It's a whole new language...

I almost couldn't make my traditional Christmas cake this year.

I was wandering around Canadian Superstore (a chain of hypermarkets) trying to find treacle and it wasn't in the usual baking aisle.

I asked a shop assistant for help but she looked at me blankly as if she had never heard of treacle. I tried to describe it: "In England, it usually comes in red Tate & Lyle tins and it's black and thick and a bit like syrup," I said hopefully.

She still couldn't help so I went home and asked my Canadian friend, who lived in England for three years, and she came up with molasses — a word I had never heard before.

I was amused to find it in the supermarket (this time I went to Safeway) in milk type cartons. I normally like to collect the Tate & Lyle tin after use as it's good for storage, but never mind.

I tasted the molasses to make sure and it was definitely treacle so I managed to make my cake, which is now being slowly fed with brandy. I wonder if treacle tart is therefore called molasses tart in Canada?

Obviously the Canadians and British essentially speak the same language but the slight differences amuse me.

It's interesting how many times on an average day someone looks at me slightly blankly because I must have used an English expression. I have a feeling Canadians tend to use the term "last name" as I have had a few curious looks when asking for people's surname.

Before we arrived, I already knew Canadians called an aubergine an eggplant so I was prepared for that in the supermarket and I'm getting used to filling my car up with gas instead of petrol, parking it in a parking lot instead of a car park and driving on the highway and not the motorway.

At Halloween, we gave out candy instead of sweets and I'm now using my cellphone instead of my mobile. Of course, there is aluminum instead of aluminium — which apparently resulted from a spelling mix-up by the English chemist Sir Humphry Davy.

People here wear runners instead of trainers and rent an apartment instead of a flat and I also recently learnt a toonie is a two dollar coin.

People don't understand the term 'half' for time either so when I rang up to book a restaurant for 'half seven,' the receptionist didn't understand me until I said seven thirty.

Also amusing to people in the office was the English term "hen-do" instead of stagette — as Canadian girls would refer to the bride's pre-wedding party.

My husband and I will have to start throwing our garbage out rather than our rubbish and now it's getting a bit colder, I've learnt a toque is a beanie-type hat.

We're enjoying getting used to the every day phrases and think that being in Canada is "awesome" and "super-fun".

With thanks to the Moose Jaw Times-Herald