I do not think that anyone in our town would argue otherwise if I said that this has been the worst winter in living memory. I know that this is a subjective assessment, but the statistics would back me up. This has been a long, cold, snowy, miserable and - dare I say - shitty winter all around. We welcomed the first day of spring yesterday with weather that was
just mild enough to make a long walk bearable. We are back into the deep freeze again today with temperatures in the negative double-digits, and wind chills in the -30 range. Environment Canada is suggesting that we might get as warm as freezing by this time next week, but as inaccurate as weather forecasting is that far in advance, I tend to think they are bullshitting us to prevent mass suicides.
On another note, I could make a fortune
1 if I opened up a suicide clinic in the city this year.
I have been covering a support role at work the past week, which has meant that my hours start at 05:00 daily. This has put me out of sync with
atara's schedule, so rather than commuting in with her and putting in a 12-hour day, I have been working from home and seeing her off every morning.
The weather was comparatively pleasant on Wednesday, so rather than waiting for her to get home, I wrapped up work, put on my hoodie and walked into town to meet her by the car. The route takes me through an interesting part of north Main where the local fauna had also noticed that the weather has turned nice, and I found myself running a gauntlet of persistent, drunken pan handlers. Still, the walk was refreshing after a long winter cooped up in the house, and I decided to do it again yesterday, but down the other side of the river to change things up.
I walked south along Main, then cut east on Redwood so that I could take Henderson in the rest of the way. I don't even want to talk about the state of the side walk on Redwood/Hespeler. I will say that I have come to appreciate how conscientious the people along my own street are about clearing the snow from in front of their houses and leave it at that.
The route had a few curious dead ends where the side walk simply stopped, but eventually I managed to navigate my way into town. My shins are killing me today from all of the climbing and slogging as I detoured and scrambled to avoid deep slush and snow, but it was a pleasant stroll overall. I will have to do it again when the weather is warmer.
I took this shot from the top of one of the two new spans linking Elmwood to the city core. I did not have my real camera with me, but I am pleased with the quality of the pictures my phone takes. Snow on the ground adds a wonderful element of grittiness and old-school industrial feel to a photograph. The fact that I applied three different filters to this photo on my phone before I posted it also adds to the gritty look. I am pleased with the results.
1I almost said "make a killing", but I restrained myself at the last moment.