We received the greenlight to get our vehicles inspected to complete the import pro-cess. We chose to go to the Canadian Tire in Langford . I must admit I was nervous. The service writer said they fail new vehicles all the time. Mine is 10 years old and she has felt her age at times. Diane’s truck passed with flying colors and we swapped out my truck for hers. While we waited for my truck to be cleared, we decided to go to a winemaking store and get started on our cellar. Our friends Heather and Darren suggested a store that they use and we found Penny, the store representative, to be delightful. After we told her about Heather’s recommendation she went out of her way to help us. Diane does things in a big way. We started 4 batches of wine on our first visit. 120 bottles. At the soonest, they will be ready by Christmas. At the latest, 3 years. We will certainly try to hold 1 bottle of each batch for 3 years. To be honest, there isn’t a wine alive that has made it past 12 months in our house. Even the wine we made from the fruit on our trees when we lived in Vegas was lucky to have reached maturation. (As we were getting ready to add the yeast to the crushed grapes, Canadian Tire called Diane on her cell. Basically, since the trucks were so ‘clean’ they passed easily. Whewww! I was a little worried.)Our next date at the wine store will be May 12th, when we bottle. But I’m sure Diane will come up with a few more batches to start by then. She has her eye on a Cabernet. Doing the math, with the whole process involved, each bottle will cost us $7.10. There is not a bottle of Cab Franc, Zin, Amorone or Merlot to be had in B.C. for $7.10. So, it seems to be the way to go. These are high end wine kits, not the kind you find at Thrifty Foods or Fairway Market . With real crushed grapes :)

We are waiting for the insurance adjuster to come this afternoon and assess the damage our things sustained in the move. I don’t foresee a problem with the before and after digital pictures.
Tomorrow we go to the insurance company to register our vehicles. Not the DMV. Things are different here. We cannot get our drivers licenses until our green (PR) cards arrive. They can take up to 4 to 6 weeks to arrive.

We bought fresh halibut fillets at the Save On Foods and cooked some last night for dinner. OMG it was wonderful. The bad thing about living here is the food is spectacular. The meats are very lean. It’s like when you go camping and everything tastes fantastic. That can be a very bad thing when you have Cheezies and Langford Petals Shortbreads. Tonight, schnitzel and spaetzle.

BTW I’ve been told, B.C. stands for Bring Cash.