Calm before the move

We are able to move in to our new place on Monday and we'll be glad to move on to the next stage of getting setup. The last week has been full, Jaime is working her new job three days a week and is really enjoying it.

We're staying with Jaime's parents at the minute, staying on Sumas Mountain, which the dogs are loving. We have already had our first large animals sightings. We saw a bear when driving to the main road. It was around 15 yards away from the car and Duffy did not like it one bit, he growled, barked and bayed where as Loki was... looking the other way. The same day while driving up the mountain we spotted a deer by the road and Loki watched it intently and Duffy.... well he thought it warranted the same treatment as the bear.

Our daily walks are being kept up while we're here, their a lot more cross country and hilly. Great for the dogs and apparently good for the health (my legs are not convinced). The boys had their first chase of a bear yesterday, along with Jaime's dad's dogs they took to the bush at high speed much to their excitement, when Loki came back his hackles were up from the crown of his head to the tip of his tail.

More mundane things such as a Social Insurance Number, a mobile phone and licensing for the dogs etc. are all done, but there are always more things which seem to need to be done.

Touch Down

Saturday I arrived at 18:30 local time in Vancouver after a fairly long day. There was a 4 hour delay on the flight so I had a bit of hanging around at Manchester airport. I think the airport air conditioning must have been broken or out of action for some reason as the temperature was way up, way over 30c. I think due to the temperature in the airport the flight was extremely cold for all the passengers who were equally unhappy that the in flight entertainment system was broken. Lucky for me I had my iPod with me, I still managed to fit in four movies.

Its Monday as I type this and its a public holiday in Canada so we can't really progress much yet, but tomorrow will give us a chance to push on with admin tasks such as getting a social security number.

Almost there...

So we're still busy on both sides of the world. Here, my parents and I have been working away to get the house ship shape for the our first tenants who want to move in at the end of this month. There is a lot of paperwork, and checks involved in this property rental business, which has added to the remaining paper work I've had to wade through. Hopefully I can get it all completed by Thursday.

Over in Canada, Jaime has been working hard to organise services for our new home, and get life sorted. Jaime has even found a job, working for Animal Insight who train animals for films. Its going to be a job Jaime loves.

The dogs are pretty much settling in well, they are on a steep learning curve, they have already had an encounter with a cliff, some hornets, not being aloud to eat chickens (at least not when they still have feathers) but also free run in a forest, oh and much to their delight, have sampled bear feet from the results of Jaime's dad's latest hunting trip.

A Little Slide Show.

I was backing up photographs and it seems our photographs sum us up well, and it seems we have a LOT of animal stories happy some sad. But a lot of Animals.

The Canadian Side

A little update on the Canadian side of things. Jaime has been BUSY. In the week she's been out there, she has sorted us a place to live in Mission (about 40 Miles east of Vancouver), a mobile phone, a vehicle and has collected our animal family from the airport.

View Larger Map

Its been as non stop for Jaime since she arrived but she's doing a fantastic job. We can move into our place in Mission on the 1st of June. Our car is a Subaru Impreza in shiny red. Its not got the boy racer body kit or reputation there that it has in he UK, but it is all wheel drive and will help us going a little off road for adventures with the dogs. Jaime has already named it "Zippy".

Jaime's collection of the animals was fairly smooth, it involved a minor interrogation as to how she knew these animals and why they were traveling alone etc. but for the most part was smooth and everyone arrived safe and sound. They went straight out on a walk on the mountain when they arrived and are settling in very well.

The boys watching the pond.

Loki & Duffy and Jimmy & Emma

The new ferret palace!

Duffy standing in front of Zippy.

We have K9 (and Ferret) touch down!

Thursday Evening / Night and Friday Morning were a complete blur but I'll try and give a brief summary.

Over the last few evenings I've gone over and over the paperwork for shipping the animals to Canada. Its 13 documents which is 23 original copies and when the correctly photocopied produced 46 pieces of paper - to ship four animals.

11:30pm Thursday - we loaded the dogs and the ferrets into the car and my dad and I set out for Heathrow. The dogs were great as usual, the exercise they had during the day meant they were already tired and with the exception of pee breaks slept most of the way down.

My dad and I shared the drive down and it was mostly event free, if a little fragrent (shareing a sealed car with two ferrets for 7 hours is not great, but needed to be done.

When we arrived at Air Canada's Cargo Terminal at Heathrow, again everything more or less went to plan. The guys on the desk were wide eyed at the amount of paperwork but once I handed it to them split into piles for the individual animals they were relieved and I was thankful I'd gone over and over it all so closely.

The Ferrets were loaded first, both in one container with sawdust and loads of space, they seemed quite happy (and Lively). Loki and Duffy were not bothered by the whole situation, in fact when I went to fetch them from reception where my dad was holding them, they were play wrestling. I loaded them into their respective crates and they were absolute stars, no trouble at all. From there they were taken, X-rayed and put in the "Warm room" to await loading on the plane.

I don't know the full in's and outs of collection yet, but Jaime collected them from the airport successfully yesterday and all four were very glad to see her. I know Jaime has already had the dogs on a walk on the mountain and has started them settling in.

The 13 Documents all sorted and ordered

23:30 getting ready to leave

06:00 Friday (toilet break before arriving at the airport)

Enzo and Flash making the most of their hammock

Loki & Duffy waiting patiently to be loaded into their crates

Organised Chaos or Chaos Organised

Jaime and I are both running around our countries trying to organise huge numbers of things as quickly as possible. As is always the way, bureaucracy is throwing its weight around in places, but we're doing our best to beat it down and keep smiling while we do so.

Tomorrow late afternoon starts one of the big jobs. Getting Loki, Duffy, Enzo and Flash to Canada. They have a vet visit in the afternoon, to confirm they are fit to fly, and then late in the evening, we set of headed for Heathrow, they are to be delivered there in the early hours and a mass of paperwork handed over and processed and then they jet of to be met by Jaime at Vancouver airport.

Jetset Jaime

So the 660 mile round trip to get Jaime to the airport is over, 6 hours down and 6 hours back She is in the air as I type this, 9 hours to travel 4700 miles, She'll touch down at about 19:30 UK (11:30am Vancouver) time and make it back to her parents house by about 9pm and will be shattered.

I get off lightly, I can put my feet up and rest this evening, Jaime on the other hand has another half a day to get though once she arrives.

The last night

Jaime's bags are packed and once I convinced her Duffy was not allowed to travel with her they were all fastened up and ready to load for us leaving this morning.

We had one last little get together in the CIU club in Seaton Sluice last night, and I think everyone had a good time.

This morning we head to Gatwick so Jaime can jet off early tomorrow morning.