Sunday 23rd August 2009

Well, here we are a few days later – it’s Sunday – and we are starting to find our feet. The girls no longer have jet lag but Harry is still waking up in the night. Until last night he was waking at 3am (and making a fuss unless released from his cot) and just staying awake for the rest of the day! Needless to say, I feel a little ragged around the edges now! Also, just to keep me on my toes, I decided to potty train Harry 2 days ago. And guess what.......he’s done. HURRAH! (Yes, Annabel, that’s 2 days!! Sorry! Don’t worry, it took weeks and weeks with Lizzie.x).
We seem to be haemorrhaging money at the moment. We’ve bought car seats, extra bedding (ours in still in boxes waiting for our permanent house), really expensive food – that is until we found Costco yesterday. We’ve bought the car (see pic – it’s absolutely massive – makes my people carrier at home feel like a nippy little town car!). When purchasing a car over here, before being allowed to drive it off the forecourt, you have to take the bill of sale to a registry office (over the other side of town) with the insurance cover note, where they then verify your licence and then having departed with lots more money they give you a licence plate to take back to put on the car and THEN you can drive away! It’s quite a length process compared with being able to do it all on line at home.
I drove into Med Hat yesterday. As most of you will know, I am not exactly a timid driver and have been known to have one or two (!) points on my licence, but yesterday, I was making up every excuse under the sun not to have to drive. I started by having a quick (slow) drive round Ralston Village. All went well until I parked up to fiddle with the seat position, started up again and promptly drove off on the incorrect side of the road – Richard had kittens (loud, shouty ones!). There are lots of little extra rules and regs to remember when driving here. You have to stop for 3 seconds at a cross road (even if you can see there’s nothing coming – or the police will have you!), you can turn right when the traffic lights are red and everyone, absolutely everyone sticks to the speed limits (?????). Even on the open, boring, lonnnnng trans Canadian highway. Such a wasted opportunity!
Well, I shall try to post this doc on the blog this afternoon. I’ll go into Richard’s office while it’s quiet and I hope I’ll be able to attach some photographs this time. The internet connection in Stabuck’s, where I did the last blog entry , wasn’t fast enough to be able to do that.
The girls go for a taster day at school on Monday, so, grandparents and God parents, I shall let you know how it goes in the next Natter!