Canadian anniversary

This week we celebrated fifteen years since arriving in Canada. We treated ourselves to a nice meal out. The orders were fairly predictable: steak, steak, steak, pizza!

The weird thing is, it hardly seems any time since we were celebrating our tenth year here. Time is flying by these days. We’ve got older, the kids have grown up, pets have come and gone.

Although time seems to be flying in recent years, it feels odd now looking back on photos from fifteen years ago, how much everything has changed. Those days feel like a lifetime ago. Well, for the kids that’s not far from the mark. They were young when we moved. But even I have now spent over a quarter of my life in Canada, and I couldn’t imagine going back.

Treat every day like your first

My organization puts on a fabulous learning event each year, where they invite speakers and facilitators to talk and lead sessions. The event took place last week over three days with a variety of sessions to choose from. It’s an opportunity for staff to get out of the office for a day or two and hear some great speakers.

One of the keynote speakers last week was the inspirational Drew Dudley. He talks all over the world about everyday leadership, and his theme was the need to come into work every day as if it’s your first day on the job.

Yes, there’s a funny story behind this about a tour guide who took him out into the desert in a dune buggy, but the guide brought such joy and energy to his work because, as he put it, “I’ve been doing the same job for seventeen years, and every day is my first day.”

And it occurred to me this morning that the same applies in life outside of work.

When we emigrated from Britain to Canada, we expected to have some tough adjustments to make. One of the golden pieces of advice on immigration is to make a list of all the reasons why you chose to move. When things get tough, take out that list to remind yourself why you did this.

That advice is along the same lines of resetting your mental state to recapture the hope and excitement of those early days. Drew Dudley just takes it a lot further.

And it’s true. As I drove to the grocery store this morning, I was struck afresh by my beautiful surroundings. Glorious sunshine, open fields, mountains in the distance, wide and empty roads ... And I could appreciate afresh the unhurried ease of shopping, uncrowded aisles, the friendly staff ... as if for the first time.

So, despite all the people-driven crap going on in the world, take time to look with fresh eyes at the wonder that is the world we live in. The wonder that we all too easily take for granted.

Liberation calamity

Has anyone out there moved away from where they grew up, leaving family and friends behind? Do you still keep an eye on local news from “the old country”? I still check out the Guernsey news from time to time because I like to keep abreast of things that affect my family and which might come up in phone conversations.

This summer, I’ve been watching an unbelievable saga unfold over the ferry service to the island.

Being a small island, air and sea links are a vital part of island life. Obviously. And the volume of traffic is too small to sustain a free-for-all competition so the passenger/vehicle route is granted to a single monopoly operator.

You’d think that the Guernsey government, which grants licenses to run the route, would want to ensure a good and reliable service on this lifeline route.

You’d think, when they put the route out to tender and sign a multi-year contract on behalf of islanders, they’d insist on a decent service with enforceable service levels.

You’d think.

You’d be wrong.

The current operator introduced a new fast ferry to the route in March, with huge fanfare and promises of “an even better” service than before, replacing two vessels with one larger boat. i.e. No backup. The story since then has been a farcical catalogue of delays and cancellations due to mechanical failures, inability to dock if even the slightest breeze is blowing from the wrong angle, inability to handle waves a fraction of the height it’s supposedly designed for (and remember, this is the English Channel we’re talking about, with winter approaching), complaints of violent see-sawing in a following sea (and suggestions from the harbor master that passengers need to “retrain their stomachs”) and challenges with loading/unloading its full load of vehicles in the scheduled turnaround times.

I can’t lay my hands on reliable statistics, but anecdotal evidence suggests it has stayed on or close to schedule on only half its crossings. The ferry was even cancelled over the Guernsey Liberation Day weekend, arguably the busiest and most significant public holiday in the island’s calendar. Just Google “Condor Liberation” for a litany of disaster.

People are naturally fed up with this, and tempers flared when the ferry was cancelled yet again leaving people stranded at Poole harbor over this weekend.

