Changing Seasons – Year 4

I’m back for a 4th year of Changing Seasons – a monthly blogging event that celebrates the changes in our world throughout the year.

Depending on where you live, weather certainly can play a huge part in those changes, but so do all the other activities going on in our day-to-day lives – obstacles, victories, or simple survival.

Thank you to Max at Cardinal Guzman for giving this feature life for the past 3 years, and to Su Leslie at Zimmerbitch for picking up the torch from Max.  Perhaps this year you’ll consider joining in too.  You may discover a texture or pattern to your months that you never knew existed.

For many of us, the weather has been THE big event this month, dominating a lot of blogging space.   In my corner of the world, January has been a roller coaster ride of frigid cold, followed by a teasing melt, and then back to Arctic conditions.

It hasn’t been a pleasant month for outdoor activities.

A walk down at Bluffers Park on a “mild” day.  The cold wind off the lake made picture taking unpleasant.

Perhaps it was just as well that I had a busy month of obligations that often kept me house bound, but in spite of that, I still managed to brave the cold on more than a few occasions.

The following photos are some of my winter time adventures this month.

Ice skating in the snow at City Hall on New Year’s Day.

Out for a walk in a local park to blow off some mental cobwebs, and – to my delight – encountering 5 deer in a clearing.

I’ve passed this giant Inukshuk dozens of times in warmer weather, riding my bike along the lakeshore.  Only a steaming cup of hot chocolate made up for this bitterly cold walk.

Helen and I managed only 1 trip out on the TransCanada Trail this month, and it was a ‘character builder’.  In this case, it took a couple of shots of fireball whiskey to bring back our good humour.

I haven’t played with the colour on these photos.  Life really has been a landscape of white with flat greys and browns, even on the sunniest of days.  Any spot of colour discovered in this monotony would jump out, begging for a photo.

Cycling will remain a dream until much warmer weather returns.

I’ve had a full month making new memories, and the month isn’t even over yet.

Later this week I’ll be reporting for jury duty.  Either January will end in mind-numbing boredom as I kill time in the pool of potential jurors, or it will be an interesting blog-worthy experience. Who knows?

In the meantime, winter is here to stay for a couple more months, and Theo says to let him sleep until spring.