Noting that I like winter and both types of skiing, and have a mountain bike with studded tires and a fat bike. Thus, winter is my friend.
It came up that Erin O'Toole made several Twitter pronouncements trying to claim he comes from working class roots. To which the ever entertaining Jan Arden posted "Erin is a Tool".
Warm here too. I’ve been buried under work lately, so have barely noticed anything outside my immediate surroundings (I hear there was an election somewhere...).
I didn't know about the temperature, but I did hear about the snow! It's a balmy 20C in Toronto, and I'll be on a patio tomorrow, but I dread what that betokens for summer. I'd rather the old seasons.
Given the times, it's impossible, but I plant the seed for future consideration: resurrection of the Toronto shipmeet. Discuss.
We should try, when circumstances permit. Perhaps when some non-Toronto people can make it. There could be Spanish wine involved. And beer for the beer drinkers.
I didn't know about the temperature, but I did hear about the snow! It's a balmy 20C in Toronto, and I'll be on a patio tomorrow, but I dread what that betokens for summer. I'd rather the old seasons.
When I was living in Texas summer functionally ended in May and started up again in October. It was weird.
Given the times, it's impossible, but I plant the seed for future consideration: resurrection of the Toronto shipmeet. Discuss.
We should try, when circumstances permit. Perhaps when some non-Toronto people can make it. There could be Spanish wine involved. And beer for the beer drinkers.
I can make it if given enough notice. Unless *knock wood* things work out and I have to move elsewhere.
Two zones in NB ( Saint John and Moncton) have been moved to the yellow covid stage. Saint John is on the cusp of being moved to red. Next few days will be telling. Everything seemed fine until a few days ago and then wham.
It seems to be the way this virus works. Things seem ok until suddenly they aren’t. We have just moved into lockdown here. Not quite March-style, but almost.
Sorry to hear that - where I am is in what we call Tier 4 here. It's just shy of a full lockdown: bars, cafes, restaurants and non-essential shops are closed; if you can work from home you should; no unnecessary travelling from an area in one tier to an area in another; and no visiting anyone else's house, but schools and universities are still open.
It"s going to be a bleak few weeks, but I hope it'll have some effect.
Sorry to hear that - where I am is in what we call Tier 4 here. It's just shy of a full lockdown: bars, cafes, restaurants and non-essential shops are closed; if you can work from home you should; no unnecessary travelling from an area in one tier to an area in another; and no visiting anyone else's house, but schools and universities are still open.
It"s going to be a bleak few weeks, but I hope it'll have some effect.
Keeping you folks in my prayers.
Same basic idea here. We can meet outdoors though if we can tolerate the cold. Hopefully it will have some good effect for all of us, as you say.
Meeting outdoors - in small groups - is allowed here too, but the weather's beginning to make that less than comfortable. Not quite as much so as where you are though! 🥶
To accommodate the allowance of outdoor service and the change of season, my local installed a wind break (with a very nice mural) and purchased an awning (not yet installed). The awning will cost $40,000! Just in time for lockdown.
We’re trying to figure out if we can accommodate a friend from time to time on our back patio. Lunch rather than dinner so we have some hope of survivable temperatures...
I have managed a few lunches on my back deck, seating my guests at another table at the far end, and plating their meals directly rather than folk arranging their meals themselves in the traditional manner from serving dishes, and this worked quite well, I even managed two dinners in August and early September, but the last lunch was two weeks ago when the temperature shot up to 24°. Now that snow is expected to come again in the next few days, we'll have to move to hot chocolate with lap blankets to save us. A former colleague, reporting on his brunch preparations, told me that he had never eaten outside before on Stirrup Sunday but the year has been bringing us many innovations in how we live.
What a glorious day we had in Toronto today! It was sunny, 6C (it felt warmer). A friend in my bubble and I went for a two hour walk, half of it in one of the two neighbourhood cemeteries. I got home, caught Die Walküre on CBC R2.
As PG says we had a pleasantly warm-ish weekend here. We did have our friend over for an extended lunch on the back patio, hanging out until it got both seriously cold and dark around 4:30 or so.
