Pond Drive, by the side of Highway 7!

A new blog. Suyin's ramblings, rambling thoughts, rambling life, thought it was appropriate.

I am sitting in the open plan living room in the apartment we've been given to live in for 2 months whilst we try to find our own accommodation. I'm sat on the sofa, TV in front of me, this place needs an update, it's not even a flat screen HD TV! We are on the 5th floor according to the lifts but in actual fact am only 3 floors up as there is no 1st or 4th floors. Looking to my right, out the large windows and french doors, the skies are cloudy and a tad grey, we made it home from the school bus drop just in time before the rain came down. I can see more high rise buildings and also some townhouses. Looking to my left, Mitch is sat in the kitchen diner at the dining table doing his homework, and just out the kitchen window, I can see Highway 7, busy with traffic. It's a 6 lane highway, 3 lanes in each direction.

The apartment has 2 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms, one is the master bedroom ensuite. There is also a walk-in-closet in the master bedroom. Mitchell and Jasmine are sharing a room and so far so good, it's the first time they've had to shared a room... and funnily, I think they are liking it, I wonder how long this will last!

Apartment life; never lived in an apartment before. At first, I wondered if we would have enough space for us all, or would we be tripping over each other, would we end up killing each other as we struggled to find our own space?? This is the 2nd apartment we've lived in, we had a 1 1/2 bedroomed one for the frist 2 days, Mitch slept in the living room, not ideal, but ok for 2 nights. Plus it was in North York so within easy access to the city via the TTC, or subway and bus transit to us non Torontonians. More about the city later....

I am pleasantly surprised that I like living in an apartment...the open plan living means one gets the feeling of space, the master bedroom is large, so I can go hide in there if I need to get away. There are stairs that take us down to the basement where the car is parked, there are lifts for all other exits as the doors leading off the stairs are alarmed, guess people only use stairs as a fire exit! I like the kitchen diner concept, there is no formal dining room, but that does not bother me. The kitchen is the heart of the home and eating in the kitchen area is cool for me. There are disadvantages of being in an apartment too but they are so minor I shan't bother talking about it.

The location of the apartment, alongside Highway 7 is not great to say the least. If you kept all windows closed and had the air con on, you can't hear the traffic. All along the portion of the highway where the apartment is situated are more apartment towers, shopping plazas, mainly oriental eateries, with a few banks, a yoga studio(yay), shops, nail bars, some doctors surgeries, MaccyDs. Behind the apartment, well the entrance, are townhouses and more serviced apartments, or furnished suites as they call them.

Mitchell and Jasmine's school is about 1.8km away, across the busy H7, and they are travelling to school on a yellow school bus... we could walk it in about 30-40 minutes, but they have chosen to bus it. They seem to have got on a good start. The first day we took them to school, as we had to register them and had only managed to get registered at the board the Friday before. We met the Principal, Mr, F, who had a high vis vest on, a big smile on his face and he wished everyone a good morning and welcomed us enthusiastically to his school. He had a nasally, cartoony voice, in a nice way, Dave said he sounded like Top Cat. He said, "Good morning, welcome, how are you all? Welcome back to school" He seemed very sincere, and for that I forgave him his voice. Mitchell joined his class as they came in Grade 7 with Mrs McT and Mrs Clark, one of the ladies at the school office suggested we leave Jasmine with her and she would see her to class. I sensed a quiver in Jas's lip as we said goodbye. We were reassured they would be brought back on the school bus and were advised of where it would stop and the times of pick up and drop off for future reference.

The good news is Jasmine actually made some friends on her first day, she's in a mixed class of Grade 5 and 6, not really sure how that works, but it must as her teacher, Mrs B taught a similar class last year and her introductory letter to students and parents was very upbeat, positive and motivating. Mitch is finding it a bit stressful, being in Gd 7, he has to move around to different classes for different subjects, he was excited about this at first, but as he's new to the school, and doesn't know where everything is and having a locker for the first time ever has thrown his confidence a bit. He's also worried that in a few months, he'll go through this all again as there will a change of schools if we change addresses.

Dave started work on the 30th and has 2 weeks to settle him in, a lot of form filling going on, applying for an Ontario driving license, getting his social security number, meeting his team etc etc..... He has been loaned a car by the company for 2 months, initially it was a left hand drive Saab,a stick shift which was not driving right, and now a Toyota Sienna, auto transmission, it's a minivan, that's what they call them, an MPV for the likes of you and me..and it's great, self opening rear and boot door, just great!

