We are all here at last

Sorry to take so long to update the blog but it has been a pretty hectic time. Bev arrived back last Tuesday and has been settling in and readjusting to the cold ,

and on Australia Day our two dogs Murphy and Herb arrived in Saint John after a very long flight from Sydney which included a stopover in Toronto for everyone's peace of mind.

We have had four days or so with sunshine and no snow but the temperature is around minus 27c over night and around minus 10c during the day. That is all about to change with a winter storm warning current and the temperature warming to low minus. This means we are in for 15 to 25 cm of snow followed by strong winds blowing snow and lowering visibility and freezing rain which will make the roads slippery and dangerous. It is all part of living here and in a way is quite interesting because we have not been through it to this extent before.

University continues to be great fun particularly ritual studies where we are looking at rituals from all areas covering everything from attending a Muslim religious ceremony to all the ritual surrounding the inauguration of a US president.

We are having a belated Australia Day bash this Saturday with six of our immediate neighbours and two good friends who live in town. Although totally different from the Oz Day breakfast we are used to holding at home (one reason being that you cannot get a decent plain beef sausage here for love nor money, the boys who run the Jerra butcher shop are greatly missed). We are having dinner with garlic chilli banana prawns, steak and kidney pie, quiche, peach salad, lemon tart and a lemon meringue. You have to do the best with what you can get.

We have continued to explore the local area and are constantly amazed at the local architecture. There are some outstanding examples and I have included several photos of houses in the upmarket historic area close to downtown.

The local pub is called the “Wetmore – Street Pub” and is named for the two local lawyers who in 1821 participated in the last fatal duel held in the province. The duel took place in the immediate vicinity of the pub and Mr Wetmore was the one who got killed.

In these photos, taken outside the pub, you can see the ski-doos that are a favourite mode of transport at this time of the year. Just like riding the motor bike to the local at home.






Notice in this one the baby carriage attached at the back of the parents vehicle

Stay safe. Ross and Bev

Mid Winter

The good news to begin this post is that Bev is coming home on Monday and hopefully our two dogs "Murphy" and "Herb" will be following soon after.

Bev would like to genuinely thank all those who were able to attend her Dad's funeral and those who sent messages of support. The funeral went as well as a funeral can go with about 75 people attending.

On the home front in Fredericton, we are expecting what the locals call a cold snap -this means that we have gone from minus 18C yesterday to minus 25C today and a forecast tomorrow of minus 30C and this is before the wind chill factor. I have included a copy of the wind chill warning for today for the sceptics.

WIND CHILL WARNING: Fredericton and Southern York County Issued at 4:51 AM AST THURSDAY 15 JANUARY 2009
WIND CHILL VALUES OF BELOW MINUS 35 EXPECTED THIS MORNING TONIGHT AND FRIDAY MORNING. THIS IS A WARNING THAT EXTREME WIND CHILL CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED IN THESE REGIONS. MONITOR WEATHER CONDITIONS..LISTEN FOR UPDATED STATEMENTS.
AN EXTREMELY COLD ARCTIC AIRMASS WILL PERSIST TODAY TONIGHT AND FRIDAY. LIGHT TO MODERATE NORTHWEST WINDS WILL PRODUCE WIND CHILLS BETWEEN MINUS 35 TO MINUS 44.

It does not worry me because I have already decided that minus 20C is cold enough and if it gets colder that that then I will stay home in the blissful warmth of geothermal heating.

Realistically you only have to worry about the cold when driving on the slippery roads and when moving between the car and the building / mall you intend to enter, but you really need to be prepared clothing wise, because at this temperature the impact is instant and dramatic.

The forecast however is looking up, by this time next Thursday we should be enjoying a balmy high of minus 5C (shades of Tahiti).

