Category: Winter

It’s a cold snap, and a do or die playoff game for the Maple Leafs

It’s an interesting expression, a cold snap, which probably would be more suited to describing freezing vegetables than the state of the weather.

But, it’s a fitting description, made all the more miserable watching the Maple Leafs playing the fourth game in the series, vying for a chance to continue their campaign for the Stanley Cup.

It’s two goals to none and no prizes for guessing who is none, and as much as I hate to concede defeat, it doesn’t look good.

So, it’s back to the weather, currently a more interesting topic of conversation.

Usually in winter, in Brisbane, it’s a lot warmer, and it’s supposed to be 26 degrees Celcius today, which would imply blue skies and sunshine.

As usual, the meteorological department has not quite got it right. Right now, its just past midday, and the temperature is 22 degrees centigrade, but there’s no sunshine, so there’s a ‘feels like’ factor here, and my guess is it’s more like 12 or 13.

And, just as I stepped out to check the weather, and the Blue Jack scored another goal. It’s now 3-0.

It’s looking very grim looking in this direction which is towards the ocean.

Looking the other way, there’s a ray of hope with slivers of blue sky trying to break through the cloud cover.

Where are the Maple Leafs?  One gets the feeling right now, they’re just going through the motions.

Oh, well, back to the weather…

Meanwhile…

Hang on, we just scored a goal and it’s 3-1. Hope springs eternal? The player I follow, Nylander, scores.

Now we’re playing with an empty net, sometimes a dangerous thing to do. OK, I just managed to catch my breath, and we just scored another goal. The score is now 3-2.

How many players can you fit in a net, because everyone is in the Blue Jackets net? Attacking. Attacking.

Yes, another score. It’s now 3-3.

I can’t believe it, and neither can the commentators. I don’t think anyone can, but if there had been spectators, there’d almost be a riot right about now.

So, we now have over time.

So, time to calm down, get a drink and a snack, and get back in time for the fourth period.

Of course, we expected the Maple Leafs would continue with their late boost in momentum, but things sorts of evened up as the minutes’ tick by.

Thinking that it was bogged down, I left the room to do something else, and, lo and behold, Mathews gets a goal and we won.

Typical.

Then I went outside and the weather had changed, more along the lines of what the weather bureau predicted.

Or was it because the Maple Leafs won?

Let’s hope the sun keeps shining because there’s another game to go.

 

Winter is back

This is the view from my car:

Winter has returned and because it’s time to pick up my granddaughter from school, it’s raining.

Not cold though, so there’s no need to have the engine running with the heater on.

I’m guessing though if I was in North America, or Canada, in Winter, I’d be outside shovelling the snow, so I wouldn’t get snowed in.

And as bad as that sounds, if this was a COVID 19 free world, being in Canada would be my first choice.

In Toronto.

The obvious reason, even though it’s the height of summer there, its because the Maple Leafs are in the play-offs, and I know I missed the first two games, but I did get to see the third, moving our time.

It was, in the end, heartbreaking, and I know if Chester was still alive, he’d have some very interesting comments on their performance.

But that was him, for my money, they tried hard, had their chances, and the breaks didn’t go their way. I mean 3 to 0 up, and to lose in overtime???

It’s probably the reason why its raining.

Perhaps well get thw next game and it will be down to that all important fifth. I know, with the miracle of the internet, I’ll be there in spirit.

And playing without a crowd? It must make it hard for Toronto not having tens of thousands of their loyal supporters cheering them on.

Only one thing left to say:

Go leafs Go!!!!

Searching for locations: Lake Louise, Canada

A sleigh ride wasn’t the first activity that came to mind, but that first day we saw the sleighs lining up and thought it might be a bit of a lark.

It was New Year’s Eve and we booked a 2pm sleigh ride.  I figured any later we’d probably freeze to death.  The ride was for about 45 minutes, out around the edge of the lake and back.

Rides were on the hour and sometimes run at night.

We arrived at the departure point about 15 minutes before the ride and watched those who had been on the ride before come back looking somewhat frozen.  The only covering you had provided was a red blanket.

Wisely we put on many layers of clothing, hats, and gloves.

We managed to get a seat for ourselves where the maximum per seat was three.  The blanket wasn’t the thickest.

It was cold, and according to my phone, about minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit.  You could feel it, and it was lucky we were not moving fast.

 At the halfway point, we went out onto the lake to turn around.  It gave us a chance to take a photo of the sleigh, and the horses pulling it.  I felt sorry for the horses out in the cold.

As we turned around, we got to see a frozen waterfall.

Reminiscing the days when we could travel overseas…

This happened what seems now a long, long time ago.

 

That’s two days of my life I won’t get back

Yep…

I just spent 26 and a half hours in planes and in airport terminals getting home, and lost two days in the process.  The 15th of January just didn’t exist for us.

This is what happens when you fly from Vancouver in Canada to Brisbane Australia, via Shanghai.  The thing is, everywhere way, way overseas is a two-stop run.  We have to break our journey somewhere, like Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, and for the sake of managing delays at the originating end, we usually end up with a mid airports stay of five to ten hours.

