More snow at last !!!!!!
Trip Start
Jun 01, 2009
1
43
58
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
sainte h
Lac Moneracy
Saint-Hippolyte, Quebec, Canada
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Well its been over 2 months since our last blog entry and February will soon be over. The time just flies here and we've been very lucky that we've had a mild winter so far!!! Not much has happened these past six weeks since Christmas, but we thought we'd give you a quick update on how we are doing.
Just got back on Sunday night from a weekend away at a resort north of Montreal called Lac Morency. In typical Kinsey style it was a timeshare weekend so we had to endure 3 hours of selling. Thought we'd got better at cutting them short but it went on longer than ever!!!!!!! However, was well worth the $130 for 2 nights accommodation (with kitchen facilities) and also had one breakfast and evening meal thrown in. As its a resort they also had lots of winter sports equipment available for free! We went ice-skating on the lake, snow shoeing and cross country skiing in the woods! We also made the most of the swimming pool, jacuzzi and sauna. We had a really energetic weekend!
We had a great Christmas and New Year with, my dad, sister Zoe, Roger and children Sam, Megan & Emma. Our friends Nigel, Lisa with Sophie and Daniel arrived in time to celebrate New Year. There was plenty of skiing done by all as you can see from the photos!!!! Ellen is doing really well and any opportunity to go off piste Ellen's off. However, first prize for off piste goes to Daniel who leapt off a 10ft cliff and as a precaution had to be streched to the bottom of the mountain!!! Thankfully he was OK.
After everyone had left, the house felt so empty. We did feel a bit homesick for a couple of weeks but we knew once everyone had gone it was time to focus on finding jobs. Looking for work is difficult at anytime and over here it is different to the UK. Firstly there are no job centres where jobs are filtered through. There are lots of different websites and newspapers have jobs posted. It takes ages to search your way through them all. There are loads of jobs here but many are Government jobs and ask for bilingual applicants only. We have been on several courses which have been useful. About 80% of jobs are never advertised, so you have to find the hidden job market. Its all about networking apparently. Also, every job requires a cover letter which must contain all aspects of the job requirements or else they don't even look at your CV!!!!!!! We have only been seriously looking for work since mid January so its early days yet so we will have to see what happens.
We are still enjoying life here, as we are making the most of our time travelling and visiting places (no change there!) Last weekend we went to Winterlude which is the winter festival and went ice fishing on a lake. Ellen and Greg caught some trout which they gutted for us and we took home for tea!
The Canadian winter has been so mild and we haven't had a really big snowfall since 12th December !!!! We can even see grass in our back garden where the kids made a snowman. It has been cold on some days and even got down to -32 with the wind chill. I know it sounds really cold even -10 sounds cold, but actually its not too bad especially when you wrap up warm. Most days its -6 with clear blue skies and the sun melts the snow and ice and it actually starts to thaw. So far the Canadian winter is not a problem and we have actually loved it as we get to do all the winter sports. At the moment we are enjoying watching the live coverage of the Winter Olympics from Vancouver.
Today we had our first snowfall for weeks so its really white everywhere again so its time again to clear the drive!!! Ellen is going skiing today with the school so she's going to have a great day with the new snowfall.
Hope everything is fine with you all. We'd love to hear news from back home either through the blog or direct to our email.
Bye for now
