Mid-winter Blahs

    Occasionally, here in Ontario, we experience a January thaw but this year has been quite out of the ordinary. For one thing the January thaw actually started in the last week of December.

  Despite having a fair amount of snow last month, we now have none! Everything is green and only a few piles of shoveled snow remain in spots. It seems quite incongruous. I do recall one winter some years ago when we stayed at a friend's chalet with hope of spending the week between Christmas and New Year skiing. It rained almost every day and needless to say the hills were a washout, but most years it is much more what we expect at this time of year - snow and more snow!

   I didn't manage to stay awake to bring in the new year in proper Scottish fashion - I still haven't had my "First Foot", perhaps I will ask the mailman to bring me good luck by stepping over the threshold tomorrow, I know he's tall and dark - but I did drink a toast (of Caramel Bailey's) before I retired!

    Now I'm enjoying the traditional New year's Day concert from Vienna with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Ballet. Beautiful!

   My wish for all my readers is to have a safe, healthy and prosperous year in 2023. Think I'll go and have another small glass of Bailey's.

Christmas Day with Family

      The roads have been cleared so the family was able to get here for our annual Christmas feast. And what a feast it was - as usual I cooked way too much food so I will be eating leftovers for the rest of the week. Judy took home some of the bird, half the plum pudding and custard and the mincemeat pies I had made - they just did not have room for them, even oldest grandson who has a hollow leg!

   So now I am sprawled on the couch, covered with my new thermal throw (a gift from the grands) but I won't be eating anything more until tomorrow. Well, maybe a small chicken and cranberry sandwich before bed!

   Youngest grandson wore his Blue Jays hat through the whole meal (usually no hats allowed but it was his favourite Christmas gift so he got a special dispensation) and can you tell what granddaughter's favourite gift was? (hint: it's also on her head).

   We played some games before they left for home but we were all a bit sleepy by then so that didn't last long. Finally we Face Timed with the family in Victoria for a bit before they went to have their feast. They are four hours behind us. Now to tackle the clean up. Thank goodness for a dishwasher!

   Hope all my readers had a very Merry Christmas and best wishes for a Happy New Year!

Wild Weather

 It's blowing a hooley out there - minus 13C and winds of 40 kph - so I am huddled indoors and plan to stay here until at least tomorrow afternoon. I did go out and shovel snow for a while this afternoon (it was at least 10cm. deep at that point) but by the time I stopped tha path I had dug was already filling in again. My weather app says it feels like minus 24C so I am definitely in for the night!

High Excitement!

     Tuesday afternoon is my Bridge game. Around 12:45 we had just played one hand when the fire siren in the building went off. There were about 24 of us in the room (less than our usual 40) and we all studiously ignored it until the building manager arrived to tell us to vacate the building. No one rushed to grab their coats but gradually we did realize that there was a distinctly smoky odour in the air. Yes, the building was on fire!

    We gathered outside and a few minutes later a fire truck could be heard in the distance. Still no flames or obvious smoke which is lucky as the fire truck went to the adjacent building! Eventually it rolled up and the firefighters donned their gear and set off to investigate. Then another fire truck arrived, then another and another - all told 8 trucks arrived, plus their supervisor and a police car. A little bit of overkill in my opinion.

   Eventually it transpired that some guys working on the roof had been using a blow torch for some reason and had ignited something. However, we weren't allowed back in the building except to gather our possessions so that was the end of Bridge for this week. We will be back on January 2 providing there is no lasting damage and we will have lots of tales to tell those who weren't there today!