A faint shadow of its former self
Right now, my social media stream (actually, a trickle) is watching the weather. Specifically, a winter storm warning. Here’s the catch. It might be snow, or rain, or snow and rain, with wind, or without. In fact, the only detail I can extract from the summary is that the sun probably won’t shine much for a couple of days. But, it might.
Given that we’re on the last day of the month, I did take some photos. A reassurance about the snow-free patches on the lawn, and the complete absence of sea ice. Come on! February starts tomorrow. Why, when I was young, winter was a thing. In Grade One, I missed a full three months due to the height of the snow drifts. Over the telegraph wires, if you will. Now, maybe my father didn’t feel like shoveling a half mile of laneway, and we did have really decent train service (to the front door), but that’s a throwback to a different era. I doubt that the term “telegraph wires” would even be understood by the children of ’20.
It’s just that we’re moving into a three season model, for life. The rest of mine, at least.
New rules for travel: if you escaped our (non-show) winter, to go into snowbird exile, you will be expected to quarantine on return. Normal. In a designated government hotel for three nights, at market rates. Not normal. Suddenly, that trip just got pricey, although the innkeepers will be laughing all the way to their banks. And as an added whammy, you probably can’t get a plane from there to here, if your home is in the Atlantic provinces. We’re now living in a bubble that excludes regular passenger service. No planes, no trains, no boats. No dog sleds.
