Carrick to Calgary

Blogging in the Snow

Winter has arrived in Tuscarora Way, with flurries of snow all day turning slowly into a steady fall, lying more than an inch in our street. The temperature was -4 at breakfast time and struggled up to zero during the day, but has dropped again to -2 after the sun went down. It's still snowing as I type at 10pm, and has been for the last 6 or 7 hours. Our friends tell us that it's obvious we're new to Calgary, as we're still taking pictures of the snow, and that pretty soon we'll be bored with the white stuff. It's going to last until at least April next year, remember, which is 6 full months from now...


Rocky Mountain sunrise on Thursday


Fresh snow on the Rockies on Friday morning

The street is pretty quiet, even for a Sunday, with our dusting of snow:







Earlier on, we could see across the Bow Valley to make out the Olympic Park, but it's been gone for the last several hours:


Then


Now

It's warm in house, though, partly because we've turned on the gas fire for the first time:



One of the things I'm looking forward to is finding out just how the people of Calgary manage to carry on normal life when they're snowed under for 6 months of the year... How do you get to work? How do you get to the shops? And when does the weather get 'stable' enough to go skiing and snowboarding?

As you know, yesterday we had the first Inaugural Breitmeyer/White Curry & Snow Party to celebrate the coming of winter. We attempted to walk up to Tusselwood at 2:30pm, as it was only +1.5oC. But we hadn't counted on the bitter windchill, which made it feel like -15oC. Luckily, Mr Breitmeyer had been out earlier and had realised how cold it was, so he came down the road to rescue us before we froze. Once we got up the road, we spent the next 3 hours cooking up a storm, making 3 different curries:

Lamb Dopiaza (Madhur Jaffrey)
Prawn & Zuchini Curry (Madhur Jaffrey)
Thai Chicken & Coconut Curry (a Breitmeyer favourite)

plus poppadums specially imported from the UK (thanks, Viv and Graham), natural yogurt and naan breads.

All this cooking was done while working our way through 3 or 4 bottles of very nice wine, too, and listening to a new DVD of a Kate Rusby concert, recorded live in the Leeds Variety Halls.


Cheers!


Cooking Up a Storm!

After stuffing ourselves on this curry feast, we watched a bit of 'Finding Nemo' with Miss Hannah, and then settled down to see 'Love Actually' on DVD. We put it on pause for a bit so we could have port and French cheese, in case we would be getting peckish.


Get stuck in!

And then we got hopped up again, and staggered home at midnight. We were well wrapped, and it was -4, but there was no wind so we felt cozy and warm all the way home. The sidewalk and the gutters were frozen solid, so we just walked home along the middle of the road.


Warm and Safely Home!

We've spent the day today doing household jobs, although we might go for a quick snow walk later on. We've made a batch of shepherd's pie with some of our Alberta lamb, and have also caught up on our housework/ironing etc. I've been busy figuring out how to isolate our outside taps from the rest of the house's water system so that we don't freeze up completely! I only figured it out when I realised that the Canadian for 'outside tap' is 'hose bib'. Go figure.

I also swapped our summer tyres / alloy wheels over with our winter tyres / steel rims on the Honda. It took a bit of time, but at least we don't have to pay the garage to do it for us. We've also filled the window-washer bottle with neat 'blue' antifreeze solution which will apparently remain liquid down to -35oC. Now we just need to get our radiator sorted out with antifreeze and we're ready for everything the winter can throw at us! We'll put the Honda in for its winter service this week, and then do the same for the Cherokee when it arrives later in the week.


The Tyre Man


Working Away


Summer Off


Winter On

One more picture which we forgot to post last week - our Thanksgiving turkey:


Yum!

Anyway, it's time to stop blogging and curl up beside the fire on this snowy Calgary evening, before it's time for bed. Tomorrow will be our first Work Snow Day: we'll have to get up early to clear the snow off the driveway and sidewalk (it's the law!) and then it's our first drive to work in the snow... Should be interesting...