It all means that when you finally arrive in Australia, you are tired, and look it.  I feel sorry for the Immigration officials who must rarely see people looking good on their arrival.

This time we were fortunate to get back in the morning.  To save being picked up by relatives we arranged for a limousine service, and it worked out well.

I couldn’t say the same for some of the pickup services overseas, but that was more the fault of the travel agent here than anything else.

It only reinforced my thoughts on travel agents, some are excellent, and some are complacent, relying too much on travel wholesalers whose knowledge of the products they sell is appalling.

The original bookings were fine, the agent we used knew her stuff.  But she left and someone else took over, and not so good I’m afraid.

However…

On the whole, it was an incredible expedition, from temperatures of 30 plus celsius to temperatures of -21 degrees Fahrenheit, and rarely above 6 degrees Fahrenheit.

The highlight:  Lake Louise in Canada.  Everyone should see this place in Winter at least once in their lifetime.  Certainly, my wife’s 65th birthday, spent there, was something she will never forget.

And the sleigh ride, in -14 or -15 degrees, well, we might be eligible to be declared start staring mad, but seeing the frozen waterfall was just another of those magical moments that reinforces why we should be preserving the planet, not trying to destroy it.

But…

We’re back home and glad to be so.

 

 

A writer’s experience – this will go in a book

New York is amazing place, filled with a multitude of experiences that often you have to go looking for, or, as in the case of the Brooklyn Diner, stumble over when out for a walk around the block, a very large block I might add.

This is one of those surprise discoveries.

On an early morning walk, I discovered the Brooklyn Diner, a small restaurant tucked away in a street not far from Columbus Circle, perhaps a piece of history from the American past.

After all, if you’re going to take in the sights, sounds, and food of a country what better way to do it than visiting what was once a tradition.

This one was called the Brooklyn Diner.  It had a combination of booths and counter sit down, though the latter was not a very big space, so we opted for a booth.

The object of going to a Diner is the fact they serve traditional American food, which when you get past the hot dogs and hamburgers and fries, takes the form of turkey and chicken pot pies among a variety of other choices.

Still looking for a perfectly cooked turkey, something I’ve never been able to do myself, I opted for the Traditional Turkey Lunch, which the menu invitingly said was cooked especially at the diner and was succulent.  I couldn’t wait.

We also ordered a hamburger, yes, yet another, and a chicken pot pie, on the basis the last one I had in Toronto was absolutely delicious (and cooked the same way since the mid-1930s)

While waiting we got to look at a slice of history belonging to another great American tradition, Baseball, a painting on the wall of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets field, long since gone from their home.

The Turnkey lunch looked like this

which didn’t seem to be much, and had this odd pasta slice on the plate, but the turkey was amazing and lived up to the menu description.

The Chicken Pot Pie looked like this

And looked a lot larger in reality than the photo shows.

But, sadly while it was not bad, it was a little dry, and could possibly do with using the more succulent thigh part of the chicken.

All of this was washed down by Long Island Ice Teas and Brooklyn Lager.

AS for the Diner experience, it’s definitely a 10 out of 10 for me.

The good old days

This is a flashback to the times when we could travel without worrying about a pesky invisible disease.

And, now, we can refer to the days before COVID 19 started as the good old days.

Although we are able to travel within our own state, and this is a photo of the Gold Coast beach not far from the Hilton Hotel in Surfers Paradise.

I’m not inclined to run the gauntlet of thinking that an outbreak might not occur in a place where there are a large number of visitors, some of whom do not, or more likely will not, obey the health regulations.

And I suspect this will be the same for a lot of the over 60s who are in that vulnerable group the disease attacks more severely, and who are probably the people with both time and the money to boost local businesses, the sort of visitors the area wants to attract.

Unfortunately most of us can’t take that chance, after seeing in the southern states how a visit to a restaurant can quickly turn into a hot spot and then a disaster.

So it looks like we’ll be in our pseudo jail for some time longer.

Where am I?

This could be anywhere in the world

Palms swaying in the breeze

This could be taken from the beach of any tropical island retreat.

It could be taken at any mainland resort anywhere in the world, whist lazing away the hours with a good book and a long, cool drink.

But it’s not.

It’s taken from my back yard in Brisbane where we’re in the grip of winter, and the wind is lowering the temperature from 19 degrees centigrade to a ‘feels like’ 12.

Still, in a sheltered corner, I’m having a nice cup of tea and reading a good book on what could be called a pretend holiday.

At least for the afternoon, anyway.

Inspiration comes from the most unlikely sources

And this was one of those times.

Before the COVID 29 pandemic, a time that is rapidly disappearing in our collective memories, we came down from Brisbane to Melbourne for a wedding, perhaps the last for this family for quite some time, this being my wife’s brother’s last daughter to tie the knot, so to speak.

And like someone said, as with births, weddings and funerals, it turned into a family reunion on my wife’s side of the family.

But there were extra benefits…

We got to meet the extended family of the groom.

