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Much progress…

March 30, 2015 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Image from PixabayIn a previous posting – released into the wild in the earliest days of this unruly month and somewhat cheekily entitled “Much ado” – I offered the determined reader a ‘shopping list’ of things that must be done to progress our emigration, now that we have handed in our notices to our respective (and understandably heartbroken) employers.

It ran thus:

In the immediate future we must:

  • set in motion our remaining pension plans
  • ensure that everything required for the smooth transition of our tax arrangements has been done
  • check that the necessary finances are in place
  • book our one-way flights to BC
  • arrange surveys and obtain quotes from a number of international moving companies
  • push through the refurbishments necessary at our Buckinghamshire apartment
  • agree a notice period with our tenant

The gentle reader is doubtless eager to know how things are progressing. Herewith my end-of-month report:

  • My remaining pension provider (the School) has been alerted to the upcoming transition and I await the necessary paperwork.
  • Much research has been done on the means to effect the necessary tax changes. I have a feeling that some professional advice may yet be required if all is to progress seamlessly.
  • As far as is possible at this point the required finances have been marshaled into the appropriate positions.
  • Our one-way flights to Victoria have been booked – taking full advantage of the Air miles accrued during the Kickass Canada Girl’s sojourn in beautiful British Columbia in 2012.
  • We have been surveyed to the utmost degree by our panel of international movers and have on this very day confirmed a booking with our chosen tranter.
  • We have effected the necessary repairs and redecorations at our Buckinghamshire apartment.
  • Our tenant has agreed to vacate the apartment at the very start of May.

Thus far – so good… I will naturally report further on the next steps to be taken as they become apparent.

Full steam ahead!

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Glory be!

March 19, 2015 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Glory be!

Inf. an exclamation expressing surprise or shock. (A bit old-fashioned.)

Idioms – The Free Dictionary

Since paying the Right of Permanent Residency Fee (RPRF) shortly before the end of last year I have – with almost religious fervour – been logging on daily to the CIC’s Electronic Client Application Status (ECAS) portal to check on the progress of my application for Canadian Permanent Residency. The status routinely revealed thereby appeared to be stuck so obstinately on “Application Received” that I was beginning to wonder if the whole kit and caboodle had become lost somewhere in the machinery – or whether there might be some sort of un-revealed issue with my application – or if indeed we would needs make the journey to BC in July without having heard anything at all…

Then – all of a sudden – when I logged on yesterday the status had changed to “In Process“! As you can see from the screen capture below – processing actually started on March 10th.

In Process!

Whoopee!!

This is very good news. There is but one step to go, at which point the status will change to “Decision Made” and – all being well – the necessary documents will be sent out. Anecdotal evidence from the expat fora suggests that this might not take too much longer, and further that sometimes the documents arrive without the status on the ECAS being updated at all.

Well – this is all really quite unbearably exciting!

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Movers and shakers

March 13, 2015 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid“What you do for a living is not be creative, what you do for a living is ship.”

Seth Godin

This week’s task – to identify a suitable company of international movers who can assist us with transferring all of our precious goods and chattels across the pond to the fair shores of British Columbia… preferably without breaking the bank (or indeed the goods and chattels!) in the process.

As with so many things concerning emigration from the UK the best place to start is the British Expats website – to which regular readers will know that I make frequent reference within these jottings. The fora on that site contain a wealth of knowledge and experience from those who have trodden these paths before us, and many a pitfall may be judiciously avoided by careful study thereon.

Looking for recommendations for removal companies on online fora is not unlike searching for a decent hotel on Tripadvisor. Though this is undoubtedly the best way of finding a berth for the night, for every five-star “like our honeymoon all over again” review one must be prepared to wade through the morass of one-star “worst night of my life“, and “would’a given it zero stars if your lousy system had let me” diatribes.

Seeking an international mover yields similar results. For each “I would have trusted them with my priceless collection of Jihong porcelain” comment one finds a raft of “they charged me for a second container for one extra box“, and “the guy stood outside and smoked the whole time and then broke a teacup” complaints.

Clearly the whole operation is a lottery!

Somehow, from this fountain of fulmination we were yet able to identify at least a few concerns that seemed consistently to elicit more praise than approbrium. These were clearly the people to approach. The thought naturally crossed our minds that they might also be the most expensive – but what price should one put on one’s precious possessions? That is – of course – actually a good question, since an accurate valuation is required for insurance purposes!