The Guernsey government’s response?

*Crickets*

Ali is planning to take a trip back there with the kids next summer for her father’s 80th birthday. The itinerary includes her parents (who live in Bristol) taking the car over on the ferry to Guernsey. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this fiasco hoping things will improve before then.

Right now, I wouldn’t trust any important trip to this ferry. Would you?

Time and measurement

Quick aside: We almost didn't notice it, but this week we passed our ninth anniversary of landing in Canada. Nine years! It feels unreal. So much has happened in that time.

Earlier on in the summer, I did a couple of posts about the business side of this tangled mess we call "writing".

I'm a bit of a measurement freak, and I firmly believe that you can't hope to manage something unless you measure it somehow. One thing I want to manage better is time. Your own time is a huge investment. In the writing world, it is probably the biggest single raw resource you consume in producing your finished product.

I can't imagine any serious business surviving without some reasonable understanding of how much time it takes to do things, so I've built this handy little spreadsheet that acts like a stopwatch. Click on the "start" and "stop" buttons and it adds the time into a running total against whichever task I've got selected.

This is my first step to getting a handle on things in a more businesslike way.

What I've learned so far

Since July, with all the demands of Real Life, I've averaged only 45 minutes a day on writing-related activities.

Note that none of this was actual writing. Right now I'm not in writing mode, I'm in between critiquing and revising and I'm including all the multitude of roles that wrap themselves around the writing process.

The lion's share of this effort has been pushing through the critiquing process. Most of the rest was on drafting cover art.

The bad news is that, at 45 minutes a day, getting anything done is a long process.

The good news is that I can better see what needs to be done, and gauge the success of any strategies I come up with for spending more time on writing.

Holidays here and there

Since moving to Canada nine years ago, we've found the cycle of seasons has been marked by a very different calendar of holidays and celebrations.

Back in the UK, the only really festive celebrations were Christmas & New Year (which tended to get rolled together into one long orgy of food and drink) and Guy Fawkes night (which slowly crept from a one-night firework party to weeks of traumatized pets).

Halloween was a recent and not especially welcome interloper, with trick-or-treating seen as an excuse to roam neighborhoods demanding money with menaces.

This side of the Atlantic, we seem to have more excuses to party, and each one has its own distinct flavor.

Christmas here is very similar to Britain. Lots of food and festivities...and ugly commercialization. The big difference is sniveling reluctance to actually use the C word, which I ranted about a couple of years ago.

Halloween is a hugely different affair here, and is a really fun family time. Children dress up, many households make a big effort to decorate, and there are bonfires and fireworks.

Then we have Canada Day, parades and parties all round. And more fireworks.

I was astounded to find Remembrance Day marked here more widely than Britain, with crowds of all generations still turning out at cenotaphs across the country.

Of course, this weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada.

Whereas most holidays are highly visible to anyone wandering through, I think of Thanksgiving as our secret celebration. It's such an intensely personal family affair, marked by gatherings of friends and families behind closed doors and with little outward show, that it's hard for an outsider to see just how big it is.

We've been privileged to be invited to a few Thanksgiving parties here, which were memorable experiences. With no family of our own here it's usually just a quiet turkey dinner for four, but it's still something we've grown to take seriously.

So, Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!

Things that make me happy

I thought I would counter the ranting in my last post with a few positive thoughts. Because, for all the things that irritate me, I need to remind myself that there is much that makes me happy.

Examples this week...

Passing the 60k mark last weekend on Tiamat's Nest. Overall, I reckon I'm about a month behind the target I set myself back in August, which isn't bad considering it was pretty arbitrary and I had little idea then what lay ahead. I am very happy with what I've done. I just need to wrestle those last few chapters into submission.

Getting our Canadian passports in the mail. This feels like almost as big a milestone as citizenship itself.

And this morning...

