[relatively] warm

The temperature in Calgary had crept up to a balmy -15C. And I do mean balmy - after a few days at -30C it feels quite warm. I'm still surprised how quickly I adapt each year. I remember wearing a floor length wool coat in Sydney on days where the temperature was probably never below 5C, and feeling cold. Now I wear a shorter coat and less layers on much colder days (although I've resigned myself to beanies and gloves which I NEVER would have worn in Australia).

At home we've been battling some randomly frozen pipes. The hot water is fine, but we currently have no cold water feeding the shower (the bath is OK again after hot-water-only evening when I waited over an hour for the bath to cool enough to get in). It's all a bit of a mystery; we can see the pipes in the basement, 9 of them running in a bundle. Somewhere as they run through the house (maybe through the unheated garage?) some of them have frozen while the adjacent pipes are fine. Go figure.

Talking about the weather is such a cliché that I feel a little bad having mentioned it so often lately. Sorry for the string of monotonous posts...

2008: Week 4

It turns out that the chilly weather I wrote about last week was just the beginning of the cold - tonight as I write the temperature is -27.3C with the wind chill bringing us down to -43C. To give you some idea of the sudden temperature changes in Calgary, yesterday we had a high of 3.9C.

This week has been a strange mix of quiet and noisy. Matt spent most of the week in Toronto, so I had lots of time to myself (which I spent going to French classes, cleaning, and reading). However our house has been even crazier than normal. Our household of 5 swelled to 7 as we had two friends staying while looking for places to live in Calgary. Even after more than a year it's quite a shock to go from living alone to living here.

Best of the week

- Making progress on a book I've been reading for months.
- The satisfaction of completing tasks that I've been putting off for a while (vacuuming, writing).
- Long phone calls to Australia.

Worst of the week

- Listening to a lecture in French, and being reminded how far there is to go before I understand everything.
- Facing the prospect of heading to work when the thermometer is reading -32.2C.

Beautiful snow

Calgary is the white city today. It's the third day of fairly consistent snow, so everything is covered! Quite beautiful, but getting around on the roads is an adventure. As for shovelling the footpath - it's a necessary but somewhat futile effort. It's always a little discouraging when your freshly shovelled path is immediately covered in snow again. Not as discouraging as trying to walk through snow 20cm deep (and rising) to get out of the house!

Snow in October...

Hello from sunny Calgary! Sunny, but COLD. And there is snow on the ground! The last few days have been fun - lots of unpacking of course, and the usual running around. I now have a bank account and I should have a new cell phone by the weekend. All I need is to start work so I can put money in the account and pay for the phone.

Hmmm....not doing so well at the posting lately. Life is busy, but not unusually so. So often I feel that I'm running just to keep on top of the few things I have to take care of, and then I'm in awe of my friends who look after themselves and their families.

The second most exciting recent (and continuing) event is the unfolding of Spring. The daffodils are out, and a few tulips are starting to emerge. Most trees are covered in tiny sprouts of green, and fruiting trees are blossoming. Magnolias are in bud, and should burst into full flower in the next few days. And the weather is consistently warmer, enough to wear skirts and thongs. Hooray!

The most exciting recent event is a stolen (ie/ all I could manage) week of vacation. Location and photos to come.

The most unexciting event is some new upstairs neighbours, who I swear do not sleep or go out of the house. They do listen to irritating hip hop and play car racing video games though. Put that with a total lack of insulation in my bedroom ceiling, and I'm going slightly crazy. Only a few more weeks before my lease runs out though :)

More weekend adventures

Last weekend Matt and I traveled to Merrickville again, this time battling bad weather, poor headlights, and a defective iTrip. The weather demon in this case is lake effect snow - we have to drive north past the eastern end of Lake Ontario on a stretch of road notorious for large snowstorms. The trip up was uneventful, although I discovered that my headlights don't work very well when covered with salt from the road. The weekend itself was fun and relaxing. Lots of good food, trivial pursuit (victory!), two hockey games (not so much victory), and I even finished "Reading Lolita in Tehran". I've only been reading it since June.

The trip home was another story. The snow started soon after we set out, but the roads in Canada were clear, and we made it past the border in the usual time. Then the fun began. The snow ranged from light to extremely heavy - at one point we pulled off the highway for petrol, and I've never seen it snow so hard before. I got out to clear the windows, and the back was covered by the time I finished the sides and front. There was so much snow falling that you could hear it hitting the ground. I've never experienced that before. Back on the highway, and the visibility was awful, the road covered in snow, and I was very pleased not to be the one driving. Then we came to a town, snowplows had been through, and the road was clear after that. It's amazing what a difference it makes. The rest of the trip was fairly normal, although the iTrip seems to have issues when it snows. Luckily I still have my old fashioned cassette adaptor and a few music tapes in the car.

Ithaca is Cold

After an unusually long and hot summer, the descent into winter has finally started. The days are still quite warm (high teens, low 20s), but at night it’s regularly below 10C – it’s coming close to being the equivalent of those 2 weeks or so of Sydney winter. Given that the temperature can drop to –30C here, you may ask what’s the big deal? The problem is that my landlord hasn’t turned the heat on yet, which means that I wake up to a freezing apartment. Yesterday when I woke up it was 2C outside, and so cold inside that I was shivering in my winter PJs, dressing gown, and slippers. I ended up eating breakfast in the bathroom with the shower running hot water to try and warm up!

Last night I went out and bought an indoor/outdoor thermometer to get a more objective reading of the temperature. The overnight low was 6C, the overnight low inside was just under 16C. Not too bad for sleeping, but a bit cool for anything else. I think it’s time to go and get a fan heater.