LIFE: Snow Days

A couple of years ago, my home town met with a thief. Someone was driving the eight or so miles from another town, filling their car with the salt straight out of the salt containers for the footpaths and driving off. Coming from a rural town where nothing much goes on, the newspapers went full stream and there was public outcry among the masses and huge debates about council provisions. 

At the time, for me it wasn't a big deal. But now wow I'm old before my time and turning into a bit of a nimby and I get annoyed when my neighbours don't shovel their snow. Back when we lived in our apartment, snow shoveling wasn't an issue, but now we own a house, we have to do it ourselves. You see, in the US most cities have some ordinance that any snow on the footpaths (yeah yeah I'm not calling them a sidewalk, I'm pretty stubborn with my English words) in front of, around your house have to be cleared within a certain time of snowfall, for our city, it's 24 hours. They threaten fines, but going by the lack of shoveling on some of hour neighbours parts, that doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent.

Ho hum.

Some people join the gym come the new year, but I'm finding snow shoveling to be a jolly good work out in itself. It takes half an hour and I have a smug smile on my face when it's all cleared. Properly cleared. As someone who skates and falls on her arse on those paths that haven't been cleared fully and then the snow melts and ices, I fully appreciate a cleared path.

Coldness and winters are relative. I remember my days waiting for the bus into York and thinking how freezing it was when it was 5C. Now 2C feels like a heatwave, a daily search on the weather websites hunting for the "high" of the week and hoping there's no snowfall and layers, it's all about the layers. Holly sums it up spot on in her ABC's of winter post, granted she's over the border in Ontario, Canada but for the most part, everything is pretty similar, what with Canada being over the river from me and all.



Those spring bulbs I planted, well they and the season they herald the arrival of, well they can't arrive soon enough I reckon.

How's your winter been?