Ali and I found this little note folded and waiting for us at the top of the stairs:

Dear Mom,

I love the new kitten you got us. She is so cute and playful. I love it when she climbs up the curtains and down again. It is so funny when she plays with her toy mouse and does a leap for it when you move it. It is so nice when you put her in my bed to wake me up.

from, Matthew

How cute is that?

How time flies

I woke this morning with a sudden realization. Today, we have been Canadian citizens for exactly six months!

I can't believe it's already half a year since this ceremony.

How time flies.

Bye Bye Bacon

In moving from Britain to Canada, we made a lot of adjustments settling into a new country. Many of these have been surprisingly easy. I think we came into this adventure looking for change, not being afraid of it, and not trying to simply recreate our old life in a new setting.

However, one of the first things we noticed, and which we have never really accepted, is the lack of decent bacon. Canadians really don't get it. The stuff that is sold as bacon here, we knew as "streaky" bacon back in the UK. Some people like it. We only ever bought it to lay over the breast and legs of a turkey to seal in the moisture.

We were delighted, very early on, when our growing network of contacts pointed us in the direction of a Scottish family butcher. This place was a delight. Amongst the many imported goodies, they sold black pudding and real Ayrshire bacon. Staples of a proper fried breakfast.

I haven't been there for a while. We usually buy turkey bacon these days, which is lean and tasty, but I fancied bacon fried with tomatoes for breakfast and you can't beat the taste of proper Ayrshire.

So, I was deeply saddened to visit the shopping plaza and discover that the butcher has closed down.

Seems like they were hard hit by the Alberta beef scandal, which has put many people off buying meat. The oddest thing is, I feel partly responsible, having not given them my custom in so long.

I'm going to miss my Ayrshire.

Canadian at last

I'm afraid I've been out of circulation for the best part of a week. We went camping for the long weekend (Victoria Day here in BC), which involved getting the trailer packed and ready beforehand, and unloaded afterwards, and ...

Oh yes, mixed up in there somewhere ...

Seven-and-a-half years after landing in Canada as permanent residents, and twenty-one months after submitting our citizenship application ...

We are finally proud to be full Canadian citizens.

Our ceremony was held on the naval base just outside Victoria.

The sun shone - almost too much, in fact, because by the end of the afternoon we all found ourselves suffering the effects of hours without shade. Despite that, though, the ceremony was enjoyable and moving.

There were some introductory speeches, then the important part - the oath. There were 58 of us altogether becoming new citizens. We stood up row by row, and we each had to announce our name. The children didn't have to take part, as they are still under age, but I was so proud when Matthew and Megan called their full names out, loud and clear. We all then had to recite the oath as a group. Immigration officials are very serious about this part - you must be seen to say the words otherwise you blow it.

Afterwards, there was a large and delicious cake to cut ... with a large sword and a little help ...

The human face of bureaucracy

My family and I are about to become Canadian citizens, the final stage of which involves a ceremony where we take the oath of citizenship later this week. This is exciting for us, because the whole process has taken nearly two years, lots of paperwork, and a test last month.

Today I got a phone call at work. 

Immigration Canada.

My immediate reaction was a sinking feeling...something wrong with our paperwork...ceremony postponed...maybe the reply we'd sent to the invitation had got lost in the mail and missed the deadline...

But no, nothing like that. The official was simply asking if we were planning to stay for the reception after the ceremony, and if our children would like to take part in a cake-cutting ceremony.

What a lovely touch.

Although much bureaucracy here seems to work at a slow pace, it does get the job done, and every once in a while we get surprised by a very human touch to remind us that we are dealing with people who also recognize us as people. This isn't something I usually associate with government officials, but I'm happy to be living somewhere where I can be surprised like this.

More rays of sunshine

I talked here and here about winning some lovely prints over on Jenny Pearson's blog in the lead-up to the A to Z Challenge, and taking them in to be framed. It's been a while, but I finally collected them today.

