L'Hiver et la froidure

On this 18 November the weather in Ottawa has taken a decidedly wintery look, the sidewalks are icy  and the snow is a light hard icy cover. Our Nicky is not happy, he hates the cold so does Nora but she is tougher and won't complain as much as him.

The air is crisp and there is a smell of wood burning in someone's fireplace. No wonder I am thinking of Christmas.  My friend Dr. Spo in Arizona says it is around 14C right now and he is thinking of making hot coco, I am also thinking at -7C of hot coco. The winter night sky is dark blue and we have been having strong cold winds or rafale de vent.

All this to say that it feels like the Christmas Season already. Which brings to mind our annual little trip to the Christmas Market in Munich or Bologna, two different countries but each have a fun market with lots of cold weather and good food.
This little video is of the Christmas Market in Munich, we were there at the time when this video was done. Love Munich at this time of year, so beautiful and so much fun.



I also downloaded my Advent Calendar and started to play with the different functions, like making snowflakes, I like this one and they are easy to make.  I can then insert them into the Advent calendar scene and they flutter down.

I also decorated the Xmas tree which goes into the scene of the calendar and it changes everyday as we get closer to Christmas. The Advent Calendar has lots of items to choose from and you can decorate the tree in many various fashions. This is what I did today.

Some music by Emile Waldteufel, Les patineurs Valse. Because soon if this cold weather keeps us we will be skating on the Rideau Canal.

and now January

Yes the Holidays Season is over and we now enter into January of the blahs. It was for us a quiet Season, very few parties only 2 in fact, one I gave and one we went to. It seems that as time goes by fewer people are willing to give parties on the scale known in the past. Who can blame them, frankly unless you have a very good reason for a party and really want to have a good time, I find and I do not know if a lot of people feel the same way, that I do not have the energy. I much prefer to have a few people over for dinner or a cocktail or just for an afternoon drink, a good scotch, tea, some little thing to eat. Keep it simple, the new motto. It is far nicer, I find to have maybe 2 to 4 people over and just talk and laugh, gossip over drinks. Winter weather eats up a lot of your energy  and this is probably the extreme cold and the difficulty of walking in snow and ice covered sidewalks.

Also the cost is something to keep in mind, it is often better to simply go to a nice restaurant than to entertain at home. If we go out in the evening now, I prefer to take a taxi instead of driving, you can have a drink or two or three and not worry about the issue of who is the designated driver, parking and then driving home often in winter on bad roads. As anyone seen the roads in Ottawa lately, my God! what a mess, snow banks 9 feet high, yes that is 2.7 meter high folks. The City is not cleaning as much as it could and everything is carefully budgeted, called 311 City Services, they don't know, something about a snow removal schedule and something about in 3 weeks time. Called the By-Law Officers, no one is there, I strongly suspect they are all in Florida, in fact I have not seen any of them around, they are usually very good at patrolling for illegally parked cars. Ottawa in winter is a very different city, you try to avoid it at all cost. Nothing has been done about the Canal are they opening this year for skating? I strongly suspect that with the announced 10% budget cuts the National Capital Commission simply has no funds to open the Canal this year. Too bad so few tourists come as it is. Lots of people skating at City Hall today on the rink provided by the striking millionaire hockey players. It's a very nice rink with good quality smooth ice for skating.

So we are in the winter blahs, now and then we have February another dismal month. Lucky for me I have things to do to keep me busy, other wise I would think of escaping to somewhere. All the Christmas decorations have been put away. Though the 6 January for people on the Julian Calendar like the Orthodox Christians it is Christmas. I suppose you could celebrate both Christmases on the 25 Dec and 6 January, thus extending the Season.

                                     January

In January in Rome on a sunny day at the top of the staircase of Santa Maria Coeli next to the Campidoglio.

In January by the Tiber river in Rome

In January on the Old Via Appia, Rome

I much prefer this type of weather in January as exemplified here than the snow bank, which after Christmas and New Year has lost its appeal entirely. Otherwise why do Canadians by the millions flock to Southern climes.