As was I. We were supposed to be getting some sun, and I had set aside today as a laundry day, as I have a marked preference (aka fetish) for sheets dried in the open air. As it was, I had to take my morning cortado underneath a coffeehouse awning and exchange parent-management counsel with a friend as we tried to keep warm without a cheering shot of rum in our morning caffeine.
As well, this weekend, the local underground tram is under maintenance so that there is nought for the bus-adverse than a stroll through damp streets (the light railway is known officially as the O-train, and I am reliably informed by my teacher friends that their uncouth adolescent charges refer to it as the orgasm-train, which makes me wonder if the early morning runs have a different character from the trains I take).
As was I. We were supposed to be getting some sun, and I had set aside today as a laundry day, as I have a marked preference (aka fetish) for sheets dried in the open air. As it was, I had to take my morning cortado underneath a coffeehouse awning and exchange parent-management counsel with a friend as we tried to keep warm without a cheering shot of rum in our morning caffeine.
Now you see there’s a COVID-fighting idea that our government ought to do something about.
Rather dreary day today but at least it was dry, which I gather from my Ottawa family that your day wasn’t. Good day for a walk.
We are ordering in for the last time from an ambitious local restaurant that started up a few years ago and has decided to throw in the towel because of Covid. They’re small, and I’m sure their profitability was marginal at the best of times, so this isn’t surprising. Still sad to see though.
Today will be the last dry day for a few, so I am heading out early to take my afternoon coffee. If I am in the little plaza when the sun hits it, the cold is bearable. They have moved the furniture from outside and replaced it with haybales. As long as they're dry, it should be fine.
The weather here fits right into an old verse that must have been around here before:
First it rained and then it snew
Then it friz and then it thew
And then it friz again.
But then it fogged and then it blew
And very shortly after then
It rained and snew
and friz and thew
and fogged and blew again.
OMG I spat my Cruzcampo all over my monitor when I read this.
Cheers dear heart - it's too early in the season for tinto de verano and very blustery winds here - but thinking of you there warmly snug on the bank of the Rio Grande in the friz and thew.
God Lord, ST! Where are you? (BTW, I love the regional sound.)
As the blessed AFF says, we're beside, and occasionally below, the Rio Grande, SW Ontario version, in a noted mosquito sanctuary around 100 km from Hogtown. The weather here has been quite deplorable lately: 12 cm snow two weeks ago; gorgeous sun and hard frost for two days (that's my favourite), almost T shirt weather yesterday, foggy, damp and miserable today. It's like a Scottish winter compressed into two weeks. And it's not officially winter yet.
(I don't know where the poem originated. I first heard part of it from my mother, but it has been around a bit and collected some additions).
As the blessed AFF says, we're beside, and occasionally below, the Rio Grande, SW Ontario version, in a noted mosquito sanctuary around 100 km from Hogtown.
So funny you mentioned this. A couple of days ago I met my downstairs neighbor who has more than a touch of dementia and is possibly in her early 90s. She asked me what part of Canada I was from and I told her "West of Toronto".
She said "Oh. The Second City?" I laughed and said "Yes. Yes it is," because what point is there in arguing with someone whose short term memory is crap but whose long term memory is fresh as a daisy?
Later I was relating this convo to my partner and said "She's old enough to remember when Montreal was the Premier City and Toronto was known as Hogtown." Even he didn't know what I was talking about and he's in his 70s, but he may be excused as he wasn't raised in Canada.
Greetings from chilly Toronto. We are actually back up to (barely) positive temperatures today but we’ve been getting a reminder that winter is imminent over the past few days.
Our local purveyor of Christmas trees has apparently sold out so not sure about a tree this year. But Ms. Marsupial found some excellent seasonal Christmas lights for our front window which she says will be up until the equinox.
On the topic of Christmas trees, in my neighbourhood there was a family that came in to sell their trees from their farm. One of them had a small hitch trailer where they'd stay for three weeks while they sold the trees on a sidewalk just off the main drag. No more. They were getting on (the family had been doing it for ~53 years), but the local BIA put in planters a couple years ago, making it difficult for them to set up shop. (I don't think that that was the intent, but only The Shadow knows.) They soldiered on for two years, but didn't return this year. Many have commented on this with a wistfulness. Yet another thing that 2020 did to us.
