You are currently browsing the Maple MOLE weblog archives for March, 2008.

What, no eggs!

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

So how many Easter eggs did you see in the shops in UK? On Easter Sunday the boys looked a little dejected and asked ‘No eggs’ Big guilt trip for parents, but then when we made a pit stop at the local supermarket for milk the realisation hit us NO EGGS. Wow, having recovered from the shock I realised why I hadn’t fulfilled by parental duties. There were no eggs for me to buy. Not wanting to be beaten I sent O to the candy section in search of eggs. This is what he came back with! We all had to indulged in a Cadburys egg, woopie!

We have learnt that for lots of people Easter is about going to Church, or having Easter lunch with family, similar the Christmas. There are some eggs hunts where the Easter bunny attends, they hunt for the little sugar covered eggs and that about it.

Deep Cove

Friday, March 21st, 2008

Easter was upon us and we thought it was high time we investigated some new areas. After all we needed to find somewhere where we can chill on warm barmy summer evenings. I think this is just the spot, you will have to look at my Picasa page to see what it is really like. About a 20 minute drive from home, I can see the one road in/out may cause a few problems if it gets busy. There is a small collection of shops, including pizza, ice-cream, craft shop, clothes shop and fish & chips!!. There’s a small beach where you can walk along the waters edge and take in the scenery, or watch the boats and kayaks, or take a walk along the road and look at all the water front homes. You could just see how many unusual signs you can find. This one cause much amusement. Once you have spotted one they keep coming.

They even teach dogs to read in Vancouver, encouraging all to have manners, humans and dogs a like. Now the third one we decided you would only see on the West Coast. It was on a notice board outside a ‘corner shop’ At the top the card are for a local chimmney sweep, followed by bingo and restorative justice at the Philosophers Cafe! Although there was nothing about Harry Potter.

Buzzers

Saturday, March 15th, 2008

How many electrical item buzz? Well lets go, Washing machine at the end of cycle, tumble dryer 10, 5, and 2 minutes before the end of cycle, iron if its left standing alone for to long, microwave if you don’t respond when its sounded end of time, telephone – its part of the entry system to the apartment, the cooker when its reached to desired temperature, when you set the timer on the cooker gives you a warning 10 sec before time is up, then beeps every 30 seconds until you turn it off. Sometimes they drive me and others mad, I here the boys saying does that buzzer have to be so loud? These are times when its very helpful, however it does get a little frustrating sometimes, a bit like a child who doesn’t give up until you say yes!!! Thank goodness my wake up alarm is the radio.Then to top it off, its not a buzzer but it could well be, the car doors lock automatically 10 seconds after you start moving. Its taken a while to get used to.

Shopping

Saturday, March 15th, 2008

How many shops can you go to to get the monthly shop, and what is a monthly shop? It appears that not many Canadians shop monthly, I think some even still shop daily. What’s good about that, well there are never any lines at the tills. Some things they do VERY big or buy in bulk, but bulk is just 1 or 2 items. The only place I have seen an well stocked trolley is at Costco. I have managed to get the cupboards stocked with all the usual stuff. Still struggling with the cost of cheese, about £4 for half a pound, but we off set that with the amazing range of fish, at a good price as you can see from the picture this piece of fresh salmon cost £10. You can’t buy everything in one shop. There are lots of fruit and veg shops, with an excellent range of goodies and there is no alcohol in the supermarket you have to go to the Liquor store! At the other end you have a post office that also sells t-shirt and trinkets. Opening hours are all over the place, some are open 24hrs and others close at 6pm every night. So when we have a last minute panic I have to stop and think which shops are open. We did come unstuck one night when Mark needed paracetamol for a tooth ache and none of the shops were open so we ended up at a petrol station. Plus its not paracetamol Canadian know it a Advil, but we learn from our adventures and have since found out where there is an all night chemist.

Driving

Friday, March 7th, 2008

Now I passed my test back in December, 1st time, well I couldn’t break family tradition. It only us folk who drive on the ‘other side’ who have to take a complete test, theory and road. Following advice from some friends I opted for package with a driving school. I felt OK about the test until the morning when a different instructor turned up and then he started taking me to another test centre. Ugh I am not sure who was in more of a panic as we both knew there was not enough time to get to the other test centre, Fortunately we had gone to the correct one and I left 45 minutes later with a pass certificate. At the time we still didn’t have a car, but we did hire a car over Christmas. Mark passed his in early January just before all the snow.

Starting driving from scratch here is a long process, they have a graduated licence programme, that last 3 yrs. You can reduce the 1st year by taking lessons with an approved school, and then the next 2 yrs can be reduced by 6 months if you have no accidents or violations. So 1st you have to pass the theory and get an ‘L’ With the ‘L’ you must always have someone over 25yrs beside you and only 1 other passenger from your family. Then you can sit the next stage of the test, if you pass you get your ‘N’ You can the drive alone, but only with 2 passengers. I think I’ve got that right. E has just passed his ‘L’ and it appears it is dirt cheap to get him put on the insurance, that’s because it costs a small fortune to insure the car in the first place £1200 for a year, but no road tax and only £70 to have E added.

Chilled drivers, not cold but very relaxed. We do get traffic jams but we joke there would be no jams if they all closed the gaps. Yes they have gaps – I know that’s unheard of on the M25. When approaching traffic lights it normal to leave almost a cars length between you and the car in front when you have to stop. We are getting to grips with turning left on a red light, but its very off putting when you are waiting in the middle of the junction to turn right and you see a car in your peripheral vision to the right coming in to the junction and turning. Another thing we have noticed is all cars stop for Fire trucks and ambulances – I mean STOP. I think its because Fire trucks will cross the central reservation if there side of the road is completely jammed. Scary stuff when you see it for the first time, but you do know they are coming – boy the horn is LOUD. Oh by the way the central reservation may only be a like a speed bump or just double yellow lines in some places.

So the main difference, large parking spaces and wide roads and a few very small traffic circles! Because there is a significant number of BIG vehicles 99.9% of the parking spaces are huge – like you could hold a party in 1 space, consequently they never have to know the width of their car.