes and kayaks. The house was called Dar ix XemX and was absolutely fantastic. Our journey there was like something out of a film. We turned off a main road along a side road....drove for miles......and miles...turned on to yet another side road.......and finally came across the house sat there looking gorgeous. We went up to the front door (which was open)....classical music was playing from somewhere inside the house and there was a gigantic axe wedged into a log next to the front door. Hitchcock would have been proud of this scene !!!!!

Professor Chris Galea owned the house and he had left us a note (and some wine) to welcome us.

We could see bald eagles swooping overhead and the scenery was just stunning.

Rob, Claire, Sophie and Ross joined us at this point and had fallen in love with Canada and Nova Scotia and announced that they wanted to live here too !!!!!!!!!!!

Our Research Trip......

I like to look back on it as a holiday but in actual fact it was quite hard work. We had visits booked with Colchester Regional Development Agency (Corda), Truro Elementary School, Bruce Berry to look at some houses, RCMP in Antigonish, Truro Police and the Canadian Red Cross.



We flew from London Heathrow to Halifax on AirCanada......nice flight and didn't seem very long at all. The first thing that struck me at Halifax Airport was how quiet it was.....and how friendly people were. The man with a kilt on who welcomed us to Canada and handed us a luggage trolley was a sign of things to come.


We were the only people in the Car Hire hall and when we were completing the paperwork for our car Rachel said she didn't like the colour of the car that Hertz were trying to give us... so we got a great upgrade to a nice SUV GMC Envoy.

We drove north on Highway 102 towards Truro and it was hot (28C) but we saw hardly any cars. We stayed next to a gigantic indian at the Super 8 Motel









































After a decent sleep we ventured into Truro ready for our meeting with Margot at Corda. As soon as we got out of the car we were spotted as 'out of towners' by a local guy who came over and shook our hands, told us where the best coffee could be found and if we needed any help to pop into his shop. What a fantastic start !!! Is everybody this friendly we asked ourselves? It turned out that they were.



We met Margot at the Olde Coffee shop on Inglis St and had a great chat about our intentions and future application.

We drove out of Truro later towards Tatamagouche and experienced very rural Canada....we were looking for a beach on the north coast but took a wrong turning and missed it !

We drove past Ski Wentworth which looked like it might be fun with some snow down.

Our next meeting was with Bruce Berry who is a local Real Estate Agent who agreed to take us around the areas he thought we might like.

We went round some very nice houses in Truro and had a drive out to Economy and Masstown.


Meanwhile the Shepherds were flying across to Halifax and spending a few nights in Halifax before meeting us later in the week at the rental house near Antigonish..................................