And me?? Well, a housewife for a while longer. Work permit not granted at port of entry, which was Toronto Airport. Why? Because I already has a visitor's Visa in it from my last visit.... why Visa?? Because I am Malaysian, of course, why did I not apply for a UK passport? I ask myself this every time I have to obtain a Visa and nobody else in our family has to. Oh well. We arrived here on the 28th of August, the flight got in at 5.30pm. Our instructions were, to ask to see an immigration officer to get our work permits and the kids student visas. We were to pay $150 each for the work permits.

Oh Oh before I get to that... on the flight, they made an announcement for a medical doctor's assistance... and guess what??? There were no doctors on that flight. Maybe it was because it was not a full flight. Anyhow, I think, none of the doctor's could be arsed, probably afraid of litigation or something. Anyhow, being conscious of my code of conduct, I said to the stewardess that I was a nurse and if they needed me, to get back to me, plus Dave was a paramedic some 10 years ago! They came back to us and said, you're it, no doctors have admitted to being on that flight LOL.

We were taken to 1st class to see a gentleman who said he had chest pain, clinical history head on, hx obtained, all the while observing his well being. He looked anxious, but did not look like he was experiencing cardiac pain, but looks can be deceiving, right? I check his vital signs, he was not clammy or breathless, said his chest felt tight...... anyhow, from my clinical expertise, which was not great as I just had a year off work, and with Dave's expert eyes too, we both decided that I would observe him for the rest of the flight which was about 4 hours! I reassured him, he had reported some viral illness type symptoms and being a chain smoker of cigars, I said I would keep an eye on him, but said he was probably coming down with a viral infection as he was coughing and sniffling a little. I contemplated a pulmonary embolus as a differential diagnosis as he had joined the flight in London after having flown from somewhere else and it was a 5 hour flight. He said he took aspirin daily, and had no calf tenderness, so I overruled that thought. I had a look at the in flight medical kit and was impressed by what drugs they carried, and I also checked they had a defib on board.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, his pain improved, said he was reassured by my visit and he was happier. Well, for him it was uneventful. For me, on returning to my seat after checking on him, I was in economy of course, way back in economy, and he was in first class, a bit of a trek lol. I got stopped before I got back to my seat, an elderly lady had a nosebleed, and it was bleeding for the last 20-30 minute and every time she thought it's stop, it started again. She was an ex nurse, so knew what to do. This was her first nose bleed though, so it was a bit scary as it didn't seem to stop. She was on a shed load of meds for various things, one of which was aspiring daily.....making sure she was not hypovolaemic, we set upon trying to stem the bleed, from pressure on Little's area, to ice on her forehead and around her neck. One passenger suggested using some tampons instead of tissues to make a plug and that worked really well. We were about an hour to landing...... what a flight.... I said I should think about going back to nursing when I got to Toronto, was this a taste of things to come?? Work on the flight out??? Too much too soon, we were rewarded though, I got given some champagne as a thank you from the staff on board. We will crack this open when our house sale goes through!

So, we're in the immigration hall, well, it really was a room, and it was jam packed, full of people entering Toronto.... we had arrived along with all the students about to start university.... arggghhh. Kids were tired, no sleep on the plane, Mitch was flat out on the floor, Jas managing to find a seat and was reading. The queue snaked along the hall, trying to accommodate more people that it was built for. It's our turn after about 2.5 hours, Dave gets his WP, kids and I get our Visas, all with different expiry dates as our passports all due to expire in the next 2-3 years...We finally get out, retrieve our luggage, which of course by this time had been on the belt for about 3.5 hours and so the flight details were no longer showing on anything.. it was amazing that we actually found them all!

Dave went to see about a hire car, one should have been reserved for him, but there was no record, so we taxied to the apartment on Hollywood Ave, Off Yonge, which incidentally is the longest road in the world, about 1086km! We were all dead on our feet, it was past 10pm and our UK body clocks thought it was 3am...no dinner, but Dave went out and got a Wendy's takeout, which was not great, not going back there unless we were starving! Our frist night of our new life in Canada...... a new adventure begins.....