And so begins our Canadian adventure (finally)

We have now been here approximately 17 hours and have so far achieved two work permits, one apartment, some sleep, some food, an internet connection, one out of two social insurance numbers and one hire car.

It was touch and go whether we would actually make our flight yesterday. Having loaded up Richard's parents' car with our 6 suitcases at 5am yesterday morning, their car alarm went off and no amount of pushing buttons would stop it. They drove it out the village to get it out of earshot of sensitive neighbours and called the AA. Francis, the nice AA man, turned up in his van an hour later and removed the alarm. Despite disconnecting the power and hitting the alarm with a hammer, it was still going, so we buried it in the ground under a hedge for later retrieval. Maybe it's still going...

Despite this delay and slow traffic on the M25, we arrived at Heathrow in good time and had no trouble getting through security and onto the plane at midday.

At the other end of the 9 hour flight, Canadian immigration fortunately approved our work permits for a year (we'd have looked very silly if they hadn't) and Canadian customs fortunately approved our container. Graham from ISL met us and drove us to the apartment. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening doing the important jobs of unpacking (me) and investigating the cable TV channels (Richard).

The apartment is cosy but has everything we need including monster fridge, dishwasher and dvd player. It is on the north side of the building and overlooks a parking lot. However, if you stick your head out of the window and look left it overlooks a nice neighbourhood of houses.

We managed to stay awake until 7pm (2am UK) and went to bed, waking at 10pm, 1am and 5am. Not too bad. After breakfast we walked to the nearest supermarket, in a nearby industrial estate. It was fantastic to wander round - like a french hypermarket it sells everything from engine oil to ironing boards to blueberry pies. The only problem is that, like everything else in Canada, it is car orientated and so everything is sold in bulk. So we bought the barest minimum we could and struggled back on foot via Tim Horton's for coffee and a doughnut.

In the afternoon Graham came round to sort out some paperwork regarding my job. He then took us to the Canada Service building to get our social insurance numbers, which we need before we can start work, open a bank account and pay tax. Mine went through fine. However, the printing on Richard's work permit had got smudged so they needed to check his further. We've therefore got to go back again tomorrow to get his SIN after they've checked it out with immigration.

Graham then drove us to a car hire place and a nice lady called Lori provided us with a Nissan something or other (er it's blue) for 2 weeks while we look for a car of our own. With Richard navigating and giving encouragement, I managed to drive back without any problems despite it being on the wrong side of the road and an automatic. I did stamp on the floor several times with my left foot along the way, and my knuckles have only just returned from white to pink. However, we made it.

That's all for now folks.