Enough – however – of this wordplay…

We came up with a shortlist of four companies – GB Liners – Bournes – Abels and Renmer and reached for the phone. All have subsequently visited and been shown around the estate by the Kickass Canada Girl, who has also subjected each of them to the third degree regarding their modus operadi. We are now collecting quotes prior to making a decision and – ultimately – a booking.

Progress! Progress!

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Much ado

March 4, 2015 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Image from PixabayThere is – it would seem – suddenly much to be done…

Having handed in our respective notices to our respective employers the Kickass Canada Girl and I are now rapidly becoming aware of just how much has to be studied, planned, decided, arranged, booked and confirmed… and how little time – quite regardless of the fact that our proposed transatlantic transition is still more than four months away – there is to accomplish everything.

In the immediate future we must:

  • set in motion our remaining pension plans
  • ensure that everything required for the smooth transition of our tax arrangements has been done
  • check that the necessary finances are in place
  • book our one-way flights to BC
  • arrange surveys and obtain quotes from a number of international moving companies
  • push through the refurbishments necessary at our Buckinghamshire apartment
  • agree a notice period with our tenant

There is – naturally – much more to be done, but that will do to get us started. I will – of course – report further as things progress.

Heads down – full speed ahead!

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Bad for the heart

February 19, 2015 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Image by Frank Vincentz on Wikimedia CommonsWaiting for word from Citizenship and Immigration Canada regarding my application for Canadian Permanent Residency is a nerve shredding affair – the which is clearly also the case for the many who contribute to the fora of the various InterWebNet sites (several of which are linked in my blogroll) that are so very helpful to the putative immigrant. The situation is certainly not helped by the (perhaps understandable) total lack of information relayed to the eager applicant as things progress (or not!).

Way back at the very start of my first attempt at the residency process in 2012 I explained in this helpful post the various classes under which one can apply. I had but a single choice – to be sponsored under the family class with my spouse – the wholly admirable Kickass Canada Girl – as my sponsor.

Of course – it is actually more complex than that. Spousal sponsorship applications can be made under two further categories – Inland and Outland. Logic suggests that Inland applications are for those couples already living in Canada, whereas Outland applications are for those where the applicant is not yet resident. Inland applications can take longer to process – being considered less urgent since the couple are already together. As it happens many couples are actually eligible to apply under either category, and may thus choose the supposedly ‘quicker’ option. In practice – of course – it still doesn’t feel that quick!

Regardless of the type of application being made the paperwork is sent in the first instance to CIC in Mississauga, Ontario. CIC processes the sponsor’s application and – once sponsor approval has been granted – the norm for Outland applications (such as mine) is for the applicant’s paperwork to be sent back to his or her nearest visa office to be processed in full. That this does not always happen is dependant on the workloads on the various visa offices. Sometimes the whole application is processed in Canada, which is invariably the fastest option.

Sadly my paperwork was returned to London.

The timeline for my application – thus far – has been as follows:

  • Medical certificate obtained – 30th April 2014
  • Applications fees paid online – 31st May 2014
  • Application sent to Mississauga – 3rd June 2014
  • Application received by CIC – 6th June 2014
  • Sponsor approval – 31st July 2014
  • e-Client Application Status (EAS) online tool shows application and medical results received – 1st-Aug-2014
  • Request from London Visa Office for RPRF fee – 27th November 2014
  • RPRF fee paid online and receipt forwarded to London office – 27th November 2014

The CIC website has a guide to current processing times which covers the first part of the operation. For the second phase the applicant is referred to the local visa office website. Until very recently the London site has consistently shown a total processing time of 11 months, which figure is based on actual processing times over the previous 12 months.

About a week ago – to my absolute horror – the stated processing time shot up to 29 months!!!

The InterWebNet fora were – quite naturally – agog with anxious applicants seeking some sort of explanation for this abrupt escalation. The older hands at this mularkey offered the following:

Midway through 2014 the London office took over processing applications from that in Islamabad – where total processing times had reached 36 months, so swamped were they. The best guess is that the new 29 month figure is simply the result of combining those two sets of statistics, and the consensus seems to be that the times for UK applications are unlikely to change significantly from the previously quoted figure.

This remains, of course, to be seen – but I have to say that such shocks are not good for the constitution of us (near) pensioners!

Hmmm!

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Where are we?

February 10, 2015 in Moving to Canada | 2 comments

you are here“The three most common expressions in aviation are, ‘Why is it doing that?, ‘Where are we?’ and ‘Oh Crap.'”

