More pictures and videos from week 2
20/09/10
Lily’s first week in school
19/09/10
These pics were from her first day – she won’t admit it but I think she enjoyed it!
The school seems like a nice place. It’s bigger than Shacklewell but there’s a friendly atmosphere there. Lily was nervous on her first day and she got upset because she saw signs saying there’s no food with peanuts allowed, and in her lunch bag there was a cereal bar with peanut butter.
As I was trying to calm her down her teacher Ms Purves came out of the classrooom to welcome us. I think she may have thought Lily was upset about losing her cereal bar, but actually Lily was desperate to get rid of it before anything bad happened.
We had already met Ms Purves last week when we enrolled with the school. She remembered Lily’s name and spoke to her very kindly. Lily wanted me to stay for a while, and Harry was sitting quietly in his pushchair, so we joined the other kids on the carpet and read a book for the first few minutes.
There are loudspeakers in each classroom and around the school, and each morning everyone stands for announcements and sometimes the national anthem. This morning two older children announced all the kids with birthdays that day, talked about some upcoming school and sports events, then wished everyone a great day.
Eventually I pretended to remember that I’d forgotten her sandwich at home – ok I had left the house halfway through making it, but it was really an excuse to slip away. When I came back I peeped through the door and saw Lily sitting at the front looking absorbed. She spotted me and waved with a big grin which was a good sign. And when she came out she went right past me to get her backpack, said hello then headed off to lunch.
Later in the week Lily started getting more and more upset in the mornings, with lots of wailing and insisting “I AM NOT GOING TO SCHOOL!!”. Other tactics included refusing to move, standing on her head, claiming to be ill / tired / injured / asleep / unable to walk. I think her main source of anxiety has been lunchtime – worrying about who she’s going to sit next to, and getting upset that there are no other vegetarians in her class.
Harry also started on Wednesday, at the school’s daycare. He’s just doing 3 mornings a week for now but was very lucky to get a place – they normally only kids from 2 and a half. On his first morning I stayed with him, and when they played outside in their own little playground he had a great time being wheeled around by one of the bigger kids.
The rest of the school came out for morning recess so I nipped into the big playground to see if I could spot Lily. I watched her from a distance playing a game with 4 other girls, something like What’s the Time Mister Wolf – she was having a great time so I left her to it. At the end of the day she ran off to talk to a couple of her new friends.
The school playground is totally open, which seems like a good idea because it makes it feel like a community resource. After school there are some school sports things going on, kids playing, parents chatting, and people just generally using the space. There’s a great big climbing frame which Lily & Harry have been playing on every afternoon.
On Saturday afternoon, after spending most of the day test-driving and then buying a car (more on that later), we walked through the school on the way to get pizza and a couple of kids from her class were there playing. We stopped for a bit and joined in, and Caroline got to meet a couple of the other parents. Sebastian from Lily’s class introduced her to his other friend saying “This is Lily, she’s my best friend”, so she’s really not doing too badly so far!
I’ve seen milk in plastic bags in the UK, but not organic milk. Pretty obvious that the people who would want to use less packaging might also want to buy organic… Anyway, there’s loads of it here, yay!
Bureaucrayzeee
09/09/10
(Let’s all pretend I wrote this on the 9th of September rather than today, the 21st)
Caroline started work this Tuesday, the day after Labour Day. Today she had a day off so we could get some stuff done. Sandy, our knowledgeable and helpful relocation agent, came along with us and together we:
-
Enrolled Lily at Clinton School, which took much less time than I had expected. Received a stack of forms to save for another dayDuration: 30 minutes
Child status: Nervous -
Were introduced to Aussie, the Bearded Dragon lizard who lives in the school office, by a friendly teacher called Mr KDuration: 10 mins
Child status: Fascinated -
Waited to apply for Canadian Social Insurance numbers in hushed public office with only two magazines to entertain the kidsDuration: 3 hours
Child status: Absorbed, becoming rampant -
Successfully applied for Canadian Social Insurance numbersDuration: 3 mins
Child status: Deranged -
Caroline opened a bank account while I bought pizza slices and took the kids to the park Duration: 90 mins
Child status: Relatively content -
Registered for health cards in another hushed public office. We had a tense 15 minutes while the man checked with his superiors that Caroline’s work permit, which had a minor handwritten amendment made by the immigration office, could be acceptedDuration: 40 mins
Child status: Loud & lively -
Registered for Canadian driving licenses, where a horrible man in the waiting area made rude comments about Harry’s volume levelDuration: 30 mins
Child status: Louder & livelier
…and that was about it!
