Dear lord, let Gladys Mitchell once set a book in Scotland and you can either skip a quarter of the verbiage because it's all place names, especially if a boat is involved, or get out an atlas and learn a little geography. I'm willing to admit that if someone did this with a place I know, like Japan, I'd be all happy nostalgia. I know nothing of ( Read more... )

Old age is when you can wrench your knee while lying in bed, which I seem to have done this morning. Walked to massage on it but taxi'd back because massage, as ever, makes things worse before it makes them better. Shall try a brace on it tomorrow though it's the knee that doesn't like braces. But it kept me from going out to lunch where I would ( Read more... )

I assume it's the pressure changes that are making me so sleepy and headachey. We haven't had that much snow, and I don’t know if there's any ice under what there is. The temps didn't plunge that fast, and certainly my steps seemed OK after I swept them off. But I wasn't about to do more than that ( Read more... )

Doorbell rings. I grump my way off the sofa and limp to the front hallway and even though my porch is dark, I already know who it is. Two guys wearing broad-brimmed hats. It's the Orthodox Jewish missionaries again, though why they operate as they do mystifies me. Wish me a happy Hanukkah (or Pesach or Rosh Hashanah, as per season), ask if I'm ( Read more... )

Sleet, ice crystals, rain, and slush all yesterday. Then either it rained all night and melted the accumulation or my good neighbour scraped it all off, because the sidewalks were clear this morning as far as I could see from my bedroom window. Temps never got down to freezing, as my renewed leaf mould allergy cough reminds me. I still stayed in ( Read more... )

Crapshoot weather. Will we have ice pellets, freezing rain, wet snow or rain rain tomorrow? Put down a sprinkling of salt on steps and walkway as a prophylactic to guarantee the last. And by luck, as I was doing so one of the Chinese nainais rattled by with her shopping buggy and collection of beer cans etc. My porch is dark so she didn't see the ( Read more... )

Having been indoors for two days running, today I at least made it out to Loblaws at street's end to ask for a refill on my meds. It requires waiting while some guy argues about his meds, which is like arguing with slespeople about the merchandise, but at last he took hs aggrieved self off and I put my request in in about 30 seconds. This took less ( Read more... )

Snowed this morning. Good neighbour Chris shovelled my walk and steps. If I can move this week I must buy him a thank you present of some kind. The usual bottle of wine is fine but I'm never sure about buying alcohol for people with Iranian SigOths. Even Prof Islamic Studies though not Muslim- Zoroastrian, maybe, or Christian Gnostic-- doesn't ( Read more... )

Gas bill arrives, oh moan groan tremble tremble. $97.00, which is not too bad for the start of winter. $97.00... credit. Joy unconfined, and yes, boy did they overestimate badly last month, by nearly two-thirds. Shall turn up the heat tonight: except that setting the thermostat to 15 last night rendered my bedroom so warm I had to shut one of the ( Read more... )

Clear-cut December: dry light, sharp corners, clouds that run ahead of the wind-- and what a wind, aided by the new wind tunnel at Bathurst and Bloor. Thank you for nothing, Mr. Mirvish. But my views on the unholy marriage between climate change and developers' slavering over thirty/ forty/ fifty storey condominiums is well known ( Read more... )