Finally taking some time off after an aggravating few weeks at w*rk.
I’m not sure where to put this, and hopefully a few people who frequent these parts may find it of interest: an appreciation of David Willcocks by a Toronto-based church musician.
Province-wide (Ontario) lockdown in effect from Dec 26 for 4 weeks. Another delay in my plans to get to Arizona for the winter. Now looking like a 5-6 week trip starting in late January or early February.
Comments
It came up that Erin O'Toole made several Twitter pronouncements trying to claim he comes from working class roots. To which the ever entertaining Jan Arden posted "Erin is a Tool".
We should try, when circumstances permit. Perhaps when some non-Toronto people can make it. There could be Spanish wine involved. And beer for the beer drinkers.
When I was living in Texas summer functionally ended in May and started up again in October. It was weird.
I can make it if given enough notice. Unless *knock wood* things work out and I have to move elsewhere.
(*working from memory, so apologies if not quite accurate)
It"s going to be a bleak few weeks, but I hope it'll have some effect.
Keeping you folks in my prayers.
Sadly, won't get to use it this time. But a full letter suite is something to walk away with.
It is also a pool, and who knows what Covid has done to staffing plans.
Same basic idea here. We can meet outdoors though if we can tolerate the cold. Hopefully it will have some good effect for all of us, as you say.
Southern Ontario, near Sarnia.
Home of the world's first international railway tunnel!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/weather-rain-power-outages-flooding-1.5824703
As well, this weekend, the local underground tram is under maintenance so that there is nought for the bus-adverse than a stroll through damp streets (the light railway is known officially as the O-train, and I am reliably informed by my teacher friends that their uncouth adolescent charges refer to it as the orgasm-train, which makes me wonder if the early morning runs have a different character from the trains I take).
Now you see there’s a COVID-fighting idea that our government ought to do something about.
Rather dreary day today but at least it was dry, which I gather from my Ottawa family that your day wasn’t. Good day for a walk.
We are ordering in for the last time from an ambitious local restaurant that started up a few years ago and has decided to throw in the towel because of Covid. They’re small, and I’m sure their profitability was marginal at the best of times, so this isn’t surprising. Still sad to see though.
First it rained and then it snew
Then it friz and then it thew
And then it friz again.
But then it fogged and then it blew
And very shortly after then
It rained and snew
and friz and thew
and fogged and blew again.
OMG I spat my Cruzcampo all over my monitor when I read this.
Cheers dear heart - it's too early in the season for tinto de verano and very blustery winds here - but thinking of you there warmly snug on the bank of the Rio Grande in the friz and thew.
AFF
As the blessed AFF says, we're beside, and occasionally below, the Rio Grande, SW Ontario version, in a noted mosquito sanctuary around 100 km from Hogtown. The weather here has been quite deplorable lately: 12 cm snow two weeks ago; gorgeous sun and hard frost for two days (that's my favourite), almost T shirt weather yesterday, foggy, damp and miserable today. It's like a Scottish winter compressed into two weeks. And it's not officially winter yet.
(I don't know where the poem originated. I first heard part of it from my mother, but it has been around a bit and collected some additions).
So funny you mentioned this. A couple of days ago I met my downstairs neighbor who has more than a touch of dementia and is possibly in her early 90s. She asked me what part of Canada I was from and I told her "West of Toronto".
She said "Oh. The Second City?" I laughed and said "Yes. Yes it is," because what point is there in arguing with someone whose short term memory is crap but whose long term memory is fresh as a daisy?
Later I was relating this convo to my partner and said "She's old enough to remember when Montreal was the Premier City and Toronto was known as Hogtown." Even he didn't know what I was talking about and he's in his 70s, but he may be excused as he wasn't raised in Canada.
AFF
Our local purveyor of Christmas trees has apparently sold out so not sure about a tree this year. But Ms. Marsupial found some excellent seasonal Christmas lights for our front window which she says will be up until the equinox.
I’m not sure where to put this, and hopefully a few people who frequent these parts may find it of interest: an appreciation of David Willcocks by a Toronto-based church musician.