Friday, June 25, 2004
further thoughts on yet more shopping from P
First of all - a very big thank you to Mam, Dad, sister and Roy for the beautiful flowers that arrived yesterday. J saw a man coming up the path with a large bouquet, and I'm ashamed to say that the first thought that popped into my mind was "what am I going to put them in?". Needless to say I needn't have worried as they came ready arranged in a glass vase full of water - what wonderful service!
A few more thoughts on very small differences between Calgary and home. First of all, light switches are strange. If the switch is down, its off; if the switch is up, its on.
There's no post on a Saturday, and even more strangely, there's no letter box in the house. Any post is left in a 'post hole' just round the corner (picture to follow). Everyone in the street has their own 'post hole', and a key. So you have to go round the corner and open up your own little post hole door to see if there is any post. If the post fits in the hole, that's fine. However, if its a bit too big, you might find a key in your post hole that opens a larger door. If you have post in the hole with the larger door, you open the door, take out the post, lock up the door again and then post the big door key into a slot at the top of the box (a bit confusing!!).
Curtains are a bit of a problem as well. We have venetian blinds throughout the house but they're not too good at keeping out the light in the mornings, so we decided that we should get some curtains for the bedrooms. At home, I would probably have gone to Harry Corry's or somewhere similar, but I didn't know where to go here. So, we tried a department store (The Bay) and had no luck. If we'd wanted a shower curtain, we would have been spoiled for choice, but there were no actual bedroom type curtains. I asked a lady in the sheets department, and she reckoned that the best place would be Home Outfitters. We dutifully trundled off there, expecting to find pairs of lined curtains in various sizes. However, it turns out that curtains aren't a big thing in this part of the world - no pairs of curtains, no lined curtains..... Anyway, we ended up with two navy tab topped panels for our room, and a button up blind for one of the other bedrooms (picture of button up blind to follow). They look fine, but they weren't exactly what we had in mind when we went out this morning.
So... what else did we do today? Oh yes, we went to get Social Insurance Numbers (a bit like UK National Insurance Numbers, I think). Mr White was able to apply for one, but as I'm an 'accompanying dependant', I don't qualify! I don't think that this is a big problem, as we think its only really necessary if you're working. Hopefullly, once I get my own work permit sorted, I will become a person in my own right again. Actually, that sort of came out wrong - I know I'm a person in my own right - its just that I don't really seem to exist as far as the Canadian authorities are concerned, but maybe that's no bad thing.
We also bought a printer, a stapler, some pens(!), two furnace filters, and a cordless controller for the Playstation 2. This means that Mr J can sit anywhere and play the PS2 without being physically connected to the PS2 (wonderful!!).
This is all rather mundane - but its how things are at the moment. We've sort of decided to take a 'blarge' (now there's a word that would confuse the average Canadian!) at the house to get it as well sorted as possible by the start of next week, but have also promised ourselves that we'll go somewhere nice on Sunday. I reckon that we might start out at the farmers' market in Bearspaw (10 minutes drive up the Crowchild Trail), and then head out to Kananaskis Country - but we'll see. It kind of depends on the weather... So far, the weather during the day time has been reasonably nice, but we've had a couple of nights of rain over the last few days. Apparently though, June is Calgary's wettest month (!), and while it reminds us of home, the biggest problem is that the grass keeps growing and we haven't yet purchased a lawn mower. While this isn't a really big issue, there is a bylaw here that says you can be fined if your grass reaches a certain height. I don't know what that height is, but if it keeps raining at night and being lovely during the day, we could reach it pretty soon. We sort of had a look at lawnmowers today, but it seems that they are all very large petrol jobs. We didn't see any electric mowers at all. Maybe there just aren't any..
We won't be going to far tomorrow, as we're waiting for a delivery to come from Ikea - bookshelves, chairs, bedroom drawers etc. Its due to come between 9am and 2pm, and then the rest of the day will be spent poring over diagrams and wielding alan keys (what fun!). When we get that sorted, we can finally unload the trunks. By the way, the pottery all came completely intact, and I'm delighted to have my own knife block, roasting tin and lasagne dish (I told you life was exciting!!).