University continues to go really well with a huge range of lecturing styles from the "I am just the facilitator and you guys teach yourselves" to the formal 3 hour lecture witha mid term and final exam. There is a fairly big emphasis on attendance with generally 30% of the marks being allocated for attendance and participation. I have been really well accepted by the fellow students who think Australia is "awesome" and all want to move there.

I have included some shots below of part of the down town area I took this morning on the way home from "school". First one is the Old Government House

This one is of a local park, which at this time of year does not get much use. However the amount of people, including kids skiing around the suburbs and parks on cross country ski's is amazing.

Just a couple of shots of the frozen St John River which runs through the centre of town.

These last shots are of the average type of house in a small downtown street.

As you can see I like the blue house so much that I put it in twice. The fact is that I am so new to this blog stuff that I cannot find a way to delete one on them.

Stay safe. R

Settling In

Very sad news to begin this post. Unfortunately Bev's dad Chris passed away yesterday afternoon Australian time Wesnesday 7th. Bev and other family members were there and he died peacefully in his sleep.

For those of you located in Brisbane and who may care to attend, the funeral will be held at 10.30am on Tuesday the 13th of January at St George's Anglican Church, it is situated at the corner of Victor St and Thorne Rd. Birkdale.

Bev has asked me to pass on her sincere thanks to all who have contacted and supported her over the last week or so since she got back from Canada.

On a happier note, I have begun my first week at University and it is a bit of a change from uni at home. I have had to get parking permits, ID photos, set up on the university computer system, find my way around and avoid frost bite. I am really enjoying the differences but have only attended one lecture as one of the others was cancelled because the lecturer could not get to Fredericton as a result of highway closures and the one I was scheduled to attend today because of snow and ice on the road. As a matter of interest all the schools are closed today because of the snow. Locals tell me that this does not happen very often.

Depending on the weather this afternoon I may get to use the snowplough for the first time but have already realised that this is a task requiring many layers of clothing and the use of insulated gumboots and gloves made for Canadian weather. Luckily the owner has left all this for me to use.

This is the view from the house towards the driveway and mail box taken about 3 hrs ago, so you can see the situation.

On the household side, I mentioned in the last post that we had purchased a lounge suite so have decided to include a couple of shots from inside the house to balance all the outside photos to date.

The photo below is of the fantastic kitchen in the house. Wanda Little (the owner) spared no expense in fitting it out. All the appliances are "Kitchen Aid" and there is more than enough storage space and bench space.



Will provide a update next week and at this stage Bev is planning to return and bring the dogs late next week.

Stay safe

Now we are here

The bad news to start this post is that the previous good news re Bev's dad was only temporary and she has had to return to Brisbane today Canadian Atlantic time and will arrive in Brissy on New Years Day early in the morning.

As yet Canadian Air and Canadian customs have only seen fit to get 3 of our 4 bags here but enough to establish ourselves in our new home. The landlords have been generous enough to leave many items and utensils to make our transition easier and we have boosted the Canadian economy buy purchasing a great lounge suite and occasional tables (we had previously purchased the dining and bedroom suites from the owner). Today I also was given a New Brunswick drivers licence which allowed us to purchase a Jeep Cherokee for transport. We live about 17km out of the city of Fredericton.



The licence was easy as there is an agreement between Australia and Canada and all you do is just give them your licence and for $60 you get a New Brunswick 4 year licence.

We are adjusting very quickly and have gone from the heat of Tahiti to minus 28 with a minimum of fuss. The geothermal heating in the house is fantastic and without much prompting we have purchased appropriate clothing.










As an example for the next four days the maximum temp will be minus 12 on Thursday with minus 17 as the minimum. But honestly we have found that you hardly notice - you just take appropriate clothing including studded boots for the icy footpaths and get on with enjoying life.

And as an added bonus I do not have to worry about mowing the lawns for a while.

For the boys who are reading this and my great friend Lauren in Jerrabomberra I should explain that when we arrived we knew that we would inherit a John Deere ride on mower.