You might have noticed the new Skype button at the top of the page which could be handy if you want to speak to any of us.
If you don’t have a computer about your person you could also try this UK landline number which will transport your physical utterances into the digital realm and whisk you straight to our ears (provided our computer is on and the microphone is plugged in… I’m working on that one).
The number is 020 3286 1254 – if we’re not answering you could also leave a message!
I’m currently trying to catch up with myself here on the blog, which is why it seems like there is a 2 week delay between Canada and the UK…
Labour Day weekend
05/09/10
The weekend before Labour Day we ventured out into a city busy enjoying what in the UK we’d call a bank holiday weekend.
Two blocks down from our house, our road meets the major shop-lined thoroughfare of College Street, but today the junction was mostly closed off by a large stage that was being set up.
College Street itself was closed to traffic, so Harry took advantage of the opportunity to scoot near the tram lines. Weirdly I haven’t noticed any other kids on scooters, so he gets some admiring glances.
Later we took the streetcar (tram) down to the Toronto Harbourfront Centre (yes Canadians spell their words properly!) where we had some fun on the Wave Deck then wandered aimlessly through “North America’s premier celebration of Yiddish and Jewish culture”.
Toronto’s airshow was also happening nearby, which added some interesting background noise and occasional screaming flypasts.
Also this weekend we explored High Park where Lily made first contact with a friendly Canadian girl. I didn’t overhear their conversation but Lily came back away saying “That girl’s a vegetarian and she doesn’t believe in god either” so they obviously got straight into the big moral issues.
The girl left and Lily couldn’t remember her name, so we carried on to the small park zoo which contains bisons, deer, llamas & peacocks. We walked and scooted for another hour or so, encountering geese, a chipmunk, and a group of little sparrows which seem to be almost as prevalent as pigeons.
Lily was speculating which sparrows were the mummy and daddy. I suggested they were probably all cousins, so now every time she sees them she shouts in excitement “it’s the cousins!”.
Canadaze
04/09/10
It was a warm and windy day today. We scooted/walked/carried the kids to a great toyshop and bought a couple of things to tide them over until the sea freight arrives (hopefully in about 3 weeks).
I think we’re still feeling quite dazed from the house move, the journey, and the first couple of nights here, so it was nice to do some normal stuff.
The move
02/09/10
2 hours sleep, up at 6.30, one last cup of tea, put kettle in loft with other miscellaneous crap, lock loft, vacuum pack bedding & stuff into holdalls, big taxi at 8.30am – too small for 5 cases 2 holdalls 2 small backpacks 2 kids backpacks 1 guitar 2 car seats 1 laptop bag and a pushchair – wait for 2nd taxi, lock house, traffic jams to Heathrow, helpful porter trolleys luggage to check-in, security etc. 10 minutes breakfast scramble in BA lounge (Harry ate mostly olives), 7 hour flight (Lily watched TV, Harry wrestled then slept for 2 hours), land 3pm local time, 1 hour in immigration, helpful porter trolleys luggage from luggage reclaim, reunited with our “relocation counsellor” Sandy, delighted welcoming of indifferent Lily & Harry, helpful porter hoiks luggage into her car while Sandy spots mistakes on work permit, back through airport to immigration (I go to car hire desk then back through airport to remove luggage from Sandy’s car in search of driving licences) – work permit corrected and exorbitant car hire arranged, we unintentionally tour the city accompanied by weary arguments, arrive 40 minutes after Sandy, carry Lily to bed, unload car, consume cheese, biscuits & wine courtesy of our new landlords on lovely porch while Harry charges around amazingly cheerful until 10pm. Sleep…
Pizza scrum II
01/09/10
As all our stuff has been packed or given away we’ve been mostly eating out the last few days. We were planning to have one last night at Il Bacio and invited a few friends who hadn’t been able to make the official leaving do.
We didn’t bother booking cause it was only a small do, but the numbers escalated until finally there were 22 of us. The staff in Il Bacio were great though and even entertained the kids with Generation Game style pizza dough activities.