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Thursday 31st January 2002

Alas! This morning we awoke to the true misery of the Canadian winter. Hours of shovelling: lousy stinking time-wasting weather. Not to speak of the injuries and countless car crashes caused by those who have to commute to work. I need not repeat myself concerning the outright deception worked upon people who considered emigrating to Canada. If you want to read about it go to my diary pages for January 1999 (at http://www.sentex.net/~oficserv/Jan1999.html).

I have not made this a clickable address. You will have to highlight it, edit, copy, then paste it into the address panel.

Sunday 27th January 2002

Yet another beautiful sunny day with temperatures about 10ºC or 11. By my back door, in the sun, it must have been about 22. This is what I call the "sucker" weather of the January thaw. It happens most years. It serves to soften up those unwise enough to go out without coats. Those new emigrants who may think that if this is a Canadian winter it can't be so bad.

This morning I took a long walk with the Tsunami. She actually misses the snow for her morning roll and clean-up. So she rolls anyway and becomes covered with muddy grass.

After that I decided to return the bicycle which I had found. The police had sent a cruiser for it, but it wouldn't fit in the back.

Then it was time for my afternoon movie. The movie of the week was "Count of Monte Cristo". Really enjoyed that very much. Wish the villain didn't always have to use a haughty English accent though.

Actually seemed a waste of such a lovely afternoon, going to the cinema. However, I just ache all over. Hope it's not due to the Fosamax. Perhaps it's post-rotten-cold aches.

Saw in the paper today that the "virus which has been sweeping England" is called the Norwalk Virus. It is a type of gastic enteritis. It has closed down a unit of the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. So, I'd guess that, as it is highly contagious, it will now be sweeping across Canada.

A couple of days ago I rented the video of "Moulin Rouge". I'm sorry to say I did not enjoy this movie at all. In fact I would have stopped watching it, but kept expecting it to get better. It did not get any better. It was a dizzying mess of swirling photography and bits of songs from other shows. It had a terrible, sad and angry story. Oh well, a lot of people liked it.

Saturday 26th January 2002

Unusually warm again today. It may get up to about 10ºC. It has been above freezing for several days and we have not had snow. What a pleasure it is .. not to have to shovel the driveway and sidewalks day after day.

Tuesday 22nd January 2002

Incredibly beautiful day. I really dislike Canadian winters, but the odd day with several degrees above freezing, brilliant sunshine, air like Switzerland, sparkling snow ... just perfect. If you'd like to see our weather and roads at any time, go to pulse24.com. They have numerous windows, with cameras on the roads and news broadcast live.

I bought a pressure cooker yesterday. Do you have one? I haven't used one for a long time. Pressure cookers make excellent rice pudding - which I'm not supposed to have, and soups and stews. Also, if you don't pay attention, they can be quite explosive! This one is a jasi, which I haven't heard of. It seems to be quite light compared with my other one. I hope it's up to the pressure.

Finally shook the disgusting cold and bronchitis enough today to go to the gym. That always makes one feel much better.

Tuesday 15th January 2002

Just spent a couple of hours shovelling snow! It's so heavy and wet that even the blower kept getting stuck. Well, at least we have less of it this year. Shovelling certainly is hard work. In fact people my age are not supposed to shovel because we tend to have a heart attack .. so I just push. That is difficult too with such a wet heavy mess.

Yesterday morning I was just going out and noticed a falcon on my front lawn, feasting on a pigeon (had to look up the spelling of pigeon: bird with small head, plump body and short legs, it'll never fly!)) Anyway, I have never seen a wild falcon before. Have to watch out for my cat, she looks quite like a rabbit. There are quite a lot of rabbits around here. The falcon should be able to earn a good living. There is also a large flock of pigeons. I hope they are not racing pigeons - or their owner will be missing a few each day.

Sunday 13th January 2002

Uh Oh .. spoke too soon .. today we have a fresh fall of snow and a very strong freezing wind from the north. The sidewalks are all icy and the only safe place to walk are the boulevards. (I know in England you call "sidewalks" PAVEMENTS. In Canada the "pavement" means the roadway. Also, in England "boulevards" is not used at all. It means the wide grass strip at the edge of the sidewalk, between the sidewalk and the road. Recently people tend to put plants and rocks into these boulevards. As an avid walker I find this an extremely dangerous practice, since it leaves nowhere for me to walk except on the icy concrete.

Saturday 12th January 2002

The beautiful relatively warm weather continues. Most of the snow has gone. This is such a pleasure - to be able to walk upright without worrying too much about ice. I walked downtown this morning, from my friends' house, and was actually too hot.

It must be pleasant to live in Guelph, as compared to surrounding villages. I love to be able to walk downtown to look in the shops. There are many continuing education courses locally. Also there is a good selection of restaurants. I see Cally's has a "prime rib special" on Fridays and Sundays, for about $11.00. (plus the 7% GST and 8% PST, of course). The water here is not too bad, but my friend has to use a Brita filter. If he doesn't use those then tea and coffee have an unpleasant sediment. Fergus and Elora water is brown and smells terrible (a really unpleasant rotten sulphur smell). Eden Mills water is frequently infected and needs to be treated.

My cold turned developed acute bronchitis and sinus, so I am now on a powerful antibiotic and inhalant as for asthma. I really hate people who spread these stinking colds and refer to them as "the sniffles". They may be "sniffles" to you, but they come with expensive opportunistic infections for me. Also I can't go to my usual entertainments and exercise classes, which is quite boring and depressing.

Last night I was listening to Art Bell, on "news/talk 570". He had posed a question : "If you were God, what would you have done differently?" Well, I was partly sleeping and couldn't be bothered to call. However, if I were God and I had told mankind to "go forth and populate the earth", I would have been much more specific. I would have given much more specific instructions and would, one hopes, have avoided the appalling overpopulation and destruction which now occurs. In fact, if I were God at the present, I would be looking down and considering whether it would be best to hit the world with a giant comet and start again, as I did with the dinosaurs. On second thoughts, perhaps it would be better to cause mankind to have an intermittent compulsion to make war and selectively kill each other in large numbers .. But, Hey, I already did that! (and did something similar with lemmings) .. So, I Am Who Am Perfect anyway. What do you think?

Link to the Movies Pages at "movies.yahoo.com"

Visit a site for many photographs of North American Birds and animals.

Rhona Raskin Home Page at http://www.rhona.com.