House Pics

Couple more pics of the house

View from upstairs window.

View from upstairs window.

The lovely basement again.
The backyard decking and hot-tub.

More basement.

The jacuzzi room, every home should have one. Fool with camera optional upgrade.

Deck and side of house

I haven't really got any other good ones of the inside of the house, all blurry more when I get them.

Jacqui's a Man, I should have known really

We went in to get our new drivers licences a couple of weeks ago. In Alberta you just hand over your UK licence, complete an eye test, and you get a temporary licence, then your proper photo licence is posted to you, no problems we thought. Mine turned up last Friday; Jacqui's was missing. No problems we thought, we'll wait until Monday.

No sign Monday or Tuesday then 2am Wednesday morning we get a call............................from a real life mountie.

Some man had got hold of Jacqui's licence and used it to book a hotel room, they then proceded to nick the huge plasma screen and drive off with it. So Constable Brandon called us to find out what was going on. Turns out he had just completed a failed hot pursuit, and that the hotel had ten tv's nicked in the last 6 months, probably by the same guy. Perhaps they should check the licences a bit more thoroughly.

We think he got the licence from our mailroom in the appartment block. The postman said that all over Edmonton they are getting broken into. We'll be glad to get into our new home, 17 days and counting.

Off Road - On Road

At the end of last week I helped Jacqui out with some site work. She was completing a proposal for railway crossings in Edmonton so we drove round for hours so that she could note what existed at each crossing.

This was fine, helped with my driving no end, until we went to north Edmonton near the army base and it turned to mud tracks, real mud tracks, wet mud tracks in our brand new Escape. Let's just say it looks used now, and you can almost still tell it's a car underneath the mud.

House is OK!

Apologies for the lack of entries for a bit, I'll make up for it today.

The building inspection went fine, couple of minor things but generally the house is groovy.

The pic attached is of the basement, or My Room as it shall henceforth be known.

The house was built in '62 but was almost completely re-done from '85 onwards.

We're already looking at where we can slap an extension for a bigger dining area and kitchen, that will make it perfect.

So we've also pretty much sorted out the mortgage and home insurance and now we wait for July 16th when it becomes ours!

House Beats Car, peasants stymied.

Ok then, we have had our offer for property No. 3. agreed, huzzah!

It's a warrrrd oll proocess out here I can tell you. You sit with your realtor somewhere and close by the sellers sit with there's. Your realtor takes the contract in with your offer to the sellers, your realtor comes back. The other one brings the contract back with any changes, and this repeats until done. Quite nerve racking and very fast, but now it's done and, barring issues with the inspection, we have a house!

The car insurance has taken longer to sort out than locating and agreeing to buy a house! We should have a faxed agreement today and we'll pick up the car lunchtimeish, a couple of productive days :)

We should completeby the middle of July then it's ours. People involved in sellling houses appear to have no lives, our realtor has been out for the last week into the evening and she was on the phon to the house inspection guy at 9pm last night to arrange a 9am inspection for this morning.

So that's where I'm off to today to wander round with the inspector and take some initial measurements because we want to change the kitchen.

Another quick note, the other British couple here, Nathalie and Steve, hve also had an offer accepted on their house and their off to buy cars today, no hanging around.

Update soon I reckon.

Housey Housey

Over the weekend we've been out looking at around 30 houses with our realtor Lisa. She's been picking us up and taking us round and must have spent 15 hours helping us out, she's a good girl.

And on Sunday we had reduced the number we were interested in to three. These are all in an area named St Albert, kind of North West of Edmonton.

The three are:-

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

So I went back yesterday to give these three a more thorough viewing and see if we actually wanted to put an offer in on any of them. After seeing No. 2 again that was a no almost immediately, just did not compare to the other 2.

Now it was a tough choice, have a look at the pics above they are both really nice houses. It came down to the fact that one of them was finished much better inside and felt like a more solid home, we also liked the unique look of the place.

So this morning we will be putting an offer in on house No. 3, wish us luck! Things turn around very quickly here, we can expect to be in the house in a month if it's accepted..........groovy.

Drop us a line if you'd like to see the mls listing for the property, this has the house details, lots of house details :)

Father's Day Greetings

Happy Father's Day to all those crazy father's out there, especially to our own dads in Norfolk and France of course.

P.S. The picture put me in mind of you Matt father of Mini-Matt.

Victory is mine!

Ok then we have achieved car, and we've gone for a 2008 Escape, doesn't seem to be about in the UK, it's a compact SUV.

Basic spec:

Escape 2008 XLT
Tungsten Grey
2.3ltr 4 cylinder engine
A/C
6-CD
Specialist Bear Storage Compartment

But we still haven't actually got it......
The first one we ordered we were told was local, it turned out it was still at the factory in Virginia and there's a rail strike :P So we had to go back in Wednesday night to try and sort things out, this was after 5 HOURS on Saturday at one place.
Anyway, so we went back in, restated our spec and that we would not spend any more money.
Then these things happened:
1: Attempt to get us to change the colour we wanted, not happening.
2: The computer says there's one in the lot.
3: Computer's lying.
4: Find a similar one locally but it has a package and an updated CD thing, for only about another $1000 or so.
5: We remind the guy that we will not be spending any more money.
6: He goes to talk to his boss.
7: His boss comes out and says that the upgrades will only cost another $1000 or so.
8: We remind his boss that we will not be spending any more money.
9: Discussions between his boss and his bosses boss.
10: Victory is ours, they will give us the upgraded Escape for the original price. And they're paying for our rental car until our Escape arrives.
11: And relax!

