This leads to an animated Christmas Card, with loud sound. It is 1,138,000. (quite large). It took me 5 minutes to download, not the 25 minutes my machine estimated. When finished it asked me if I wanted to execute the file, so I did that. Click here to view. Please wait for it to load and play. It will return to this page when finished.
Up early and took Suzy for a run and she repeated her Bambi act. I think she does it on purpose - she seems to have quite a sense of humour.
My relative gave me a large bouquet of beautiful pastel roses yesterday. Such a thoughtful and fragrant gift at this time of year. Of course, it is pleasant to exchange gifts at any time, don't you think?
This morning my neighbour gave me a plate with left-over roast beef and creamy mashed potatoes. That is so kind of her .. realizing I'm an old bachelor. Roast beef is so much tastier when it has been cooked in a quantity .. and my neighbour has twenty-seven guests for Christmas.
Friday 25th December 1998
From where I am in Guelph, which is an altitude of about 1500 ft. ASL, I can receive a lot of radio stations all across North America. Last night I went to sleep to the story of "The Littlest Angel", being read by Loretta Young, from a New York station. Before that there was Charles Laughton's beautiful voice reading "Mr. Pickwick's Christmas". These lovely readings made me feel so peaceful that I went to sleep and left the radio on - which used up my batteries again.
What a glorious morning. According to Waterloo ATIS information Delta (16:00 Zulu) the temperature is -6 and dewpoint is -11. Unfortunately the wind is from 24 and the landing and departing 25. That's usually an indication of a storm coming soon. However, in the meantime the sun is brilliant and sparkling on the crisp snow.
I took the puppy (Sue) for a walk this morning and met my friends coming back from Church. The air is so fresh and filled with sparkling crystals, just the way a Christmas morning should be.
In the park I let Sue loose and she was immediately rolling and jumping in the snow. Two young boys were on the freshly made ice rink. They were proudly trying out their new skates. Sue loves ice, with her long legs flailing she looks like Bambi. She took off at full speed to greet the boys, went up on her claws, put on her brakes and slid the last 50 feet to meet them, much to their amusement and delight.
In the afternoon I drove to Kitchener for Christmas with a relative. That is such a pleasant drive on a sunny winter afternoon. The roads were perfectly bare and dry. On the way home I was treated to a spectacular sunset, for which Canada is famous. They say the best place to view the sunset is Goderich, Ontario, (because one gets an unobstructed view over the lake?). The storm I suspected did not materialize. Everyone likes to use 25 at Waterloo - that's the one with the ILS.
Hallalujah! On this day I always rejoice .. The sun begins to return and from now on the days will lengthen by two minutes per day.
However, we also had our first serious snowfall last night and on the Buffalo TV station we are getting continual warnings about lake effect snow squalls. My cold is a bit better .. but I have put on another three pounds of winter fat, hanging about keeping warm and feeling sorry for myself. This in spite of walking the puppy twice each day.
The only way I could ever keep my weight down was by running rather than walking and going to karate classes twice each week. My brother warned me all that muscle would turn to fat. Well he was right about that!
Thursday 10th December 1998
Had a terrible night - rotten cold! Listened to "Ask Rhona" until that ended and then turned to "CBC Overnight International". Woke up at 6:30a.m. and, after breakfast, had to walk the puppy. Thought you might like my recipe: - a little comfort for your miserable cold.
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