Little did we know that it came with a big brother which handles the 7 ft snow plough, slasher, soil plough, mulcher and has a bucket or fork lift on the front.



















Just before I finish this post I will include a shot of the back yard and the start of the seven acres that go with it. The pond in the foreground is very frozen and I only hope the fish under the ice are acclimatised.

I hope you all have a great 2009.

Getting to Fredericton

We had forgotten all the work that goes into packing up a house but were quickly reminded in the lead up to our move to Canada. In the end all went fairly smoothly and we departed Sydney on the 18th of December.

We travelled with Air Tahiti Nui in business class (about half the Qantas price) and had a three day stopover in Tahiti which was a great way to start a new chapter in our lives.


After leaving Tahiti we arrived in Los Angeles for a 24hr stop and stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Marina Del Ray (we have stayed with the Holiday Inn chain for many years and find them reasonably priced, very clean, have a guest laundry and the Express chain always have breakfast included in the price) which is close to the airport and also a short walk from the Venice Beach area.

An early start saw us back at the airport and on our way to New York. Our arrival in New York was not matched with the arrival of our four bags which somehow managed to find their way to Atlanta. Several hours with the lost baggage office failed to produce results and we retired to the Crowne Plaza (also part of the Holiday Inn chain) at the airport with only our carry on luggage and a failing sense of humour.

A return visit the next morning to lost baggage also failed to produce any results but we were assured that every attempt would be made to find our bags. Given that it was the weekend before Xmas and it seemed that every American in New York was on a flight that day we accepted out fate and boarded our aircraft for Montreal without our bags and in the knowledge that northern US and southern Canada were suffering some of the worst winter weather in 40 years.

After a four hour delay we arrived in Montreal to be welcomed by minus 28c temperatures and not surprisingly to find that our flight to Fredericton had been cancelled. It is not until you have your flight cancelled that you find out that this means you do not count anymore, you do not get put on the next flight because it is full anyway and very quickly you are relegated from business class to standby, which combined with the loss of your bags can potentially lead to a minor sense of humour failure.

We were informed that accommodation would be provided for the night and hopefully would get a flight out the next day (23 Dec), but to get the voucher for the night we had to stand in a line for 5 hours (such was the disruptiuon the weather had caused). This line was an interesting social event where everyone was accepting of the situation, fellow travellers bought chocolates and ice creams and passed them around and you made new friends and contacts. Eventually at around 10pm we had our accommodation voucher and proceeded out of the terminal to wait for the courtesy bus, it was at this time that we learnt what cold really means - it means that you instantly turn blue, you find it difficult to breathe and the warmest clothes we produce in Australia are about as good as a tee shirt.

We arrived at our hotel at around 11pm and discover that all catering and services are closed for the night and so buy a bottle of red and a frozen meal from a vending machine (the room has a microwave) and have a romantic meal sitting on the side of a bed watching the weather channel telling you that tomorrow will be worse than today - is that possible?

Ever the optimists, we wake, shower and put on the same clothes for the third day in a row and proceed back to the airport to standby. The first flight to Fredericton has one standby seat available but we opt to wait for a flight we both can go on (being separated from your lost luggage is one thing but), and eventually get here around 6pm.

We are met by our friend and agent Jacqueline who has booked us a hotel room for the night with the intention of moving into our house the following day (xmas eve). Realising that everything will be closed for several days following, forces us out in the snow for some late night shopping at wal-mart for undies, socks, water / snow proof boots and other minor essentials for those who have been without luggage for four days.

Xmas eve sees us opening a bank account, grocery shopping, buying a local mobile phone, picking up six of the twelve boxes we have posted over to ourselves and making our way out of town to our new home in Beaver Dam.

The house is fantastic and comes with snow plough which is now an essential with a metre of snow in the drive. More good news, a call from New York tells us that our lost bags have been found and will find us within several days. Even better news is that Bev's dad who has not been well has started to improve and her immediate return to Australia is now on hold.
Merry Xmas to all.