Winterland

Winter has arrived at last. We have been lucky to have avoided it for so long. Richard reported a “wonderless winterland” from Charlottetown last Sunday and indeed we had some snow during the Apsley Santa Claus parade which added an appropriate atmosphere. Apsley is just a little village about 25 km south of here and the parade was very small-villagey. Even the honey-wagon was in the parade. I must also mention here there that a fine class of dog attended. I took more photos of dogs than kids. Here are a few of the best.

Hard to realize that they are both dogs.

Ooh, la-la!

Feeling stoopid

Today we said goodbye to our lake until spring. There is a big storm on its way and that will put paid to our track down to the lake. It also puts paid to my plans to do some Christmas shopping in Peterborough for the next couple of days. I have been about to order a couple of things online and then have cancelled the order at the last minute when I see what the shipping costs are. I do try to shop in Canada but even then I think the shipping costs are heavily loaded.

Last night, peacefully sleeping in bed, I was startled awake by a loud rustling. It wasn’t the cat as he was in the living room and I looked around to see what critter may have invaded my space but couldn’t see anything. I’m afraid that it may be a squirrel under the floor chewing on the electric wiring!  Better make sure that the batteries in the smoke detector are fresh or we may have another smoky Christmas. Two years ago we had a classic Christmas disaster. We had Joe’s family here on Boxing Day and I had served the first course and was heating some mince pies for pud when clouds of smoke started emanating from the kitchen. The oven was on fire and the stink was appalling. The stove at that point was only a year old and it took us some time to discover that mice had been hiding nuts in the insulation around the oven and with the extra heat and use, the nuts had started to burn. We had to yank it out away from the wall and cut off the gas. There it stood – for one  entire month – before we could get someone to fix it. We do spend a deal of money fixing things that have been damaged by wildlife – such as the $2,000 we spent of having our bloody bats removed last spring. Ahh, best forgotten.

 Joe has had a lovely time this evening as there was a Frank Sinatra concert from 1980 on PBS. It was enjoyable but not the best as he was already past his prime and some of the notes were shaky. I have to confess that I would prefer to see/hear Michael Buble. MB  covers a lot of the same material with what I find a very attractive freshness (nearly wrote frankness – ha-ha) and a great degree of musicality. Doesn’t look too shabby either!

The End (for tonight)