Arctic Winter

When I lived in sub-tropical Africa, it was rare for the temperature to drop below 16˚C (61˚F) even in the depth of Winter, Now that I have relocated I have had to acclimatise to a whole new environment, one where it can go for weeks on end with temperatures straight out of the Arctic Circle. Today is a good example. Those temperatures that you see on this jpeg are all Fahrenheit where, for those who are not familiar with the scale, the freezing point is 32˚F. So the temperatores on the graph below represent -16˚C to -25˚C!

I cannot say that I was not forewarned, for when basking in the African sun I used to follow the New England weather that my daughter was experiencing. On Christmas Eve we had a Winter Storm. The weather forecasting here is excellent. When a winter storm is forecast to start in a certain place at a certain time, the chances are that it will do just that. This one was predicted to start at 11 p.m. and to go on until 4 a.m. on Christmas morning, depositing between 6 and 8 inches of snow, and it did just that. In fact because the forecasting is so reliable, Lizzie and I went to drop off our presents with Julie and Jake on Christmas Eve. Sure enough when we awoke on Christmas morning, there was a good 8 inches on and around the Volvo, and the area did not geet snow ploughed until the late afternoon - so we would not have gotten out on the snow-covered Route 5 anyway.

The Christmas Eve storm

I have to admit that I miss the weather of southern Africa - but then I spent 42 years there, certainly more than enough time to get acclimatised. With a change in climate comes the inevitable change in the wildlife. We have Moose, white-tailed deer, black bears, turkeys galore, skunks, foxes, coyotes, lynx, and a few others. No big five, although in some parts of the country you can find the mountain lion and the grey wolf.

Passing Time

It seems like only yesterday that I was writing my post of seven months ago when we had just suffered our final Winter storm of the season, yet here I am about to have my studded winter tires fitted to the Volvo's 18" wheels. In the average year, it would have already snowed some time during late October. But to date, there is none forecast in the foreseeable future - which in my case is about 12 days. Good. I hope that we are in for a mild Winter for a change. However, it is still a wise precaution to have the tires changed (and anyway, Liz insists!).

April 1st, 2017

I make no apology for writing once again about Time as I am well aware that I am slowly running out of it. I have certainly tried to make the best of that which was allocated to me. Along my passage, I have made plenty of mistakes, and there are many times when I wish that I could travel back forty-something years. However, I know that that is not possible just yet. Maybe when scientists have learned how to play with quantum mechanics someday in the future, it will be. Not for me though - unless that quantum world includes Life after Death (which has been suggested by some, by the way). Time has taken its toll on my body, in particular, my spine and my knees. I have had major spine surgery twice - once to screw a plate across C6 and C7, and once for a laminectomy L2 to S1. The former does not bother me at all, but the latter has me taking painkillers each morning. I had my annual medical last week and it looks as if I may still be around for another 10 years or so.

There are plenty of things that I would like to have accomplished during my Time on Earth. I would love to have visited the islands in the Carribean - especially some of the French-speaking ones like Guadeloupe and Saint Martin. However, to offset that disappointment I did once spend a few weeks vacationing on Isle Maurice in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius for those that are not aware of it). As Maurice is largely French-speaking I was very happy and felt "at home". I even get to speak the language here in the Northern Kingdom from time to time, as we are less than 100-km from Quebec Province and get many French Canadian tourists visiting the region.

Fall in New England

Another Halloween has come and gone, and last Saturday evening Liz and I got to spend some very valuable Time with family - this time with Julie, Jake and the Grandkids around the firepit toasting marshmallows. A couple of weeks back we drove down to Massachusetts to spend the Saturday night with Liz's side of the family, Dena, Andrew and family. Fall has really hit hard - just a month ago the leaves were starting their annual change to the brilliant colors of the New England Autumn. Today, the trees are almost bare and the ground beneath them covered with their shed colors.

My message to my readers is this. Time is the only asset that is given to you for free. It is up to you to make the best of it for you do not have any idea how much of it remains in your account. Whereas you may believe that you have plenty of it left - in reality, what is remaining can be taken away from you in a flash, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it. I recall in my youth wondering whether I would still be around to see the turn of the Century - well I guess I am lucky for I am now 17 years past it.

