A Slow Curve into Winter

November's every-day-blog-post challenge is over, and I admit I'm glad. It was fun to try daily posting again, and a definite challenge during the periods of travel and extra work that happened this past month. I liked it,  I'm glad I did it, and glad I can give myself (and you, maybe!) a break now, once in while, though I do think I'll try to write more often than I have been over the past year or so. It didn't make much difference in my stats here, but it was a lot better for my writing-mind. The other thing that surprises me is looking back over this month's photo archive -- I took so many more pictures than usual! As my friend Jean said about her own daily photo posts in November, having the daily incentive just makes you look at your surroundings with renewed attention.

Now we begin the slow slide into deep winter. When I woke to snow, yesterday morning, it was with the mixture of what another friend called "a six-year-old's giddiness" and the sigh of middle-age, for whom snow and ice represent something rather less exhilarating than sledding, skating, and skiing, followed by hot chocolate prepared by the same mother who drove you everywhere no matter what the weather. In spite of the annoyance (and occasional real peril) of winter driving in the frozen blizzardy north where we insist on living, and the need to try to stay on one's feet rather than one's ass, the rest of winter still feels pretty exciting to me. I love the monochromatic, graphic landscape; the bright days; the clear nights adorned with stars, and the way the still starkness of deep midwinter gives us a greater appreciation of warmth and growth when they do return.

This year's descent has been slow. Yesterday's snow was gone by 10:00 am. The city's BIXI bikes, originally set to be removed in early November, stayed past the Nov. 15th deadline and, in some places, are still available; lots of people are still cycling, including us when the days are warm enough. More ominously, the other day when I was walking in the neighborhood I passed a pussy-willow bush in full bud. The hockey rink boards have been up for weeks, but flooding the rinks at these temperatures would be ridiculous.

So while there's a sense of relief and escape at every week that goes by without a big storm and freezing temperatures (let alone the blizzards we had already had at this time last year), I'm not happy about what it signifies. There's been a lot in the press lately about Canada's culpability on climate change issues. December pussy willows in Montreal are one thing; the melting Nunavut is another. We're running out of time.

Comments

[Jean]

Yup. I don't much like the cold, and quickly get used to milder winters (unlike hotter summers, which prey on my mind every day because I'm not good in extremem heat), but the many lingering flowers in gardens here in London and the first very brief frost just this week are such a huge change - I remember so clearly that throughout my childhood our 'bonfire night' on 5 November was always freezing cold (can I bear to take my gloves off to eat my potato baked on the fire?). I was saying this to some of our international students, new to London in the last year or two, and they looked very surprised - not their idea of England at all. Here we are a whole month later than Guy Fawkes night and no really cold weather yet - it's serious climate change and very frightening.

[Mouse]

This is why I wage a one-woman war against Climate Change in my house
I cannot face the prospect of a life without snow!