Life in the Freezer

We arrived in Ottawa safely after an uneventful journey (apart from bumping into Sue’s former colleague - Mary Jepson - and her daughter, whose wedding cake Sue provided some five years ago – it’s a small world!) on a balmy Friday afternoon and were soon installed in our ‘Winter Quarters’ and provided with a hearty meal from Helen’s vast inventory.

My ski pass awaited me and I’ll be taking full advantage of it. But not today.

Here’s the view from the sun room. Which is very warm and sunny. If you look carefully you can just see the top of the hamster’s cage near the bottom left of the picture. That poor animal really does have to put up with life in the freezer. He doesn’t seem to have moved since we were last here!

The kitchen thermometer shows both the indoor and outdoor temperatures. The bottom two measurements (minus 26C and plus 36C) are the lowest and highest outdoor temperatures recorded since Ken and Helen moved here two years ago. This winter has been warm, with little snow. People were sunbathing in 17C temperatures at Christmas. But you’ll perhaps notice that at 8.55am this morning the outside temperature was minus 26.0C. It’ll be rather colder in Gatineau Park. And with wind chill?

Brrr! We won’t be going far today!