Finally Here.

My emotions have been all over the place in the last few days. We have not sold our house so we have not burned our bridges but I take my hat off to all of you who have.
Seeing my son and his beautiful wife Joanne, to say goodbye was awful, I was sick inside just waiting to hug them and say goodbye but..... only for six months as we are going home in May to see what decision to make on whether we want to be in Canada permanently or to just work until the work permit expires.
It takes a lot of guts and courage to give everything up and start a new life and to those of you who have done it, I wish every single one off you the best of luck, because you deserve it.

Our journey begins, our lovely daughter in law Joanne took us to Manchester Airport for our flight to Gatwick, the plane was half empty and it was a nice flight, clear skies so good views all the way down. When we arrived we stopped into one of the bars to meet Wolf form Bonnie Scotland. I left Mick chatting to him while I went to do a bit of shopping,when I came back Javi was there as well.
We had a four hour wait for the flight to Calgary, but because we were all chatting the time passed very quickly.
After our long flight we had to queue to go through immigration, where there were only 2 officers on duty, we only had to wait about half hour before we got to see one, but poor old Wolf and Javi had to wait about an hour and half to get through, and Javis wife Inga had been waiting for him for a long time as she had got a different flight to him so got into Calgary early (9 hours).
After the two and half hour drive to Lethbridge we finally got to the hotel (Lethbridge Lodge) at about one in the morning, and boy were we tired.


The next day the boys were being picked up at quarter to nine by Hans from VRV Global, to go for medicals and switch their driving licenses, and get social security numbers.
Hans, what a funny guy, he is great, very down to earth, we had a good laugh with him.
In the afternoon they picked me and Inga up and we all went to open bank accounts, and stop off for the drug tests, after which Hans gave us a short tour around Lethbridge, and after a quick stop off at Tim Hortons for doughnuts, myself Mick and Wolf were dropped off at the shopping mall while Javi and Inga went back to the hotel.
Wolf got himself a phone, we had something to eat and then we headed back to the hotel in the very cold Chinook wind chill, with our eyes and noses streaming.

Javi has posted some nice pics around his hotel, and also of Hans and Wolf, here ...click

I'm posting this late on, as we have just been down to our hotel reception area to meet Mike Nash, from Mikes Jolly In Canada who had just rolled into town with George Anderson of 'The Big Trip' fame, who were both really nice friendly guys.



Mick and Wolf are in class tomorrow, and on Monday, the road work begins.