More later...
A few more thoughts on very small differences between Calgary and home. First of all, light switches are strange. If the switch is down, its off; if the switch is up, its on.
There's no post on a Saturday, and even more strangely, there's no letter box in the house. Any post is left in a 'post hole' just round the corner (picture to follow). Everyone in the street has their own 'post hole', and a key. So you have to go round the corner and open up your own little post hole door to see if there is any post. If the post fits in the hole, that's fine. However, if its a bit too big, you might find a key in your post hole that opens a larger door. If you have post in the hole with the larger door, you open the door, take out the post, lock up the door again and then post the big door key into a slot at the top of the box (a bit confusing!!).
Curtains are a bit of a problem as well. We have venetian blinds throughout the house but they're not too good at keeping out the light in the mornings, so we decided that we should get some curtains for the bedrooms. At home, I would probably have gone to Harry Corry's or somewhere similar, but I didn't know where to go here. So, we tried a department store (The Bay) and had no luck. If we'd wanted a shower curtain, we would have been spoiled for choice, but there were no actual bedroom type curtains. I asked a lady in the sheets department, and she reckoned that the best place would be Home Outfitters. We dutifully trundled off there, expecting to find pairs of lined curtains in various sizes. However, it turns out that curtains aren't a big thing in this part of the world - no pairs of curtains, no lined curtains..... Anyway, we ended up with two navy tab topped panels for our room, and a button up blind for one of the other bedrooms (picture of button up blind to follow). They look fine, but they weren't exactly what we had in mind when we went out this morning.
So... what else did we do today? Oh yes, we went to get Social Insurance Numbers (a bit like UK National Insurance Numbers, I think). Mr White was able to apply for one, but as I'm an 'accompanying dependant', I don't qualify! I don't think that this is a big problem, as we think its only really necessary if you're working. Hopefullly, once I get my own work permit sorted, I will become a person in my own right again. Actually, that sort of came out wrong - I know I'm a person in my own right - its just that I don't really seem to exist as far as the Canadian authorities are concerned, but maybe that's no bad thing.
We also bought a printer, a stapler, some pens(!), two furnace filters, and a cordless controller for the Playstation 2. This means that Mr J can sit anywhere and play the PS2 without being physically connected to the PS2 (wonderful!!).
This is all rather mundane - but its how things are at the moment. We've sort of decided to take a 'blarge' (now there's a word that would confuse the average Canadian!) at the house to get it as well sorted as possible by the start of next week, but have also promised ourselves that we'll go somewhere nice on Sunday. I reckon that we might start out at the farmers' market in Bearspaw (10 minutes drive up the Crowchild Trail), and then head out to Kananaskis Country - but we'll see. It kind of depends on the weather... So far, the weather during the day time has been reasonably nice, but we've had a couple of nights of rain over the last few days. Apparently though, June is Calgary's wettest month (!), and while it reminds us of home, the biggest problem is that the grass keeps growing and we haven't yet purchased a lawn mower. While this isn't a really big issue, there is a bylaw here that says you can be fined if your grass reaches a certain height. I don't know what that height is, but if it keeps raining at night and being lovely during the day, we could reach it pretty soon. We sort of had a look at lawnmowers today, but it seems that they are all very large petrol jobs. We didn't see any electric mowers at all. Maybe there just aren't any..
We won't be going to far tomorrow, as we're waiting for a delivery to come from Ikea - bookshelves, chairs, bedroom drawers etc. Its due to come between 9am and 2pm, and then the rest of the day will be spent poring over diagrams and wielding alan keys (what fun!). When we get that sorted, we can finally unload the trunks. By the way, the pottery all came completely intact, and I'm delighted to have my own knife block, roasting tin and lasagne dish (I told you life was exciting!!).
More later...
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