I understand I’ve missed the “North American Storm of the Century”. It looked pretty scary, with power outages and pile-ups. I hope everyone who reads this had a safe and happy holiday.
Things were a tad less dramatic here in the south of England. My wonderful cousins took me and the dogs out for a walk (that wasn’t well worded) this afternoon. It was a very different Christmas Eve from last year, and an equally different one from what I’ve experienced in Canada.
Last year at this time, in spite of a kind invitation from said cousins to spend the holidays with them, I’d been too intimidated to drive anywhere other than the relatively barren roads of the Highlands to venture down here. And there was Omicron. So 365 days ago, I was sitting in the lobby of the Oban Hotel, social distancing, admiring the view, and reading a book, all whilst on a typical British Coach Tour Holiday. It was fine, but hardly festive.
But today was also quite different from what I’ve experienced every other Christmas Eve of my life (all of which were spent in southern Ontario). We still did the lazy late-morning-breakfast-running-into-lunch, and, just as back home, took the dogs for a walk. Unlike Canada’s current snowed-in status, the south of England is having a very green Christmas (let’s face it, when we say we’re having a ‘green Christmas’ in the GTA, we really mean we’re having a dull browny beige & grey Christmas). My youngest cousin is an avid rider, with her horse Pete stabled just near here, so she was off on the traditional Christmas Eve horsey pub crawl. It’s a thing. Hunh.
We brought the dogs – Hector is my cousin’s adorable little Lakeland Terrier (see Instagram) – and met the riders on Keston Common. Much of the local English population was there, sitting on the patios of the village pubs and cafes, or standing about on the common, chatting with friends and feeding the horses carrots. The riders had their pints while the horses nibbled on the grass, and it was all so very, very . . . English. Then the riders hopped back up on their horses to amble off to the next wee village, and my cousin, CIL, and I took the dogs and headed down the trails into the woods.
It was an delightful Christmas Eve.
Storm of the century for everywhere but Milton. There is very little snow here. The only snow we had to clean up was the stuff that came in through a crack by the door that we didn’t know we had. The wind was horrible, but since our winds lately have been horrible, there were no other branches that came down. Not even a twig. (We know because we collect them for kindling for use in our fireplace). If it wasn’t for Facebook, I never would have known that friends an hour away had feet of snow on the ground.
That said, my daughter was lucky enough to get one of the last flights out of BC before the shutdown. They cancelled the Air Canada flight that was supposed to leave an hour before her Flair flight. That said, the flight had to be diverted to Edmonton because they were low on fuel. Very late arrival at Pearson, but at least she arrived. Her friends who were supposed to leave a day later didn’t make it home until after Christmas.
Well, I did wonder – I had seen all the news about the snow, and the pile-ups, etc… but on Twitter, Milton FM 103 seemed quite low-key about everything.
Glad your daughter made it – Happy New Year!!!