Rather than arm-wrestle Ali over whose office they will go in (she'd win, anyway) we decided they needed to go somewhere more accessible, so here they are, hung in the kitchen.

Also, this week we heard that we've passed out citizenship test and have been invited to take the oath of citizenship later this month. Yay!

Patience is a virtue

Especially when dealing with the Federal Government.

Two weeks ago, I mentioned that our application for Canadian citizenship had finally been processed. After twenty months of waiting, we had a letter asking us to come and take our citizenship test.

Now, I'm not complaining about the waiting. We know they have a vast backlog, they post the expected waiting time on the website, and we've been here before. It took eighteen months to process our immigration application in the first place. We are used to the long waits.

The test was last week, and was a slightly surreal experience.

We arrived a bit early, and grabbed a drink while we lined up and waited to be let into the examination room. There were about thirty of us altogether taking the test. Only people taking the test are allowed into the room.

The officials were very strict about people sitting in the chairs with the clipboards, and carefully moved anyone who inadvertently sat in one of the many free seats. I guess the idea was to ensure people were spread out through the room with a reasonable distance between them.

The test itself was twenty multiple choice questions. You need fifteen or more correct to pass. It was a pencil-and-paper exercise. Haven't seen anything like that since school.

We were allowed half an hour for the test. Most people finished much quicker. I think it only took me a couple of minutes to rattle through, then I went back at least twice more to see if I could improve on my "educated guesses" to some of the questions.

A tip for anyone taking the test: Read the book they send you very carefully. Even what seems like a throwaway snippet buried in a paragraph somewhere might be the subject of a question. You don't necessarily need to learn it off by heart, but if you've read the words a few times, your memory should be jogged when you read the question choices. It is also worth trying practice questions on one of the many websites available. They helped us tune in to the gist of what they were looking for.

We also discovered that not everyone in the room was taking the same test. Ali had a whole different set of questions to me. I think they have several different sets to hand out, so you can't cheat by seeing which answers your neighbor has circled.

Then, more waiting. People got called up to the front of the room to be quizzed by one of the officials. We had about an hour wait before our turn.

Where you have a joint application, like we had, you got called together. They went through every little detail that might get questioned by the immigration judge. For example, all our passports other then mine had expired, and we got grilled on why we hadn't renewed them. It costs way more to get British passports renewed in Canada than in Britain, we've had no need to travel, we were holding on until we became citizens and could get Canadian passports ... the official scribbled down everything we said.

While there, we learned that the Victoria immigration office is about to close down - funding cuts. The officials testing us only learned a few days ago, so they were struggling a bit.

This means we don't know where, let alone when, we'll be called to the citizenship ceremony.

Assuming we pass.

This is the bit we're struggling with now.

We'd been looking forward to an end to the uncertainty, and speculated on what would happen if we didn't pass. But they don't mark the exam there and then. We think we've done OK, but we just don't know.

The one thing we weren't prepared for was not knowing.

All we can do is wait. We'll either get a letter inviting us to a ceremony, or asking us to meet with a citizenship judge. Even that may not mean we failed, it might just mean that they have more questions about our application.

So, we wait.

Life beyond the A to Z Challenge

I realized my last few posts in the A to Z may have been a bit on the dry side, as they were all about the political and historical side of Shayla's world. I hope to lighten things up a bit next week and touch on some more down-to-earth (as it were) topics.

Believe it or not, there has also been life outside of the Challenge, even though it's been a serious challenge keeping up with comments and all the activity on blogs I follow, never mind visiting new blogs in the sign-up list.

We've had a busy Easter weekend so far. Time to make use of the spring sunshine to de-winterize the trailer, tidy up the garage, and clean the deck ready for summer. That last annual job always lifts my spirits. A grimy deck is depressing to look at, but clean it up and it's a promise of good times to come.

So, there's some worthwhile work done, and we all feel good about it. Now we're hoping to enjoy the rest of the weekend off. It looks like a promising start, I've just woken up to a glorious Easter Sunday. We plan to fire up the barbecue later on.

