We have made it to the five week point and have been rewarded with a 6 day mid-term break. Well Shem has, the kids and I have managed 4 days and of course we headed up the mountain. But more of that later.

What has the first 5 weeks on Vancouver Island been like you ask? It is a good question and it is so hard to answer – so much has happened, but also it has been a little bit of heads down bums up while we just get into the rhythm of life here.

Brentwood would have to be one of the most beautiful places on earth and as the students and staff returned after Christmas that only improved.

We have met some absolutely cracking people, the head of our boarding house Liam and his wife Marilou, children Brendon and Abby are gold and have made each and everyone of us feel so settled – Abby is in Grade 6 at the kids school and is a gem – we will be working very hard to get her to do a gap year at GGS – her brother too. I’m positive Liam has been softening the blow for Shem, and for that we are very thankful – we have had a tip off on his favourite beer – Fat Tug- and hope to keep him well stocked. Shem has swapped his drinking and sparring partner Simon H with Simon B. One may think it is so that he doesn’t need to learn new name, but after some solid drinking I can say with confidence that Simon B is made for Shem. Simon is outshone by wife Ashley and daughter Lauren who is 14 months and just begging to be Australianized! – and we are working on that – the other day jemima and I worked really hard to teach her to say ‘Blimey!’ Jemima has already got to their dog Summit – I said “jemima what is the dogs name?” And she said “it’s Steve mum” and it has been Steve since!

Brentwood is similar to GGS in so many ways but then also so very different. Overall it is a good deal more laid back, students are given a great deal of freedom and the rules governing the boarding house are so much less defined. Students stay up a lot later and they are afforded many more freedoms. However they do not abuse this and there is a consiquence for everything if they do. Could Australian kids be managed the same way – we are not sure they could.

Duty for Shem is a completely different ball game to our beloved Barwon – the boys are largely self sufficient and the prefects manage all aspects of the day to day running of the house. Shem is on duty on Tuesday and Thursday nights – but does not start until 10pm each night and the students are not required to be asleep until 11ish. We live attached to the boarding house and there is only the head of house (house parent- Shem is assistant house parent) who is required to do weekend duty so Shem either does Friday night and Sunday (sun up till lights out) or sat. That means every weekend. It is not so bad because the school also has classes on Saturday till 1pm. Although it Sounds like a lot, it is much more relaxed and Shem can come and go from our place and is taking full advantage of the Wismer’s Netflix subscription while on duty.

The kids school has been really good thus far. It is about the same size as St Roberts in number of students but it is a refurbished middle school(4-8) campus that two years ago was converted to k-7. Thus there is heaps of room and loads of facilities not normally found in an elementary school (science labs, music centre, two gyms..)

Dibs came home one afternoon and said auditions were to be held for the school musical – susical – open to years 4-7. Dibs said he was auditioning for Cat in the Hat and we did our best to point out that A: he can’t sing and B: he is in grade 4 so he would be lucky to even get a minor roll. He was very upset and we back tracked slightly to say that he needed to practice and try as hard as he could and it would be good practice for next time. Of course he came home and said he had a lead role – the mayor of whoville – and we ate our words. He then went on to win school improve drama comp with Jack his campus buddy and two others and go on to represent the school against 15 other schools in the districts and came third – the crocodile Dundee type performance definitely helped me thinks!

Jemima has been accepted into this program at the local library where she goes weekly to read to a ‘helper dog’ in training – she is so excited about it and practiced her book all week (happy parents!!) she is also doing singing lessons which means she is reading and learning lyrics as well as practicing elocution and learning volume control all without realising it and loving it.

Chloe – what to say about Chloe !! She has developed a suit of little friends on campus, has the boarding house boys taking her out to play soccer or playing hide and seek, has had or has been asked to have more play dates that we can cope with and – sit down for this one – has taken to skiing better that anyone else. When we ski as a family she just rockets on in front of us all – we can’t keep up!!

I have been working at a lovely little private School about 20 minutes away called Queen Margaret school – it is a girls boarding school that runs its equestrian program as part of the curriculum – tell Marina and Julie they need to get on to this! I am also now on the relief list for the state sector which is much better paid. It is pretty boring but at least it’s not house work!!

We have had a record warm winter to coincide with Victoria’s record cold summer and we are now crossing our fingers for a cold snap otherwise our skiing is over as this weekend we have been enduring – wait for it.. – a sub tropical storm – blowing straight up from the equator to our island and meaning on the snow we have had over 100mls of rain and aprox 9degree temps – who ever heard of sub tropical storm in the ski fields?

The best part of the weekend has been getting to know two other brentwood families who are staying in the condo over the road up on the mountain. The Normans and the Ganley families. We went for dinner tonight and the kids went night sledding in the pouring rain and had the best time of their lives while we ate Turkey and drank a Canadian drink which is whiskey and maple syrup – so good. The Ganley’s were all set to exchange with the Leach family 5.5 years ago when they found out their 6mth old have a unique brain disorder. It must be terribly bitter sweet for them to get to know us.

What have we learnt so far? That this has been the best experience ever – the amount Shem and I have had to learnt over the last two months is insane…..drive on the other side of the road, use a different computer system, teach Canadian history ( I love that one!) get bank accounts, work out how to use phones, faxes, printers, get kids to school, how to upload, download, video, project, create, translate share…. It is more than we could have hoped for – challenging- yes, rewarding -yes, exhausting – yes.

Enjoying waffles for the first time…

View from top of Mt Washington right down to the ocean..