Unknown quote

It has been quite some while since I last issued an update regarding the progress toward our transit to Canada later this year. There is a good reason for my reticence on the subject: progress has been glacially slow!

Things are moving but – just at the point at which we would really like to be seeing an acceleration toward our ultimate goal – we find that we must just continue to be patient, patient and ever more patient!

It is now around ten weeks since CIC happily relieved me of the Right of Permanent Residence Fee (RPRF) – the request for which I took at the time (as indeed I still do) to be a splendid omen. Reading further on the various fora to which other similarly incipient ex-pats subscribe it would seem that one should expect the wait from RPRF payment to final approval to be anything from eight to sixteen weeks. Naturally I am expecting my approval notice to arrive at any moment! Naturally I am repeatedly disappointed when my daily progress checks again prove negative.

The start of the year has seen much movement regarding our apartment in Buckinghamshire. At least – much movement when it comes to viewings, second viewings, detailed enquiries concerning management structures and so forth. Sadly there have as yet still been no offers.

We paid a visit to the apartment a week or so ago, en route to a meeting with our estate agent (Canadian: realtor!) and we were somewhat put out to discover that some of the rooms there were in fairly urgent need of decorative refurbishment. We were not at all pleased that neither our tenant nor the agents – who routinely show prospective purchasers around the property – had deemed it worth their while to brief us regarding this sub-optimal situation. I have now arranged for a decorator to visit with a view to carrying out the updates, but it is quite distressing to think that some prospective purchasers might well have been put off by their first impressions of what is actually a quite lovely – if somewhat quirky – apartment.

I feel sure that there is a good reason for all such delays and disruptions to our forward momentum. Certainly the recent increasing strength of the pound sterling against the Canadian dollar makes me exceedingly glad that we did not find a buyer last year and then ship our capital out to BC at that point. We must simply believe that all such delays result from similar purposes on the part of the universe, and that all will become clear as things progress.

There will be more exciting news as the weeks pass – so do continue to watch this space…

I always wanted to say that!

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Book learning

February 3, 2015 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

DSCF6256book learning

noun

1. knowledge acquired by reading books, as distinguished from that obtained through observation and experience.

2. formal education.

Given that the practical elements of my education concerning the west coast of Canada cannot commence in earnest until I am actually in residence, the best that can be managed in the meantime – other than the well-established practice of mounting daring expeditions to the heart of the InterWebNet – is a resort to literature.

I am much aided in this endeavor by the attentions of loved ones both here in the UK and in BC, recently being the grateful recipient – through the agency of the Christmas ‘stocking’ – of two works essential to the education of the incipient immigrant to the Pacific north-west coast.

The Kickass Canada Girl brought back for me from Canada a copy of Margaret Horsfield and Ian Kennedy’s excellent history of ‘Tofino and Clayoquot Sound’. This magnificent volume – published in the dying months of 2014 – promises to provide the definitive account of the evolution of a part of the coast of Vancouver Island much-loved by all who have ventured to this furthest extremity of the continent. Be your interest in the complex histories of the indigenous peoples of the area, or in discovering more about the children of the counter-culture who followed the tarmac though Sutton Pass to the Pacific Rim, you will indubitably find what you seek within these pages.

My love of the area has already been well documented in these postings – from my rhapsodising over Adrienne Mason’s wonderfully evocative ‘Long Beach Wild’ to the description of the celebration of my sixtieth birthday at the Wickanninish Inn on Chesterman Beach last year. In addition to Margaret Horsfield and Ian Kennedy’s tome and to the aforementioned paean to Long Beach I would further recommend to the gentle reader who wishes to locate a slightly more… off-the-wall account of this part of the world – Andrew Struthers scurrilously funny autobiographical comedies – ‘The Green Shadow‘ and ‘The Last Voyage of the Loch Ryan‘.

DSCF6254And whilst humour is at the forefront of our minds (as we aim for it to be much of the time!) I must reference an invaluable Christmas gift from our dearest friends in Saanichton – Will and Ian Ferguson’s authoritative guide – ‘How to be a Canadian‘. OK – one might not discover therein much of truly indispensable value regarding the transition from European to North American land masses, but one will – as did I – fall about laughing – which is way more important.

I effected this part of my studies in the bath and I fear that the Girl grew just the tiniest bit weary of being summoned down the hallway to have yet another chuckle-inducing passage reported to her. She can occasionally give me the sort of look that is the equivalent of fingers drumming on a counter-top – at which point I know to shut up.

