It’s snowing in Moose Jaw.

It has been slowly falling since Thursday – I think it is more snow than I’ve ever seen in England and yet I still have to go to work.

There are no snow days in Canada. It amused my colleagues on the Moose Jaw Times Herald when I told them that last February I didn’t have to work in Shrewsbury even though there was less than an inch of snow outside my front door.

I started off the week in the ordinary winter coat I used in England but I soon changed to my down-filled coat with fluffy hood when it fell to -10 degrees.

My friend did tell me to try and keep out of the winter coat for as long as possible so when it is really really cold (-30 degrees), I will feel the benefit. But it was just too hard and the fluffy hood was too tempting.

When the snow first started falling, I was very excited but now, with snow turning to slush because it’s getting slightly warmer (zero degrees), I can see it is rather annoying.

We’ve got special trays to put our winter boots in at both the front and back doors so we don’t spread water through the house. I’m also having to remember to shake the snow off my boots before I get in the car to stop it melting and then freezing inside later on.

Driving doesn’t seem to be too bad yet and we are dithering over whether or not to invest in winter tyres. We do have a 4×4 with good tyres but we shall see how we get on. We’ve had our winter vehicle check and made sure our oil level is okay.

In Canada, you need a car service every 5,000 km so it feels like we’ve spent a lot of time at the garage already. It’s a lot more often than in the UK but its a lot cheaper.

We also celebrated Thanskgiving this weekend. In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October while in America it is in November. Canadians give thanks for a successful harvest and for family and friends.

We enjoyed a delicious dinner after a friend invited us to her parents’ house to join them. To me, Thanksgiving is a wonderful celebration.

It centres on family and joining together to share good food, wine and company. Unlike Christmas, there is no hyped up advertising and no focus on presents — the aim is just to enjoy a long weekend.

We were introduced to some Thanksgiving food. We tried Pierogi, dumplings filled with varying ingredients such as cheese and potato, and we were also tasted cabbage rolls, filled with ground beef and rice, with tomato sauce. The turkey was also delicious — how nice to have it twice a year.

Then of course we tried pumpkin pie, which was lovely, and I’m now keen to find my own recipe in time for Halloween — and decide on a costume, of course.

By Rebecca Lawrence