Monday February 15th 2021
Fifty nine days from today we will be back in our coach! We have been out of the coach for three months already, and they are the longest three months I can remember. Oh it will still be cold when we move back to the coach but we should be past most of the snow … you know the sayings March winds bring April showers which spouts Mays flowers 💐 or at least it’s something like that. We will also be past the whole “in like a lamb out like a lion“ thing for the month of March and hopefully will be blessed by an early warm spring.
While my expectations are that it will be another difficult year trying to keep everyone on track with the latest health board rules, and most likely another year of limited activities, I am looking forward to seeing everyone again. It has been a long, long winter, especially having been isolated up here in the snow belt. The coronavirus has taken so much away from us in the past year and will continue to do so until we can get enough people vaccinated to get to a level of herd immunity that will bring us out of the restrictions. As we struggle with the vaccine roll out, it again becomes very obvious that as a nation we need to produce more items in Canada as opposed to being reliant on purchases from other nations. As we struggle to get vaccines from the European block countries , and the United States is not allowing any shipments out of country either. Which just drives home the “Made in Canada” mandate.
Huron Perth Health Board states that this area of Ontario is going back into an “orange” pandemic classification on Tuesday, which means most things will be opening up, restaurants, small businesses, and the like, will all move back to where they were in November last year. Still lots of restrictions, social distancing, and of course the wearing of face masks, but our fear is that people will just become even more careless and inconsiderate then they are already which will force another lockdown.
It has been a year of watching some great people do great things to help others and then we have seen the worst of some people who cared for no one except themselves. Which I guess is just human nature, you are either a giver or a taker and that has been on full display over the last year.
But before I get off on another tangent, lets just say my shovel is starting to show some serious signs of wear as we have had more than our share of snow so far, to go along with the “sub arctic surge” or the “polar vortex” depending on which weather channel you watch, all I know there is some serious cold weather that is gripping us right now. And don’t get me started on the whole “lake effect” thing, as we seem to get almost 5 centimeters (2 inches) of snow everyday, and today is no different.
There obviously are some advantages to beening locked down only a couple of short blocks from some of the local businesses, and we have tried to help support as many as possible and anyone familiar with the Goderich area will recognize one of the local favourites from Culbert’s Bakery in downtown Goderich. While not too regularly as to cause a need to shop for new pants, often enough to notice that the washing machine has been shrinking my jeans a little … just saying.
It appears that the circus has just left Washington DC, as the world watched and relived the actions of the previous administration which led up to the political riots at the capital just a little over a month earlier, and if nothing else was accomplished it at least emphasized the total failure of the past president to step up and do the right thing.
Here in Ontario the public health department just announced that anyone eighty or older now qualifies for the vaccine roll out, now if there was any vaccine I guess that would be good news as now I’m only about a decade in age away from qualifying.
So lets take a couple of moments to talk about our fully furnished rental house. We were able to rent it for just five months which was a real life saver as most places wanted a one year lease. it is a small two bedroom wartime home, which by the looks of it still has the original furnace, an old natural gas fired convection furnace which means the heated air is not blown through the house to warm it. Most of you are accustomed to forced air furnaces which means that the heated air is blown through duct work to the cold outside edges of the home while the convection furnace has huge ducts and relies only on hot air rising and all the ducts go through interior walls to allow better convection currents of heated air, but that leaves the exterior wall all felling much cooler. When this furnace was built “high efficiency” wasn’t even a thought. The bathroom is smaller than that of our coach and gives a new meaning to the phrase “drive in, back out” and the purple colour is a nice touch as well. But all things considered we feel very lucky to have had a stick house to endure the winter. But just can hardly wait to get back to our home in the coach, our queen size bed, our full size shower, our gas stove and our comfortable furniture.
The Buchanan's Rolling Down The Road 
Is it May yet? Like you I am not a winter fan. Really looking forward to Spring/Summer.
We typically go up in the winter to see the lake, but not this year due to COVID.
Thanks for sharing the pictures.
Keep warm & looking forward to seeing you both.
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