Seasonal

Apparently it’s that time of year again…

Saturday 21st November.

As is always the day after the storm passes through, there is blue sky and sunshine to enjoy and complement the brilliant white snow.  Sadly after a very mild November which saw a lot of trees holding on to their leaves, this turned out to be a very destructive storm as the snow was very heavy and wet.  The leaves then allow a lot more of the snow to accumulate, putting a lot of extra stress on to the trees and a lot came down taking the power with them.  We were fortunate in that regard, but 40,000 folks in metro Detroit were not.

Our giant Smokebush on the side of our house succumbed unfortunately.  I took the first and last photos above standing right underneath it yesterday, this morning two thirds of it was on the ground.

We can’t clean it up until later this week, when the warmer temps will melt the snow again, so we took ourselves off to our local State Park and strapped the bits of plastic to our feet again for the first time this season.  Conditions were less than perfect, what with wet snow and warm ground, but it was nice to be out enjoying the fresh air and getting some exercise.

Despite two little falls I managed ok… which is more than can be said about Andrew!  In fairness he’s trying to get the compacted snow off the base of his ski’s, but it would make a great photo for a caption contest!

Georgia On My Mind

Home again, home again, jigety-jig!

Yes, we’ve been gallivanting around again, those of you who have been with me a while might remember that we like to head South at this time of year in search of some sun.  Our destination is usually the Isle of Palms in South Carolina, but this time around we decided to add a couple of days in Savannah, Georgia at the start of the holiday, and then finish up with a week on the IOP.

Savannah is billed as America’s Most Beautiful City because of it’s old buildings, cobbled streets, green spaces and it’s beautiful city squares, everyone we talked to said how wonderful it is.  So after a terrible 16 hour drive in topical pouring rain for over two thirds of it, we finally arrived at our hotel in Mid-town Savannah.

Typically at this time of year Savannah enjoys temps in the 80’sF (high 20’s to early 30’sC), but that rain we drove through (for well over 600 miles) ushered in a cold front more reminiscent of December than April!  We topped out at 53F (11C) on our one day looking round the old city, and we just weren’t prepared for that at all!  Still, we made the most of it and had a long, but interesting, day.

Don’t be fooled by the “I’m happy to be here” grin, it was Michigan temps and I was wearing a thin long sleeved tshirt and capri’s.  I had nothing else.  Andrew was wearing shorts!

The city is up-river from the ocean but was still a major and bustling port back in the day.  Now the river is more a source of tourist entertainment than trade.

The city is incredibly green, but it was also very dull and overcast making photos difficult, but I liked the old cobbled streets and the iron walkways spanning them.  The buildings to the left are the back of the old warehouses that front the river.

Needing a warm up we soon sniffed out the best coffee shop around.  Savannah Coffee Roasters started out as a coffee importer and roaster many moons ago in 1909.  They used to be just a supplier of fresh coffee to other establishments until a couple of years ago when the company was bought out by an Australian lady who renovated a fantastic old building and opened it up as a cafe.   Now, they still roast their own coffee but they also bake fabulous cakes (Limoncello Cake for me and Tiramisu for Andrew), and have a great lunch menu too.  Their executive chef was the last to train under the formidable doyen of  American cookery, Julia Childs.

Founded in 1733 by General James Edward Oglethorpe representing King George II, Savannah was originally settled to stem the Catholic flow of the Spanish and French Northwards from Florida and Louisiana.  The original city plan and layout was even mapped out before Oglethorpe set sail from England.  This included the 24 city squares that the city is perhaps most famous for.

Like many cities old cities though Savannah has seen its fortunes rise and fall over the years and two of the original squares were lost to redevelopment in the 1950’s before the formation of the Historic Savannah Foundation preserved them and the historic buildings around them.

Oglethope’s original design had trust lots on the East and West sides of the Squares for churches and public buildings and tithing lots on the North and South sides for colonists homes.

Some of the Squares are wonderful, peaceful oasis’s from the bustle of a big city, others now find themselves on the main routes in and out of the city and take a lot of vehicular traffic.  None of the roads go though the squares, so even the big buses and lorries have to negotiate the large evergreen oaks, narrow streets, parked cars and tourists as they make their way gingerly around them!

