Tuesday 10 June 2008

Normal Service Has Been Resumed!

Hello all! Wow – it’s been mad since the last post! Sorry it’s been so long but we had to wait before the cable guys (incidentally a company called Shaw!) could come in and connect our telephone, internet and cable up – yes that’s exactly 10 days without TV or internet access! We have managed not to kill each other but it’s been tough! ha ha!!

We moved into our apartment on Sunday June 1st – its lovely! This is a relief as we hadn’t seen any pictures before we leased it! It’s within walking distance of a large shopping mall, the sky train and a bus station so all in all we’ve done really well – especially me with all the shops and food court!! Some pics of our apartment are here >>> there’s not much in it yet, we’re slowly getting stuff, our sofa is being delivered by Ikea (it was a lovely familiar shopping trip!) in a couple of weeks and we’ve had an estimated delivery date for our container of June 25th so by the end of the month we’ll have all our stuff.

On the job front – it’s been a bit slow for me; no one seems to want me!! But Martyn has had 2 job offers! One was selling cars for a large dealership and the other a service advisor for an auto repair shop. Typical, (marvellous) Martyn gets 2 offers and I haven’t had an interview yet!! He’s decided to go with the service advisor one as it’s more secure and involves no weekends!! The motor trade is looked upon much more highly here than in the UK, the pay is much better! He started work yesterday and all is going well!

We’ve been trying to get out and about as much as possible so it’s not all job hunting and sitting in listening to the radio!! We’ve been downtown a couple of times to Granville Island and Lonsdale Quay – which both have fantastic markets. On Saturday 7th we drove to Minnekhada Park for a gentle walk, that’s not what we got! 2 hours later after what can only be described as a bloody hard trek we arrived back to the car thankful (but also slightly disappointed) that we didn’t come across any bears!! Not something you have to worry about at Roundhay Park!



Minnekhada Park View



Martyn with his bear stick!!




On Sunday 8th we drove down to White Rock which is about 30 mins away towards the US border. It has its own little beach as it’s on the coast and there are loads of fish n chip restaurants!! We were economising so had taken sandwiches with us but we are definitely going again when the weather gets better so we can walk along the pier with our chips!! It’s a lovely little place, definitely on our “settling down” list for later on!

White Rock Seafront


White Rock Pier


The scenery here is breathtaking and you are never far away from a mountain view – where we are, Surrey, we have to cross a bridge to get to the Lower Vancouver area and it’s quite dangerous as the views are very distracting!! We are starting to get the hang of things but there are a few things that we’ve noticed: - the robins here are huge! They are the same size a blackbirds!! They don’t have squash here – it’s all ready mixed with water!! And you can’t get small bags of crisps, opps sorry chips!

Will post again soon and we will try and reply to our emails too!!

Take care
Hayley & Martyn xxx

5 comments:

Kirsty said...

hiya Martyn & Hayley

Its lovely to hear from you. I am so happy you have settled in ok, its sounds gorgeous and the apartment is lovely, especially the armchairs lol

Well done to Martyn on getting a job, you just take it easy Hayley and have a little rest first lol

You can go hunting for stash hehe

Well keep in touch and lots of love to you both xxx

Anonymous said...

Ooooooohhhh - I was wondering what you were up to!! Sounds like it's all fitting into place. Lovely pics - scenery looks just amazing.

Congrats on the job, Martyn. Something'll come up for you Hayley.

Keep blogging!!

Unknown said...

Hiya

WOW it looks amazing and you sound like you are settling in well.

Congratulations for Martyn and his job, and Hayley you don't need a job, didn't you want to be a lady of leisure? lol

Take care xxx

Susy Rudy said...

rHi there Hayley and Martyn

Sounds like you are settling in nicely - the apartment looks fantastic - and what a balcony - can imaging having breakfast there in a morning - delighted Martyn has a job, just enjoy being at home for the moment Hayley, the right job will come along soon.

Thank you for your lovely post on my blog - it made my day to hear from you. Missing you already.

Lots of love

Susy
xxxx

Anonymous said...

Hi Hayley Helen here

so glad to see all is working out for you both, well done to Martin with the job, hang in there Hayley there will be a canadian Mr Hooker just waiting to snap you up!!!

Luv n hugs miss your scrappy talk "H"