Mother Nature's April Fool's Joke

I mean, we all thought we had seen the last of last winter's snow The last remnants were almost gone, and Spring officially started a week or two back - then out of the blue came this winter storm on the last night of March and April 1st.

Of course this just happened to be the morning that Liz and I had planned to drive the 60-odd miles from St Johnsbury in Vermont to Berlin in New Hampshire.

National Route 2 runs East - West across the northern edge of Mount Washington, which is the tallest mountain in the eastern United States, at 6,289 feet. For my readers who are not aware of it, the second highest wind speed ever recorded on the Earth's surface was 231 mph (372 km/h) at the observatory on the peak of the mountain in April 1934.

Fortunately our sprightly Volvo C30 has studded winter tires and, with me driving (Liz gets quite nervous in those conditions), the weather presented no problems, although the road was quite treacherous at times. I was reminded of a winter weekend way back in the '60s when, while stationed at RNAS Lossiemouth, the squadron aircrew drove across northern Scotland to the Altnacealgath Hotel in Ledmore, and had to dig our vehicles out of snow drifts. That was one of the last times I was to see snow for 42 years! 

I am writing this on Tuesday, April 4th. We did have more snow forecast for today but the temperature is up to 40˚ (4˚C) with rain and a week from today is forecast to be 71˚F (21˚C). 

To completely change the subject, I wrote a while back about nepotism, in particular when related to Jacob Zuma. I never imagined at that time (four years ago) that a president of the United States would be openly practicing nepotism, but that appears to be more and more so. The gaudy materialistic person now in charge of this country seems to be going the same way as Jacob Zuma. Like Zuma he seems incapable of running the country, knowing nothing about politics or the way Washington works. In short, he is out of his depth, and covers every setback by tweeting that it is all the lying press and false news. 

Winter Storm Warning

Yesterday we received a Winter Storm Warning on our mobile phones - starting midday Sunday and continuing for 31 hours we were to expect between 8" and 18" of snow, with winds gusting up to 40 mph.So bad was the warning that Vermont's governor advised all residents to stay off of the roads unless it was for an emergency.

I took this first picture just before dusk on Sunday night, and the one below a little after 10 am this morning. It is now a little after midday and still snowing. At least it is not as cold as it was - up to 22˚F (-6˚C) today as opposed to -2˚F (-19˚C) just a couple of days ago. When I was living in southern Africa and checking the weather conditions where my daughter lived I could not believe that it could go for weeks and even months with the temperature remaining below freezing. Now I know differently.

I have to give the New England meteorological community their due - weather forecasts in this part of the World are for the most part extremely accurate. Unlike what I have been used to in warmer climes. It does also help to be able to open up the Microsoft weather app on my laptop and actually watch the weather radar on time lapse. I have to admit though that I do miss the tropical heat of southern Africa, and although I have no desire to return there, I do have a sort of yearning to visit such relatively close places as Saint-Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Martinique and Guadaloupe (that's the Francophile in me coming out). 

Alors! Je n'ai pas eu beaucoup d'occasion de pratiquer mon français au cours des dernières années - en fait la dernière fois que j'ai été en mesure de passer un certain temps à parler ma langue seconde a été lors d'un couple de vacances à Ile Maurice chemin de retour dans la fin des années 70. Cela a peut-être changé récemment, car quand shopping pendant les mois d'été dans un supermarché local, j'ai entendu un couple parler français, donc a commencé une conversation avec eux. Ils ont été réellement surpris d'avoir quelqu'un qui pourrait les comprendre. Je dois expliquer que nous sommes à seulement 85 kilometres de la province du Québec au Canada et que nous recevons un grand nombre de visiteurs québécois durant les mois d'été et d'automne.

The Trump Debacle

So Trump won the United States presidential election - supposedly! Clinton won the popular vote, and by more than 2½ million votes, but because of the strange and antiquated "system"in this country the president is not elected by popular vote, but by an Electoral College. They voted for the arrogant Mr Trump, who has been called a pathological and self-possessed liar, misogynist, racist, bigot, xenophobe, a gaudy materialist, a megalomaniac and a number of other not-so-popular words. His frequent remarks on Twitter have shown just how ignorant precedent (sic) elect Trump is - for example in setting presidents (sic).

