Walking in a winter wonderland - Canada day 1
This was the view from our bedroom window this morning. We are in the basement and there is a little window at ground level. Apparently it was quite mild this morning, around -2, and less than a cm of snow had fallen overnight to add to what was already there. According to Glen they are having one of their worst winters in a long time - woohoo for us. Tomorrow the forecast says 'light flurries' with around 5cm expected during the day. In the UK that would be heavy snow and a major news event. Especially if it occurred in the South of England.
Today we are just chilling. Not literally as the house, including the basement are rather lovely and warm. We are going to venture out to the mall shortly to buy essentials. PAYG phone card, an atlas, gloves, food etc. The journey over was fine. Air Canada was pretty good actually. I had read some bad reviews of their service but it was good, the attendants being very attentive and there being no danger of dehyrdating. We were a bit late leaving and then strong headwinds on the way slowed us down further so we landed around an hour late. Immigration was straightforward once we'd got passed the question of whether I had a letter from the mother of the children giving me permission to have them. I'd suggested we go through in two groups of three (as we had had to fill in two separate immigration cards).
Getting the car was very easy. No queue - four agents (as I suspect you call them) - and quick. The car is nice, a Toyota Sienna (I think) with loads of space I managed to delete the US -Canada GPS I had loaded on my phone which is a bite of a bugger so am mulling whether to download a map on line (and pay for it!). It seems to have winter tires which would explain why cars speed along with snowy roads without much bother. Anyway I have read a couple of pages about driving in snow and ice just to make sure we are as prepared as we can be. We are both insured to drive so at least we will be able to share the long drive down to New York which we do next Saturday. No sign of any major snow events at the moment so hopefully that will go ahead as planned. And we will take a shovel and some blankets just in case!
The house in the background is Sheila's house. It is a bungalow with a very large basement which is where we are accommodated. The basement has one very large room which Alice, I, Tilly and Lulah slept in. Poppy and Elijah are sharing the other small room. There is also a toilet and shower. The boiler is also downstairs - it is fairly industrial in scale as in the winter it has to generate a lot of heat and in summer a lot of cooling - but we all got used to the sound pretty quickly. But as the picture shows in the corner of the room is a PC with a broadband connection. Holiday heaven. It's just like being at home. Right better stop blogging and get on with enjoying our holiday. It's 10am here and I think we may have to brunch at the mall as well as shop.