Like now – for instance!

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Tsk!

January 28, 2015 in Life in BC | Permalink

tskThe main point of yesterday’s post was to share with the gentle reader the video clip that I had found on the InterWebNet that features Beau Dick – the excellent Kwakwaka’wakw artist and carver.

Now – WordPress contains a smart feature that recognises that one has inserted the address of a Youtube clip and renders it nicely on the screen, running it when clicked in a neat inline player.

What I did not know – not having done this previously – is that the mechanism that I use to send out an email digest to those who have subscribed to this stream of (semi)-consciousness does not recognise Youtube clips in the same manner – indeed it simply removes the link completely.

As a result yesterday’s post made reference to a video clip that email readers could not see at all. My humble apologies for this. Should you wish to see the clip – and it is worth so doing – this link will take you to the post itself and you will be able to view the page the way that was intended.

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A sense of place

January 27, 2015 in Life in BC | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidMy first visit to the west coast of Canada – indeed to any part of Canada – was way back in the summer of 2006. The Kickass Canada Girl and I were still relatively new to each other and by the time we landed it was clear that the trip had become a sort of two-way audition. Canada was invited to show itself off to me – the idea being to entice me to want to live there some day – whilst at the same time I was paraded before the Girl’s family and friends to see if I passed muster.

Canada clearly passed the test – and it looks as though I just about squeaked home too…

…though not without the odd alarum! The Girl’s aunt – she whose 80th birthday celebration we attended in Kamloops back in April 2012 – was initially somewhat suspicious of my intentions. Fortunately, once we had met face to face my English charm won her over to the extent that she decided that since I would definitely be moving to BC at  some point I should be fully briefed as to what to expect. To this end she has gifted me each year since then a subscription to British Columbia Magazine – for which I continue to be most grateful.

Leafing through the latest edition – which plopped into our mailbox just the other day – I came across a brief item on a Northwest Coast First Nations’ artist of Kwakwaka’wakw descent by the name of Beau Dick. The description of the man and his work fascinated me so much that I needed to know more. I turned – as ever – to the InterWebNet.

In a 2010 piece for Focus Online (‘Victoria’s magazine of people, ideas and culture’) Leslie Campbell wrote of Beau thus:

“Beau is tall and lanky, with long brown hair and a grey beard. He wears a rumpled black felt hat with feathers and speaks very thoughtfully. Though we didn’t know at the time of our meeting, he is regarded as one of the most creative and versatile Kwakwaka’wakw carvers of his generation, with works in many top museums. He’s a chief, an accomplished singer, composer, historian, and an initiated Hamat’sa, the highest-ranking secret society of the Kwakwaka’wakw.”

I subsequently found the wonderful trailer that I have linked below, for an as yet unfinished documentary on the man. Quite apart from the fascinating insight that it provides into this talented and thoughtful polymath the brief film captures something of the essence of the west coast – a sense of place, if you like.

Should the images, sounds, voices and words contained therein touch you even a fraction as much as they do me, then you might glean an inkling as to just why I feel drawn so strongly to this extraordinary coast.

 

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The big one!

January 1, 2015 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Image by Wolfi Korn (Cartoonist Illustrator) “The wine’s all drunk and so am I
Here with the hoi-poloi, don’t ask me why
We’re celebratin’ anticipatin’; end of the year
everybody come, everybody here
– well more or less
Some already in a mess
I guess they’re waiting for the big one.”

Peter Gabriel – “Waiting for the Big One”

Well – this is it…

2015 is to be the year in which we retire and move to Canada.

Our deadline is the middle of July and – though we all know by now what happens to the best laid plans – as this particular milestone draws ever nearer I really don’t see things going that much astray.

Consider:

  • The School knows that I will be retired by the end of the academic year. The Kickass Canada Girl’s agency knows that a similar deadline applies to her.
  • My application for Canadian PR is (one fondly hopes) grinding slowly through its final stages. In concert with all others in a similar position I expect the good news daily!
  • My second pension kicks in this month and our other financial plans are coming to fruition.
  • Friends and family in BC – though perhaps wondering if we are ever actually going to emigrate – just maybe starting to believe that it will finally happen.

Only one major thing remains undone and that will form the basis of the only New Year’s resolution that I will make this year – to sell our UK apartment by whatever means possible.

 

Nothing more to say – except to wish gentle readers near and far:

A very Happy New Year!

May it be a good one…

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