Liz and I have moved across the state border and are now temporarily living in Vermont. The house we had been renting for the last 24 months was eventually sold, and we had to move out in December. So, a frantic month packing a large house into boxes, a rented U-haul truck, and here we are in the beautiful Vermont countryside, surrounded by now-bare maples and white birch with the occasional fir tree, all set off by a white blanket of snow. We are now "house hunting" and hoping to find something akin to what we have been used to over the last couple of years. Everything is soooo expensive up here in the North Country though.

I was hit quite badly by the brexit vote. Unfortunately one of the drawbacks of being a British expat is that we don't get to vote. In my opinion that is a big fault in the UK system. So how was I hit badly. I get a relatively small pension that is paid into my UK bank account, so it is in pounds. The day after the result of the brexit vote was known the pound dollar exchange rate plunged from $1.66 down to $1.22. That meant that after converting to dollars my monthly income fell by roughly 25% ! Maybe with a bit of lick, when Trump is inaugurated the dollar will fall against the pound making me better off.

Enough self-pity! It's close to noon, and the temperature outside is just 2˚F (that's -17˚C) and has been below freezing for several days now. It is supposed to warm up a little overnight and even be up in the 40's over the next few days. Going to snow tonight, turning to rain by the early morning. Yeough! Ah the beauty of living New England.

Central Heating in the Frozen North

Well, it's almost the end of February and still the snow is lying on the ground. Except for a brief period of two or three days when the daytime temperature hit the 40's (that's Fahrenheit by the way) we have been well below freezing since we moved in in mid-November - more than 3 months. Sometimes I wonder whether I've bitten off more than I can chew!

In this climate one of the essential jobs around the house is to keep the driveway clear of snow. If you don't, it builds up and builds up, freezing next to the ground and soon becoming impassible and unusable to all but 4-wheel drives with high ground clearance. During the first few weeks we accomplished this with a snow shovel - not a good idea when you are suffering from chronic spinal issues such as I have. We were having to supplement our shoveling with a snowplow company, but they were charging $60 a visit - $90 when they also laid down grit. Anyway Liz and I decided that it would be a wise investment to get a snow blower, since our driveway is about 900 square feet. With the amount of snow we have had here this winter the snow blower has already paid for itself several times over.

One thing that I have had to necessarily become educated in after my 42 years in southern Africa are the basis of central heating. There is no central heating in that part of the World, but it is an absolute necessity up here in the frozen north - we are about 60 miles further north than Toronto in Canada. This morning we awoke to a cold house, the temperature ten degrees down from its usual 70˚F. The reason - at some time during the night the furnace had stopped because we had run out of #2 Oil. Then came another Quantum event. Liz and I were discussing the situation when my cell phone rang. It was my daughter asking how our oil was doing. As we are getting a big delivery in a couple of days, she came over and we were able to pick up a few gallons from town - enough to tide us over till Monday. The moral of this - always make sure you have at least a quarter tank of oil.

Snow time

I arrived in the North Country after the last of the previous winter's snows had fallen. Cherry trees were in blossom in the suburbs of Boston, but the oaks, the birches, the beech trees and the maples were yet to receive their Spring foliage. There was still snow on the mountain-tops, and even a still-frozen waterfall by the side of the road at Kinsman Notch. I remarked that I had not seen snow close up for more than 42 years, only to be told that I should not worry as I would see plenty within the following 12 months.

The first snow of this winter just happened to fall on November 14th, the day Liz and I moved from the minuscule apartment we had occupied since my arrival on May 1st. At the time of writing, more than 2 months later, it is still lying on the ground. I recall following New Hampshire's weather last year while still in the Eastern Cape, and remember that the daytime temperature had hardly risen above freezing for more than 3 months. Well, I can now tell you that apart from a period of about 4 or 5 days, the daytime temperature has remained below freezing since that first snow of winter fell, and as I write, it has actually risen as far as freezing point before falling again as the sun goes down.

Not having seen snow close up for several decades, I had forgotten what it looked like. The last time I can recall was at Christmastime 1969 or 1970 in when a group of naval aviators and Wrens spent time in a rented chalet in Kitzbuhel, Austria, on a skiing vacation. I can clearly remember seeing ice crystals forming in mid-air while on the slopes - I witnessed the same here a few days ago too. On that particular day it was 20 below in the North Country - that's -30˚C for those of you who no longer use the Fahrenheit scale. What I had forgotten was how the snow sparkles like diamonds in the sunlight, particularly when temperatures are well below freezing. Back in the 60's and 70's there were no smart phones of course, and it would have been difficult to capture such shots as these while strapped to a pair of skis.