So all in all, good news. But car insurance over here, VERY expensive, even starting to miss Norwich Union (not really happening). It will cost us around $1400 to insure it, some places wanted $3300!

And the other biggish thing is we have our container of house stuff cleared through customs, that was easy, took our forms to customs when the container arrived. Signed stuff, photocopied stuff, job done. They didn't even check for Jacqui's enormous colection of erotic kitchenware, I was shocked.

I've started looking for work locally - we spoke to a couple of mortgage people and over here the joint income effects what you can get so the life of leisure may be a thing of the past sooner than expected.

Another British couple have turned up over here, the guy Steve is working at ISL, same company as Jacqui, his wife Natalie is looking at college courses. We've been over for a meal with them and we're off to a pub on Whyte Ave Saturday and probably a film on Sunday.

BF signing off.

And his hat fits better now

It was so therapeutic, why stop with his head? More pictures to follow!

Went out today...........Bought some Hair Clippers

Not going stir-crazy at all!!
Before and after pics, has to be really.



And after an hour of Jacqui attacking me with clippers.

Such great hair it made the lights go out.

BIg Choice Week........CARS!

Dun dun dunnnnnnnn!

Which one, WHICH ONE? We have pretty much broken it down to two choices, one I prefer, one Jacqui likes guess which one's which.

Car A. in Canadian car speak

It's got fun down to a T. Tight ride: 3 levels of innovative, European-infused handling. Tantalizing design: 4 distinct body styles and 4 diverse models. Terrific value: Lots of features for not a lot of dough. Top-notch efficiency: up to 5.9L/100km*. So you'll waste less time at the pump, and spend more time on the road, where you can truly savour all that Focus has to offer. Including its generous roominess.

Car B

The 2008 Ford Escape is an SUV that truly embraces the Canadian landscape. Whether you drive it under the city lights or the Northern lights this compact SUV maneuvers over paved city streets and rugged country roads with the same ease and sporty comfort. With its Go-Anywhere Capability, driving the three-time best-selling compact SUV in Canada* leaves no road less-traveled.

We will, of course let you know which one we get, or who wins the arguement:)

Edmonton Weather Report

The last four days have been gorgeous, 23-29 degrees, nice and dry, almost got burned one day, hear it's been just as lovely in the UK :) Today is our anniversary and we're going off driving to see things and stuff so a short post.

Just got back, we went to Beaumont, a potential home town, couple of pics here from the park there.

...And then we went to Elk Island National Park (pics below) saw some buffalo and had a walk round the main lake there. We're also now both members of the Canadian National Trust, you have to pay here to visit the national parks, £37 a year isn't too bad though.

Fool Allowed to Mingle

Thursday and Friday this week have seen our first forays out in the evenings. Thursday we wandered over to South Common Odeon for a filum, and Friday we went out for a meal with some new friends Ian and Lorna.

First on Thursday we visited the Montana's eating establishment, a steak and ribs type of place where we had a meal and beers for roughly £25. Then we ambled across to the cineplex, prices were very simliar to the UK, we decided on Shrek 3 as it wasn't too long, Pirates is nearly 3 hours. All nice and groovy and the reclining seats in the cinema were great :) Shrek 3 though, meh, you know, not all that, couple of moments of genius but generally more of the same.

Friday we were off to meet a guy called Ian who Jacqui met once or twice at Norfolk County Council, and Lorna, they wandered over here in December 05 and have been giving us good advice via email for a while. Turn's out Ian was on the same survey ship that Richard Pinkum was on, the one that sunk, small world, this will mean something to some people.

We then grabbed a drink went out into the garden, Ian and I had a short competition to see who could attract the most mossies, not sure who won. Then off to Whyte Ave for a really nice Thai meal, had crispy shilli beef, chicken satay with spinach and a tiger prawn curry.

Then we wandered along the zoo that is Whyte Ave, feels similar to Prince of Wales in Norwich, but not as rough! Instead of beaten up nova's with huge stereos there were jacked up trucks and harleys, as well as drunks beggars and weidos, didn't feel unsafe though. We also saw the first biker coffee shop I've ever seen, Canadian chain Tim Horton's with all kinds of bikes and bikers hanging around outside, really quite cool. Then back to I&L's for a drink and then home. Altogether a lovely evening, Jacqui and I both hope we'll get the chance to do it again.

Now Saturday morning, a bit of shopping and stuff to do, nice lazy day hopefully. Got up at 9 AM that's a 3 hour lay in, damn we're lazy :)

Update: Sausage and mash for tonight with orange creme pie for dessert............