But I’ll be honest… perhaps it was the cold weather that did it, or the very touristy section by the waterfront, or all the traffic in the city or maybe all the walking we did, but I was seriously beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about.  I know with warmer temps and some sun the place would look amazingly different but I was already beginning to turn my thoughts towards Charleston, the Isle of Palms and South Carolina….

Stuck In Spring-ter!

The calendar tells me it’s the first week of Spring but it’s actually been colder here than the first week of Winter was back in December!  We’re feeling a bit trapped between that no-mans land between Winter and Spring, hence the “Spring-ter” in the post title if you haven’t figured it out yet.

Whilst the weather makes up its mind which way to go I thought I’d show you a few photos of the last days of Winter, a bit late as they’re from the first two weekends in March, but I’ve had strep throat and my step-father is in hospital in England after suffering a nasty fall.  No broken bones, amazingly, but he’s pretty banged up and needed stitches on his face, he’s being kept in for a few days for observation and to make sure that he’s able to get about under his own steam again.

These first few are from our skiing trip to Petoskey.  We forgot the camera on the first day, which is a shame as it was beautiful and sunny and just so pretty.  These are from the Sunday when it was grey and show showery all day, it wasn’t very cold though, not much below freezing and the snow conditions were perfect.  And as Andrew always says, it doesn’t matter how dull the day, or how many people are on the slopes, he can spot me a mile off!

 

And as you can see, on Sunday we practically had the place to ourselves.  Anyone who had come up for the weekend was leaving by Sunday lunchtime for the drive home, but as we weren’t leaving until the Monday it worked out perfectly.

And on the Monday, before leaving, we walked along the harbour in Petoskey as it was a stunning day.  Actually, let me rephrase that, we walked ON the harbour in Petoskey!  Little Traverse Bay was completely frozen over, there were tire tracks on it from trucks heading out to do some ice fishing, and snow-mobile tracks too plus lots of footprints!

Back at home a weekend later and the weather couldn’t have been more different, highs of 21C soon put paid to all of our remaining snow.

Since then we’ve been back down to -8C, mostly after the official start of Spring, but at least that’s given us plenty of indoor time to continue ripping out the bathroom, which is now a big empty space, warts and all.  And we have a lot of work ahead of us!  But more on that another time.

Randomly On My Camera

I take quite a lot of photos over the course of a week or two, most never make it on to this blog, but I thought perhaps I might show you a few once in a while.  Right now there’s a lot of photos of Winter and snow and I could fill up post after post with them but that would get old very quickly!

Trails at our local State Park.

Some Sock Love.

Fingerless Mitts – they match a cowl I made 18 months ago.

Christmas Cactus – Flowering for the second time

Back To The Park For Cross Country Skiing

Andrew had a birthday at the end of February.  Naturally there were Giraffe themed birthday cards and Giraffe themed socks!

And rather randomly taking up space in my dining room right now…

Yes, we’re getting ready for a bathroom remodel!  Looking forward to it but not looking forward to it if you know what I mean!

We’re heading up north again this weekend for more downhill skiing and our camping friends are coming with us for a break although they don’t ski.  We have a little condo booked right beside the State Park in Petoskey that we all love to go to in the Summer months and we’ve all taken Monday off too so we’re making a longer weekend of it.  I’m hoping for lots of knitting time in between bouts of vigorous exercise!

Just Chillin’

Cross country skiing in Mayberry Park on Saturday, waiting for Andrew who decided to add an extra loop, whereas I knew how I’d be feeling the next day if I added even one extra foot to my normal circuit!

Perching my derriere on a picnic bench in the sunshine.

The temperature we woke up to on Sunday morning…

Ice on the inside of the bathroom windows on Sunday morning.  We had ice on practically all of the windows, it was a bit of an overwhelming kind of cold…

The forecast for Sunday and also for Monday…

But my feet are toasty warm in my new furry slipper booties….

The only problem is, Andrew now wants a pair too!

