About 6 years ago, my wife Lydia and I were thinking about a move to the Calgary area of Canada.
If I am honest, it was more me than Lydia, but she was coming round to the idea (however she may post here to disagree), to the point where we were in touch with a contact in the Alberta Children's Hospital about how applicable here nursing qualifications were. At the time we had a daughter, and enough points to qualify (no targeted list of occupations back then).
Anyway, to cut a long story short, Lydia became pregnant with daughter number two and Canada slipped way down our priority list to the point where we thought nothing more of it.
Fast forward 3 years and some friends a few doors away announced that they were moving to Canada. I asked where and they said the Calgary area. I pointed out the coincidence and talked with them about their move at great length. A hectic few months of them selling as many of their possessions as possible, and they and their two kids were off on a temporary work permit (inter company transfer).
A little over two years later, and daughter number 3! we decided to go and visit whilst daughter number 3 could still fly for free. We couldn't really afford it, but it would be totally out of the question if we had to pay for 5 tickets. Off we flew in mid April of this year (2011) for 2 weeks in Okotoks - http://www.okotoks.ca/home.aspx A little bit of snow for a few days (a teeny weeny bit by Calgary standards I suppose), and a good bit of nice weather.
We saw some sights, local and farther afield (Lake Louise, Banff, Sulphur Mountain - the rockies are something else!), and tried to live a little as locals, shopping at the supermarkets, seeing what Okotoks had to offer, seeing Alberta Children's Hospital up close when daughter number 3 needed a visit to the emergency room ($650 for walking in the door - ouch!). Daughter number 1 even got to go to school for a day! That would never be allowed in the UK.
Our friends will remain anonymous unless they reveal themselves here, but I can't thank them enough for the opportunity to visit. We fell in love with the idea of moving to Canada.
So, to bring you up to the present, we discussed it at length and decided to go for it.
A few things have changed since I last researched the process. There is now an occupation list for permanent residence applications. We easily have enough points, but my occupation is not on the list, although annoyingly it was 12 months ago! Lydia's nursing occupation is, but her registration here in the UK has lapsed. That means a temporary work permit and see how things go from there (not a simple task to find an employer to sponsor one in my field).
So there you are, out backstory in a nutshell.
No comments:
Post a Comment