On the Move

5 thoughts on “On the Move”

  1. I find it interesting that you’re allowed to vote there. Beats Canada where you have to have citizenship… you can pay taxes, drive cars, buy property, employ people etc. but you can’t vote. Strikes me as taxation without representation.

  2. Awww Jen I’m so sorry to hear. Somehow I didn’t realize that you guys were considering this a permanent move; I assumed (don’t know why?) that it was a temporary “secondment” or similar for a couple years.

    I think this kind of news is always most stressful when you first hear it. It’s unexpected and bad news and it’s super painful while your brain struggles out of denial and into acceptance of the new status quo. And of course the uncertainty of not knowing how it will all shake out in July is awful, and your brain plays that worst-case-scenario on repeated loop. But once you’re there, it becomes business as usual.

    As a single girl on a modest income living solo in Vancouver, home ownership is not an option for me either… but it never has been, not yet anyway, so it’s not stressful, it just IS. There are wonderful things about renting too… furnace broke? NOT YOUR PROBLEM! I have no doubt that as smart and resourceful as you guys are, you’ll find a good solution and things will start looking up.
    Laura´s last blog post ..An Elephant Story at Go Mighty

    Jen Watkiss Reply:

    Thanks. We have actually been enjoying renting, just not the part about not having much control over how long we can stay. We do feel a bit duped, because we asked, and were told when we chose this place, that the owners bought it as an investment property and had no desire to live here. Unfortunately, tenants rights are pretty bad here, compared to BC (they are heavily skewed toward the landlord), so it seems like something we’ll just have to get used to.

    As for length of stay, we certainly didn’t plan this to be a for-ever-ever move, but always planned to be here longer than a short secondment. Thing is, when you come on a spousal visa, it’s only good for 28 months, and is non-renewable. So we’d need to get the ILR stuff done anyhow, and figured it’s better to get it sorted sooner than later with all the rule changes.

  3. Yesterday must have been some sort of “boot Canadian renters out” day in Oxford because we got an email from our landlord’s son telling us they won’t be renewing our lease (they’re going to gut and totally renovate the house) in October. Even though we had sort of decided we really wanted to move out of our freezing cold falling apart house, it’s still suddenly become very real. Holy shit and all that. So I completely empathise with you. And obviously the immigration stuff doesn’t help. If you want to talk to Canadians who have been there/done that, just shout.

    Jen Watkiss Reply:

    Hah. Must be something in the water this month! At least you’ve got until October to figure something out. July feels *awfully* soon!

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