Liz and I are very Nature oriented. One of the reasons that we chose our last several places of residence was that each was "out in the countryside". Our first "joint" venture was a rented cottage in Blue Hills in Midrand. Then, on my retirement, we bought the farm in Martindale in the Eastern Cape. Then Liz found that rented apartment in Bath - on the edge of the forest and visited by squirrels, a friendly chipmunk and even once by a skunk. Now we are once more on the edge of a forest. We rarely see as many animals because of the snow, but it is clear from the fresh tracks in the snow that they have been in the yard during the night. I did see a white tailed deer the other day, picking her way through the fallen trees just a few yards away.

Thanksgiving - and more

This afternoon I am babysitting my grandchildren, Gracie and Owen. Jake and Julie have gone Christmas shopping in Tilton at the outlet mall. Next week is Thanksgiving, and the day after is called Black Friday, traditionally the day on which prices tumble in an annual sell off.  Many outlets have already dropped their prices, and this week we invested in a new washer, a dryer and two-door Samsung fridge, saving about $1,000 on the usual retail price by taking advantage of the Black Friday deals. Jake and Julie will pick up Luke from day-care in a couple of hours' time and relieve me of my duties.

We have now entered my fourth season in the States, and a little more than a week ago the first snow fell - earlier than usual, and just a couple of inches here. On Wednesday there was a severe winter storm in New Hampshire that left some 200,000 people without power over Thanksgiving. Nine inches fell here, and another two the following night. With the daytime temperatures below freezing it was no wonder that I slipped and fell on the ice - still I should have been more careful, and can only blame myself. Many of the New  Hampshire and Vermont ski resorts have already opened up, and the pistes are open weeks before they normally do.

A little over a week ago Liz and I moved out of our tiny apartment and into a house in Littleton. We were going to use U-Haul, but they completely screwed us around. In the end my daughter Julie loaned us her Town & Country minivan, and we got almost everything moved the 13 miles in 5 or 6 trips. Jake helped out with the larger furniture when he got back from Pennsylvania a couple of days later. After a few hiccups with the pellet stove (I think the house has been empty for many months) everything is now working smoothly. It is wonderful to be living amongst one's possessions and to have enough room to swing the proverbial cat.

On Thursday I hosted my first ever Thanksgiving - the menu a mixture of Southern and British cooking. The main course consisted of the traditional turkey, which I cooked along with baby carrots and roast potatoes (which my family has always liked), and Liz cooked a sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, a green bean casserole with french fried onions, and a blue raspberry fluff with fruit and marshmallows. We also had sweet corn, stuffing and gravy (mine). To follow (at least an hour later) Julie had brought a home made apple pie, which was accompanied by cream, ice cream or snow cream (there were 11 inches of fresh snow on the ground). A filling time was had by all.

Saturday. I am feeling sorry for myself right now. On returning from the supermarket late this afternoon I took a tumble on the ice between the car and the front door, opening up a deep cut on my left cheek and a smaller one on my left eyebrow. Julie and Liz patched me up, but soon after Julie and the kids had left for home, I tripped over a chair leg and opened up the deep cut again. I have been sitting here with an ice pack waiting for the bleeding to stop.

Sunday. A good night's sleep and ready for another day. I have been in the States for almost seven months now. When I arrived at the end of April there were no leaves on the trees - just a few cherry trees in Boston had donned their Spring blossoms. Liz and I were living in a tiny (750 ft²) apartment. It was so small that there was little room to move, so small that when our possessions eventually arrived from South Africa after a 3-month journey, most of the 125 cardboard cartons had to be put into storage.

Well, the seven months has been enough time for me to have witnessed all four seasons. The maples, oaks and birches are once again bare, save for the blanket of snow on their branches. The brilliant green hues of Spring and Summer gave way to the browns, reds, yellows and oranges of Fall, and instead of decking the trees the leaves are now lying on the ground beneath eleven inches of snow. Today the daytime temperature has risen above freezing for the first time in several days.