This week, we also had two welcome missives from the Government of Canada.

What? *Gasp* Did I hear that correctly?

First, we got our tax rebates, always a welcome thing at this time of year. But, more significant, we've finally received invitations to take our Canadian citizenship test.

Just as a matter of reference, in case any other immigrants out there are thinking of becoming citizens, it's been twenty months since we mailed off our applications. Things move slowly in Canadian bureaucracy, but we knew that when we sent in our applications. We're just glad to see light at the end of the tunnel.

This is at once exciting and scary. We received a booklet well over a year ago, with all the information needed to take the test. We were also led to believe we'd have plenty of time to swot up between being invited and the actual test.

We have less than two weeks.

On the plus side, we've been practicing online and both repeatedly achieved pass marks without difficulty. It's mostly common sense.

Now all we need to do is pass for real!

The changing seasons

Since moving to Canada, I've become far more aware of the passing seasons.

I think there's a number of reasons for this, changes coinciding with, as well as resulting from, our move.

The most obvious is that we have school-age children now, so the school year is important in a way that it wasn't before. But on top of this, I find the year here is marked by more pronounced seasons, far more seasonal activities that we want to take part in, seasonal produce - berries in summer, mandarin oranges in winter, and peaks and troughs at work. These variations were either less pronounced or entirely absent in Guernsey.

All these combine to give each month its own unique flavour.

January: The lull after Christmas. January is often a low point for me. Packing away decorations for another year saddens me. Everything's dark and gloomy, with maybe a few days of snow to liven things up.

February: Mornings and evenings are noticeably lighter. Try to get back into condition for cycling. Often crisp and bright, things feel like they are starting to wake up.

March: Time to start sorting out the yard, de-winterise the trailer, give the lawn its first cut since the end of last summer. Everything is green and fresh.

April: Looking forward to sitting out on the deck again. After a good pressure-washing and cleaning off all the furniture, of course.

May: The air warms up. We start eating meals outside.

June: Bright and busy. Lots of end of year activities - school fairs, Scouts and Guides.

July: Summer is here. Everything quietens down at work.

August: The height of summer, but noticeably different from July with the evenings already drawing in. Water fights on the lawn. The deck is in shade early evening and not so inviting for al-fresco dining. Sitting in the hot tub before bed, spotting satellites.

September: All the excitement of a new school year. Everything starts off in low gear and ramps up through the month. The lull at work is over and it's madness once more. Some time early in September, it feels like someone's flipped a switch. One day we're in summer, then suddenly there's a chill in the air and I know we're into autumn.

October: Settle down into new routines.

November: Often damp and dreary. Rake leaves off the lawn. Get used to sometimes not seeing real daylight from one weekend to the next. The other low month for me.

December: More excitement in the run-up to Christmas. Parties, parades, decorations, concerts. Whole streets lit in technicolour. Despite the dark, this is a cheerful month.

And so, we start the cycle again.

The mail man cometh

I know it's the season of glad tidings an' all, but as a rule you don't generally count official missives from government departments in that category.

Well, here at the Bald Patch we do like to buck trends. We've recently had not just one, but two entirely unconnected pieces of joy thrown into our world.

First off, we applied (back in the summer) for a special tax credit.

One thing to get used to over here is knowing how to find your way around the tax system. Not (I add, in haste) to milk or subvert the system. I despised the way the welfare state I saw at work in Guernsey and the UK laid itself bare to shirkers and spongers, appearing to reward idleness and punish those in genuine need.

The Canadian tax system is a complex beast, with all sorts of credits designed to alleviate unfortunate circumstances and reward things like giving to charity, or using public transport. There's vast amounts of helpful guides on the official web sites to steer you around the system. To me, it all appears very open and welcoming, just rather big. But it is your responsibility to understand and apply for what you are entitled to in the way of credits. It makes a big difference!