This Week I’m…

…Digging out from Winter Storm Linus which brought us 16.7″ of snow to start the week with.  I stayed at home and worked on Monday, before digging out the driveway and paths and then digging out my neighbour’s son and his car after he got himself completely stuck at the entrance to our street.

…Staying indoors and working on my new socks, Alluvial Deposits:

And casting on yet more socks, like you do.  These are another of the Harry Potter themed socks that I told myself last Summer I would knit more of, 7 months later here are “Socks For The Deputy Headmistress”.  Or as I called my project on Ravelry “Socks For Sheer Dumb Luck” taken from one of Minnerva McGonagill’s quotes from the first HP book and film, which I can still hear ringing around my head.

…Trying to keep warm.  I need more socks because we’re back in the deep freeze, so I’m also not spending a great deal of time outside at the moment.  All my hand knits are coming in useful right now though, especially at 6:30am when I leave my house for the drive to work.  This was the temperature earlier today, after it had warmed up a few degrees.

…Looking forward to the weekend after a seriously stressy week at work that involved a lot of forward budget planning that had to be re-done all over again after I noticed that Accounting had given us starting figures that were a year out of date; and two license servers that decided to have hard disk failures a day apart from each other that left me scrambling to get them back on line and minimize the impact to the users.  But there’s always someone who complains…. and then emails GM level managers to bitch and complain some more.

Still, there’s always next week…

Reindeer Games

I never knew I had such a “thing” for reindeers and caribou until this year.  We’re currently up in Northern Michigan, in Petoskey to be exact, that lovely place right on Lake Michigan where we like to spend some time during the Autumn.  We’ve rented a two bed Victorian cottage just a couple of blocks from the main downtown area, so we’re close to everything but just far enough away from the hustle and bustle.  While we’re up here we’re also hoping to find our downhill ski legs again, along with some cross country skiing too and a boat load of relaxation as I’m in dire need of a break.  In fact, my suitcase consisted of my outdoor gear and three pairs of pyjamas as that’s what I intend wearing all day every day while we’re at the house!  In my dreams at least!

[You lookin’ at me???]

So, those reindeer.  Every year at the beginning of December we bring home a beautiful, real Christmas tree and I spend a very happy couple of nights decorating it and the rest of the house too.  Only this year, there was absolutely no point in getting a real tree and even less point in completely decking the halls either, so I concentrated my efforts on the entry hallway so it looks nice for visitors and the family room where we spend most of our time.  That meant that I put all my favourite decorations in the family room instead of spreading them around, and it was then that my little Rudolph habit became noticeable!

[This is one of a pair I was given, must do something with his white bob-tail, he seems to have lost the original one!  And please ignore the packing supplies in the background, the Ribbon Organizers have been galloping out of the door!]

 

Of course, no big tree means that for the first time in many, many years we won’t be sleeping under one on Christmas Eve, we’ll actually be in a bed!  Not sure how we’re going to cope to be honest, it will seem most odd!!  But I’m really looking forward do the break as I’ve been very busy at work, very busy at home, very busy socially and basically, just very busy!  I’ve been burning the candle at both ends and I’m rapidly running out of candle!!

[Another gifted one, silver this time.  He lives on the end of the curtain rod as he’s much too heavy for the tree]

I’m also hoping to meet up with a lady I met on line on Ravelry, the knitting and crocheting emporium, as she lives just one block away from where we’ll be staying.  And of course I’ll be packing a knitting project or two to work on whilst we away.  It doesn’t look like we’ll be snowed in, sadly, but there is quite a bit of snow on the ski hills.

[Another gifted one, this time from a Manager at work who seems to know me quite well]

And then there’s Bou, who you’ve met before.  I have to admit that he does receive preferential treatment as he’s up here with us, having a lot of fun and getting into all sorts of mischief.  Let’s hope he makes it back home with us too!

 

[Looks like someone has been sticking their nose in the cookie jar!!]

 

I just wanted to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year in case we can’t get online while we’re away (this is a scheduled post).  I have a new tablet that I bought for myself on Cyber Monday using gift vouchers from Amazon that I had but I’m still learning all about it and what it and what it does!  I’m a bit old school I’m afraid!  See you on the other side.

 

Good News / Bad News

It’s a kind of a good news/bad news situation here.

