As an expat in Canada, finding affordable car insurance can be like trying to shift those last few pounds to reach your target weight. You’ve come so far; found somewhere to live, started in the new job and worked out the recycled waste collection schedule. You’ve decided on the car you want and the monthly (or bi-weekly) payments are do-able – then you get the insurance quote…

When you emerge from the short depressive episode this brings on, you’ll set about searching the web with renewed vigour, determined to track down a more realistic figure. Over and over again, the same, unreasonable amount keeps coming back. Like the figure on the scales, it just won’t shift.   more ...

Ok. Maybe that’s a bit extreme. But have you ever been surprised how much “stuff” you own? Minimalism is easy when you’re a couple, but add children to the mix and your “Stuff Quotient” soars. Strollers, highchairs, stair-gates and outgrown apparel populate the shadows of the basement or gather dust in the attic. With children, comes a move to a bigger place, perhaps with a garden, and suddenly you have “outdoor stuff” too – mowers, blowers, trimmers and garden furniture. There’s an urge to fill the new living space with more “stuff” that somehow represents and defines you - your beliefs, your personality, your memories.

Two years ago, we were living in Britain and expecting our third child. We had just finished a big renovation project that increased the size of our home and were in “Stuff Acquisition” overdrive – we had rooms to fill, a bigger canvas to stamp our identity on. Then, we made a decision that would turn our world on its head. My husband accepted a post in Canada.   more ...

You could be forgiven for thinking moving to Canada doesn’t entail the same consideration journeying to a third world country might. After all, it has a stable economy, an established infrastructure and an accepting attitude, right? But it’s always the small, innocuous things that lurk below our radar that can make life miserable with their irksomeness if overlooked.

There are a few things to be aware of that will help your Canadian experience go smoothly. They may seem obvious to some, but that’s easy to say with the benefit of hindsight:

1. There’s a voltage difference. The plugs are different but so too is the voltage. In the UK its 240v compared to Canada’s 110v. A plug adaptor alone won’t be the solution to your problems, as I found to my chagrin when my steam steriliser couldn’t reach the temperature required to properly sterilise my baby’s bottles. Cue boiling them in the kettle each night as sterilizing tablets were nowhere to be found here.   more ...

Moving to another country with children can be a stressful experience. The tearful confession, “I want to go home,” is the last thing any parent wants to hear. Adults will be going through their own period of adjustment and this, coupled with the logistical matters that lay claim to their time in the early days, can leave them ill-equipped to give their children the help they need to cope with the transition.

The good news is that, when properly prepared and supported, children often adjust more quickly than adults. The key to a move with minimum fuss comes down to 3 main things:

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For us, 2012 will be the Year of the Road Trip, the year we travel to Tadoussac to see the whales swimming in Quebec’s first purely marine national park, where the Saguenay River meets the estuary of the St Lawrence. I’m excited at the thought of the drive and the stops we’ll make en route, but this wasn’t always the case. My confession? For a while back there, I lost my driving mojo. What was once a source of enjoyment provoked a cold, sinking dread in the pit of my stomach. No-one was more surprised than me, lover of fine cars and consummate speed junkie (think Jeremy Clarkson without the gob).

For a long time, before exchanging my British driving licence for a Canadian one, I would mentally rehearse driving here. Closing my eyes, I would imagine every part of the journey into town, all the intersections, traffic lights and lane changes, haunted by the fear I would end up on the wrong side of the road and terrified of the potential carnage.   more ...