Anyway, we received a letter a few weeks ago advising that we were indeed eligible for this credit. There were instructions for reapplying in a few years when the current entitlement expired, but it was all a bit light on what to do next. I shrugged, and assumed there would be a line to fill in on next year's tax return to make it all happen.

Imagine the unbounded joy last week when another letter appeared, which explained that this would be included automatically in the universal child tax benefit payments that we were already receiving. Better still, there was a very useful cheque for the back payments, which has helped enormously at this expensive time of year.

Then yesterday we checked the mail and found an envelope from Immigration Canada, acknowledging receipt of our application (back in August) and explaining the next steps in the process. There is the immigration guide, which contains information for the written test.

Given the long processing times, we are still many months away from becoming citizens, but this is an important first step in confirming that we are finally on the road.

(2005) Vive la Difference

November 2005

Dear Aunt Agatha,

Canada is a modern technological country, with state-of-the-art electronics, consumer goods, and many public and private organisations embracing the online world.

Nevertheless, since arriving here, we've often commented how in many ways this country is a bit like the UK was several decades ago.

Many of the differences are good. Like the gentler pace of life, uncrowded roads, and returnable bottles (encourages recycling).

Some differences are quaint, like top-loading washing machines. I remember Mum having a top-loader back in Guernsey when I was only a few years old, but I haven't seen one since outside of commercial laundromats. I don't think they're sold for domestic use over there. Ali freaked when she saw one sitting in the corner of our temporary apartment last year.

Then there are the occasional ugly reminders of years gone by. Over the last few weeks we've been hit by industrial action that brought back unpleasant reminders of the 1970's. First the teachers went out on strike, so Megan was at home for a couple of weeks. Then I turned up for work one morning to find a picket line outside the office. This is where the ugliness hit home. They are all highly vocal about the rights of workers to join a union. But the hypocrisy of the union movement showed through very clearly in their outright bullying and threatening attitude to keeping their members toeing the union line. I felt way more intimidated by the shop stewards supposedly looking after my interests than by any employers (unionised or not) that I've worked for. And, of course, they are amazingly tight-lipped on any questions of an individual's right to NOT belong to a union. Closed shops were made illegal in most civilised countries years ago, but union membership is compulsory in BC Government.

On a brighter note, we held a party to celebrate a year in Canada. We had a full house, with friends, neighbours, and a few work colleagues.

Another small landmark...I used my new credit card for groceries last month. Ali was able to get one in her name early on, thanks to her having held a card in Guernsey that the local branch of the company were prepared to recognise for credit check purposes. But it's taken a while to get me on the American credit map. This is a critical catch-22 for newcomers, something which I was able to overcome by talking to our friendly local bank staff.

Then Halloween reminded us once more that we were in North America. In Guernsey we came to dread this time of year, with evening knocks on the door and surly demands for cash, often starting out in mid-October. Over here, we love the family party atmosphere of the evening. And Ali got into pumpkin carving, inspired by the displays at Government House last year.

Thanksgiving 2010

In the spirit of "when in Rome", we've taken to celebrating Thanksgiving. I think it is fitting, because this was the time of year we were busy winding up our old lives back in Guernsey and getting ready, nervous (read: petrified), to decamp to a new country.

For many Canadians, this is a huge family affair. People don't bat an eyelid at talk of cooking for 20 or more but it took a couple of years for us to realise this, because, although huge, this is an intensely private holiday. Although it is talked about, there is none of the OTT commercial hype of Halloween or Christmas.

Of course, we don't have family over here so we celebrate in our own quiet way.

This weekend, we were joined by a good friend now living up in Courtenay. He arrived yesterday, shortly after Ali and the kids returned from an overnight Cub camp. We saved the turkey dinner for today, getting the gastronomic side of things off to a start last night with a dish of braised pork and clams with fresh-baked olive bread and a crisp salad. Today, we pottered around for a while before preparing the turkey for the oven, then went out for a good long hike (and a bit of geocaching along the way) to work up an appetite. Turkey was served with a couple of our signature vegetable dishes: sprouts with mushrooms and almonds, and parsnips in creamy horseradish sauce. We finished off settling down to watch Avatar.