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The good news, most definitely, is that we’re finally done raking the leaves for this year…

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The bad news is that we’re done raking the leaves for this year because Winter has arrived!

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Possibly the worse news is that we’ve skipped December and January and seemed to have landed in the middle of February as it was -12C outside this morning with a wicked wind making it feel more like -22C.  In fact we haven’t actually been above freezing during the daytime for six days, although it was only just on the cusp or just below, and not much colder than that at night either until yesterday.  It makes me wonder what February has in store for us!

Chin, chin.  I’m off to get a warm cuppa and sit by the fire.

 

Skeletons Out Of The Closet

Every year in the run up to Halloween my local town sponsors an event called Skeletons on Main.  As well as decorating the pretty, Victorian town with Autumn touches, think flowers, corn stalks and pumpkins), they also work with a local landscape company to install over 50 life size skeletons in various poses around the town.  The result is really quite hilarious.

Last Saturday Andrew and I walked around taking some photos before they were removed to make way for the Christmas decorations.  We had been downtown the night before, on Halloween, but it was wet, windy, snowy, icy and freezing cold so we didn’t spend long.  It was still really cold on the Saturday morning but at least the sun was back out and the blue sky made for some super pictures.

I’m not post all the ones I snapped as you’d be here forever, but you can see some more here.

 

You can always count on Superman…

 

Delinquent skeletons??

 

I hope the Northville High School cheer team are not that anorexic!

 

Spiders! This was lit up at night, they all have orange eyes!

 

..And where you find Spiders, you find Spiderman

 

Outside the “make you own pottery” shop… the iconic scene from Ghost!

 

In the frame?

 

Dinner awaits you… if you dare.

 

The proposal.. outside the jewelers store of course.

 

How about a nice cuppa? As long as you don’t die waiting!

 

Even skeletons hobbies! They have to have something to do for the rest of the year!

 

Taking exercise to extremes?

 

Some don’t have time to play, there’s work to be done.

 

Ghostly music?

 

Sing along now… “And I had the time of my life and I owe it all to you”!

 

Family day out.

 

Getting a bit squiffy?

 

Obviously that cat’s been up that tree for a while!

 

Fabulous dahhhling!

 

No wonder this little town always look so neat and clean.

 

But I was framed! Can you see the Police Dept sign?

Sunny Sunday

After a few days of greyness and showers it was wonderful to finally wake up to a sunny day.  It was even more wonderful that the sunny day happened to be on a Sunday, so I could enjoy it with Andrew and not have to look at it from the window at work.  It was cold again though 0C/32F but as we haven’t had that many cold days this Autumn so far I really can’t grumble about that.

We decided on a stroll through some local woods after breakfast as it was too pretty not to do something with the morning.  And everywhere did look glorious.  There’s something about Autumn that makes my heart sing and it’s not just the colours.  I love the earthy, slightly sweet smell of it, the low slanting sunlight through the leaves, the glorious blue sky, the crunchy leaves underfoot after a frost, the warmth of the sun on my face and the briskness of the air.  I think I really love Autumn and Winter more than I do Spring and Summer in so many respects.

 

 

 

 

 

Back home we prepared a little treat to go with our morning coffee.  We have a specialty food store near us called Trader Joe’s, it’s a national chain but there aren’t that many of them around, they have a lot of seasonal products and at this time of year it’s all about the pumpkin.  We missed out on this last year so as soon as the products were in Andrew hot-footed it down to our local one and came back with these magical little beauties, Pumpkin Croissants!  Found in the frozen section in packs of four you let them prove and defrost overnight and then bake them for 20 minutes when you want them.  They do need to cool a bit before eating as they have a soft pumpkinny filling that will probably burn if eaten too hot, but oh my, I can see why these sold out in a matter of days at our local store last year.  We need to get some more of these and stash them for when the snow is flying.

Absolutely perfect with a cup of coffee.

 

For those of you with a Trader Joe’s within a 100 mile radius of your home I suggest a little road trip might be in order… but for those of you in countries without one, I’m sorry.  I’d pack my bags and move to America if I were you.  They really are that good!  Chin, chin.