AS WE unravelled our old lives in England, I sometimes wondered how long it would take to build new ones in Canada.

Every cancelled policy, membership or furniture given away would probably have to be bought again.

In England, we had lives that had taken years to build up, and a flat that had taken months to furnish.

But in Toronto, we had no friends or family and only four bags between us.

So we found ourselves, one day last week, with a mad dash around a popular Swedish furniture chain to buy a bed, a mattress and a sofa in half-an-hour – or we would be sitting on the floor and sleeping there too.

House-hunting is very simple in Toronto. You walk into an apartment block you like, buzz the superintendant and if they’ve got something, they will show you round.

But as “immigrants”, you have no credit history. You need a job, references, a Canadian bank account and the holy grail; a phone number.

What did we all do before we had phones? Honestly, I’ve no idea.

“Of course you can buy a phone line from us,” said the cheerful phone company salesgirl, commission dancing before her eyes.

“What is your contact phone number?”

“We’re buying a phone line from you,” we explained politely. “We don’t have a phone number. That’s the point.”

“But we can’t give you one without a contact number,” she whimpered.

The same applied with mobile phones.

This time, our not-so-polite response was to give the salesgirl the local pizza takeaway number. It worked.

So, back to the apartment. It took two days for the management company to approve us, and the keys were in our hands the next day. The whole process is amazingly quick. All flats are unfurnished though, so you have to buy everything from scratch.

On a limited budget, we had to buy everything in one place to cut down on delivery costs, and now we don’t have a car, if it can’t be carried on the subway, we’re in the company’s hands.

Thank heavens for aforementioned Swedish furniture chain! Their order-by-2pm-and-get-same-day-delivery saw us tearing around the showroom, bouncing on beds and sofas to test them in five seconds, throwing chairs into trolleys and literally sprinting to the till.

But bless them, it was with us by 7pm. Which was about the same time we realised we didn’t have a hammer or screwdrivers.

Or any lights. Or even candles.

Anyway, a week on and here we are, in our own little flat, on our flat-packed but now happily assembled furniture. We love it. We even have phones. The cardboard on the windows came down yesterday and we have curtains, although the colour of our cheapo shower curtain is more akin to Amsterdam’s red light zone.

We have also managed to rent an apartment in the gay/transsexual district of Toronto, so the cable instillation guy gleefully told us on Monday.

That said, the location is great. It is in downtown Toronto and a ten minute stroll to work for me – a novelty after my 90-minute drive to York.

Working certainly got me out of holiday mode.

I spent the first week using the men’s toilets, hiding every time someone came in so I didn’t scare them, because I didn’t think there were any women’s. Actually, they were right next door. Wisely, I never mentioned that to my colleagues.

Interviewing Americans and Canadians with my broad Yorkshire accent often involves plenty of “pardons” and “sorries”, but I get there in the end.

Meanwhile, John has passed his Canadian physiotherapy exam so can apply for jobs too.

There have been plenty of laughs at our cultural misunderstandings, including buying a cheap set of dinner plates that are so huge they won’t fit in our cupboards, and ordering a hot dog with “potato chips” to be given a packet of crisps.

But we’re still packing away chicken wings and milkshakes and exploring the amazing city that is now home.

Next job, to find some friends… and prepare for winter!