If there's any interest, I'll try posting some recipes another time.

So that was our Thanksgiving. How was yours?

Then and now

In case you hadn't noticed, the "Dear Aunt Agatha" series of posts is a flashback to snapshots exactly five years ago (at the time of writing), giving a real-time account of our progress as new immigrants. These posts are in the form of fictional letters to a fictional relative back in The Old Country (as we immigrants like to say).

David's comment on yesterday's post sparked a thought: opportune moment to provide an update on where those things I wrote about yesterday stand now.

Work: I feel I'm well entrenched in the fabric of the organisation now, and fully at home there. Yes it's big and complicated, and I still learn new things every day, but I feel like I've got my head around it now. I suppose this is helped by the fact that the Ministry has reorganised at least once a year since I joined, so the current organisation is really only a few months old, and people who've been in the building for thirty years are at almost as much of a disadvantage in understanding it as a complete newcomer.

One thing I can say with confidence: I've not experienced a single day of boredom there. In fact, it can be too exciting for comfort at times.

Cycling: I wasn't too far off in my estimate. My commute takes about an hour on average. A bit longer at the start of the year, and a bit less when my body has lost some of the winter sloth. I don't cycle in the dark months, and I certainly don't cycle every day. Hmmm...idea for future post...have to take the camera out one day and show you the trail rather than talking about it.

Megan and Matthew still enjoy school. The boredom didn't last long and Megan is a good, keen student but has to put in the effort to keep up nowadays, rather than breezing it like she did at first. For Matthew, we've concluded that the content of his lessons is probably less important than simply having a teacher he can relate to and will listen to. They are both busy these days with extra-curricular activities. Way too much choice available!

Ali's commitments have expanded too. Stints on the PAC, and other school committee duties, as well as Guide and Cub leader, and even Guide District Commissioner along the way. Talk about sucker for punishment.

So, after the frenzy and pioneering feelings of immigration, life has settled into familiar routines. Hectic ones at times, yes, and ever-changing from one term to the next as everyone tries to juggle a multitude of interests in the standard allotment of time. Does any of that sound familiar to other parents out there?

Incidentally, yesterday's post was the 100th on this blog. I had no idea when I started this venture that I'd have so much to write about.

(2005) Work and school

October 2005

Dear Aunt Agatha,

Life is finally settling into something like a normal routine.

I think I'm starting to get a grip on my new job, even though it's so unlike anything I've ever done before. More differences I've noticed: love of email (I think I now get more in a day than I used to in a month) and endless meetings.

After nearly a year out of the saddle I've finally got my bike back into commission and I'm checking out possible routes into work. The good news is that there's a stunning trail going all the way down the Peninsula and into Victoria, well maintained and well away from busy roads. The bad news is that I haven't figured yet how long it's going to take me to commute, but it'll probably be at least an hour each way. Good job they have changing rooms and showers at work.

Megan and Matthew are enjoying school and pre-school respectively. Megan said once that she wished it wasn't the weekend, because she wanted to be back at school! Wonder how long that'll last. On the flip side, though, she is struggling a bit with the slower pace of schooling here compared to the UK. She went into kindergarten last year writing whole paragraphs in her journal while many of her friends were still learning to form the letters of their names. Now in grade 1, they are starting all over again for the benefit of kids who missed kindergarten. Megan is getting bored and we've asked her teacher to give her assignments to stretch her a bit.

I know that the disparity between the school systems can cause problems the other way, too. When I was 11, a kid from Canada joined my class. He struggled and never really caught up with the more academic subjects. At the time everyone just thought he wasn't too bright, and I think he came to believe it. But I wonder now how much of a different course his life might have taken if he'd stayed at a consistent pace within one single school system.