And, we got an insight into their friends, the thirty-something, footloose and fancy-free acquaintances that had been off and on a part of the bride and groom’s life for about 15 or so years, and most of who had been to London, for various stints, and who are now scattered across Australia, and other international destinations.

I have to say that these people were quite interesting.

As an older person, I didn’t have much in common, so I followed one of my father’s old adages, if you’ve got nothing to say, shut up and listen.

And as a writer, I did something else, observe.

It was an eye-opening experience, if nothing else, and a rather interesting look into what it might be like as an unmarried reasonably well off thirty-something. For starters, you didn’t have to worry about the price of drinks, or how much you drank. You can just up and go anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat. For a few minutes there I was starting to feel envious.

It was sometimes overindulgence, but I noticed it was never to the point of becoming what some refer to as legless. Noisy perhaps, crude at times, yes, but in reminiscing, it was a curious phenomenon that they had all “hooked up” at some time or other.

Aside from learning what appeared to be a new “language”, there was also a running theme that at one time or another nearly all of them had lived with the groom in London for a period.

It got me thinking.

It would make a good story.

It was just trying to find a context, other than a wedding, that would bring them together, one where a series of vignettes that involved each of them in turn that could bring to the story of that person to life.

In this case, but not so much the reminiscing, it was the wedding.

What if it was an untimely funeral?

Trying to find joy in the midst of a very sad occasion.

I’m sure this has been done to death many times, but after hearing a lot of happy memories, it seems to me that in this case, it could be uplifting.

Yes, the ideas need a little work, but it’s firmly there in my mind.

Perhaps when I get back home, I might just start writing.

Searching for locations: Driving in ice and snow, Canada

This morning started with a visit to the car rental place in Vancouver.  It reinforced the notion that you can be given the address and still not find the place.  It happened in Washington where it was hiding in the back of the main railway station, and it happened again in Vancouver when it was hidden inside a hotel.

We simply walked straight past it.  Pity there wasn’t a sign to let people know.

However…

We went in expecting a Grand Jeep Cherokee and walked out with a Ford Flex, suitable for three people and four large suitcases.  It actually seats 7, but forget the baggage, you’d be lucky to get two large suitcases in that configuration.

It is more than adequate for our requirements.

Things to note, it was delivered with just over a quarter of a tank of gas, and it had only done about 11,000 km, so it’s relatively new.  It’s reasonably spacious, and when the extra seats are folded down, there is plenty of baggage space.

So far, so good.

We finally leave the hotel at about half-past ten, and it is raining.  It is a simple task to get on Highway 1, the TransCanada Highway, initially, and then onto Highway 5, the Coquihalla Highway for the trip to Kamloops.

It rains all the way to the top of the mountain, progress hampered from time to time by water sprays from both vehicles and trucks.  The rain is relentless.  At the top of the mountain, the rain turns into snow and the road surface to slush.  It’s 0 degrees, but being the afternoon, I was not expecting it to turn to ice very quickly.

On the other side of the mountain, closer to Kamloops, there was sleet, then rain, then nothing, the last 100kms or so, in reasonably dry conditions.

Outside Kamloops, and in the town itself, there was evidence of snow recently cleared, and slushy roads.  Cars in various places were covered in snow, indicating the most recent falls had been the night before.

We’re staying at the Park Hotel, a heritage building, apparently built in the later 1920s.  In the style of the time, it is a little like a rabbit warren with passages turning off in a number of directions, and showing it is spread across a number of different buildings.

It has the original Otis elevator that can take a maximum of four passengers, and a sign on the wall that says “no horseplay inside the elevator” which is a rather interesting expression that only someone of my vintage would understand.  And, for those without a sense of humor, you definitely couldn’t fit a horse in it to play with.

The thing is, how do you find a balance between keeping the old world charm with modern-day expectations.  You can’t.  Some hotels try valiantly to get that balance.  Here, it is simply old world charm, which I guess we should be grateful for because sooner rather than later it’s going to disappear forever.

In my writer’s mind, given the importance of the railways, this was probably a thriving place for travelers, and once upon a time, there were a lot more hotels like this one.

Past conversations with my cat – 83

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This is Chester.  He has reminded me that it’s Groundhog Day.

So I had to ask, where on earth did you get that from?

Everybody knows it’s Groundhog Day.  He sits there with this knowing look in his face, and it dawns on me, he’s been looking up stuff on the computer again.

I am going to have to remember to turn it off.

In Canada and America maybe, but we don’t have it here because we don’t have the cold and snow like they do.

We have cold because you light the fire.  I’m sure there’s been snow.

Now I know he’s finally losing it.

It’s 35 degrees Celcius outside, and even when it is cold it’s still 16 degrees Celcius, not Fahrenheit.

Look, get with the program here.  We need something to celebrate.

Why?  And a second later realizing I should not ask.

It’s been a bit dull, no mice, no treats, all bad news on the internet.  Oh and by the way, since cats only get cat flu, you want to be careful not to get that new coronavirus going around.

I shake my head.

Now I’m definitely turning off the computer at night.

Cat flu indeed!