On the other hand, we reckon the pace will suit Matthew well. He won't be pushed, and he likes to pick things up when he's good and ready, thank you very much.

Ali's been getting involved in the school, working with some of the other parents to organise a "walking school bus". And she volunteered to help set up a Sparks unit in the district. Megan wants to join Sparks, but the nearest unit is full and they have enough girls on the waiting list for another unit. What they were missing was helpers to run it. Well, there's nothing like getting involved in the local community to help settle in.

The whole moving experience was quite an adventure, but now, nearly a year on, it's good to feel that we are all establishing ourselves in this country.

(2005) Confusion rules!

September 2005

Dear Aunt Agatha,

It is wonderful to see a regular pay cheque going into the bank account again after all those months, but - man! - what I'm having to do to earn it! It's such a huge adjustment after my previous work experiences, on so many fronts.

First of all, the organisation itself is vast compared to what I'm used to. This is only my third employer (not counting fill-in jobs here & there), but the previous two were at least sizeable by Guernsey standards. Guernsey Electricity at 250, and Barings at 500. Both were part of larger organisations, one belonging to the public service and the other a company within the ginormous ING Group, but those wider organisations barely made themselves felt. A memo here and there, an intellectual awareness of the parent organisation, but very little practical impact on day-to-day life.

Here, I'm in a division, 500-strong, which is just a small part of a ministry, just one of many in the BC Public Service. And I can feel the weight of the org structure above and around me.

To compound matters, the organisational detail is way more granular. Both Guernsey Electricity and Barings had a relatively small number of departments and I knew the function of each of them. I could go to (for example) any one of maybe 20 people in the custody department and ask a question, and get a consistent answer. They worked as a coherent and robust team. Here, there is so much specialisation that the number of distinct functions is vastly greater for the same number of people. Often there is only one person in the whole organisation with a particular set of knowledge. I keep asking about things, and instead of being told "you need to speak to someone in department X", I get "you need to speak to Joe Bloggs." And if Joe Bloggs isn't there, hard luck! I've spent ages trying to map out the working relationships of the many individuals I need to deal with, and just listing out the departments is mind-boggling.

My head is spinning trying to take it all in.

Then there is the process - and/or lack of it. On the one hand, we know that Canadians love their paperwork. We'd heard about that any number of times during the immigration process, and we've seen it in action since.

My first few days at work were largely spent alone at my desk ploughing through a two-inch stack of forms.

I jest not!

And yet, bizarrely enough, I've also found an astonishing lack of standards and processes that I've taken for granted for so many years. I'm losing count of how many times I've asked "how do I do X?" and then spent a merry few hours like an amateur sleuth tracking down the answer. Because nobody really knows for sure, and you can be sure it's not written down anywhere in a readily accessible way. And every department will have evolved their own unique way of doing things, so any advice you get may not hold true for your own situation.

Even something as simple as an up-to-date org chart, an invaluable atlas for a newcomer, is not available. Not, at least, for the use of us hoi polloi.

This, I've discovered, is where it really pays to make friends with a good admin assistant. They usually know the answer, or where to start looking for it.

Finally, there are the many cultural differences to cope with. I suppose we've been relatively insulated from it so far. Yes, we've dealt with all sorts of new things these past few months, but they have all been individual instances and short-lived. Now I'm fully immersed in it throughout the day. The biggest and most widespread difference I've found is that people are a lot more open and forthright than I'm used to. If someone doesn't like something, they'll say so. None of the British reserve here! I've seen personal dislikes coming up in meetings, sniping, bullying, and I've heard many anecdotes of outright shouting matches, tears, and door-slamming. Maybe I've not experienced a wide enough sample of British workplaces, but in the settings I do know, behaviours like that would have been almost impossible to imagine. I've come to the realisation that diplomacy and people-management is going to be a much larger part of my job than anything remotely technical.

But, as I keep reminding myself, I'm happy to put up with a lot for the benefits it brings us.