Weather Bomb !*@#!!!!!

An unusual update mid week from me! And can you possibly guess what I am going to talk about????? Yep, the sodding weather.

They predicted it endlessly, today it arrived and along with it came a new meteorological expression (on me anyway). The term Weather Bomb has banded about willy nilly all over the place. By the time the storm (possibly to go down in the bowels of history as one of the 'great storms' and affectionately called 'Juan-a-be') arrived I was literally pulling out my hair at the use of the term Weather Bomb! Oh yes it's been a fun day here, this morning it started about 8.00 am with a few flurries and then escalated quickly and by midday the winds were fierce as was the amount of snow blowing around. Having got to work fine, we shut at 12 pm and all those that turned up got to drive home in complete white out conditions again, I couldn't see a damn thing and it was very, very slippy as no ploughs had been out clearing.

Rob and I have spent the rest of the day doing pretty much nothing and watching TV. It's late as I am typing this and the high winds and blowing snow are set to continue throughout the night...Who knows what tomorrow will bring. At least we didn't lose power...Yet! I read that many across the Province are without power and because we do only have the one power company I suspect that some will have quite a wait to be restored.

Although the 'Weather Bomb' term may have been a new on on me I did find another video from Rick Mercer who was way ahead of me on this one...I am a huge fan of his now and I definitely think that he and I have rather a lot in common. Along with Rick's Rant there are a couple more videos that show you what we have all been through today.





And below is a time lapse video from Thor Henrikson by the looks of it he set the camera up in the evening before the storm, so it takes a little while for the daylight to break, but gives an accurate view of today's weather.

50 Inches!

Hello...Sunday already! I have actually been slightly more active this week.
I will jump right in with the fact that I actually attended the camera club this week, what with the weather and severe lack of interest on my part I haven't really attended this year until now.

The club had the charity 'Hope for Wildlife' visiting and they brought with them quite a few critters including a couple of owls, a de-scented skunk, a peregrine falcon, a turtle and a couple of snakes. The photo featured here is of Boo the owl who has a broken wing. He will never fly again and is one of their educational animals now at the centre.

Yesterday morning Rob and I finally got our paperwork together for our taxes. This year we are not going to H & R Block (as they seem to rob us blind every year just to enter the information in the computer). Linda our Mortgage Broker is doing them for us. I love Linda, she is great. She really has a good head on her shoulders and is my kinda person. She offered to so them for us on our last visit to her office, and for the tiniest of fees. Whilst there we tidied up the last of the paperwork we needed for the mortgage people, and she invited me to an event on Wednesday which is run by her colleague for Women in Business. She thinks it will be good for me to attend and network to maybe get some more interest in my design and photographic work.

Last night we met up with Anne, Smiffy and the Elmsdale crew for Smiffy's birthday bash in Bedford.
Anne's Aunt and Uncle Jim and Phillys were also in attendance, Rob and I have met them several times before at Anne's Christmas and Summer parties and I think they are fabulous! Sadly the table didn't lend itself to to much interaction with the whole group as it was a long one. The food was good but I couldn't make it through the whole plate. We were all stunned to see a couple of inches of snow had fallen by the time we left the restaurant. Apparently we are due another Winter Storm on Wednesday! I shit you not, that this Winter has been beyond intolerable.

Finally in other news, Rob and I saw a great deal on a 50 inch flat screen TV, so we bought one this will be for the bedroom in our new home...Very exciting as I do love my TV!!! For those of you thinking 50 inches is a tad excessive for a bedroom...remember our new master bedroom is massive!

I also went to the doctors this week for the second time about a persistent sty in my left eye. Apparently it is now chronic and I will be preferred to an optomologist to maybe get it lanced...Ouch! Can't say I am looking forward to the prospect of that!

I will leave you with one of my favourite videos...I found this on You Tube back in 2010 and promptly forgot about it, I have been looking for it ever since and finally found it this week...Enjoy!

Radiation and the Damn Weather

An utterly non-eventful week and pretty much no news. Locally there was a bit of scare down on the docks as a container carrying nuclear material destined for the USA was accidentally dropped by a crane. Workers were evacuated and quarantined until the Hazmat teams had been in to see if any leakage had occurred. Apparently the material (Uranium Hexafluoride) when mixed with moisture creates a toxic cloud. Thankfully (according to official reports) none did actually leak even though radiation levels were pretty high. The whole thing begs the question should such materials be shipped through ports that have highly populated areas around them?!

Good news on the roads at last around here, HRM are going to implement Zebra Crossings. They will definitely make spotting crossings a whole lot easier and hopefully will go some way to stopping many of the accidents that occur.

As for the weather, it's still Winter. We have endured almost a whole 6 months of it now, I think I have heard the complete gamut of weather forecasters terminology and here they are for your reading pleasure with my translations of them:

Flurries - meaning: it's going to snow a bit but we don't really know how much.
Snow - meaning: it's going to snow, here's an amount but don't hold us to it because we will most likely get it wrong.
Blowing Snow - meaning: you are going to have to get up even earlier in the morning to shovel your way out of a snow drift which had most likely blocked your doorway and buried your car.
Freezing Rain - meaning it's going rain and then freeze, so you will have to get up early again and chip the ice of your windscreen for a good 25 minutes.
Ice Pellets - meaning: Hail...I guess.
Blizzard - meaning: wear some goggles outside as you won't be able to open your eyes.
Total White Out....meaning: you are completely buggered whilst driving and don't even bother trying.
Flash Freeze - meaning it's going to be a sodding ice rink when you drive to work.

Can you tell I am pretty cheesed off with Winter? Rachael sent me this video today as she know how obsessed I am with the weather and the forecasts. It really made me laugh but it's oh so true!

Spring Cleaning & Senior Wellness

So finally a couple of days of warmer temps after being well into the minuses last week. The clocks went forward last night and the sun is shining today! I just hope it melts all the cruddy ice heaps everywhere that (for me) are such a depressing sight.

The week was a pretty long one, and this next one is set to be even longer as it's Spring Break and as usual most people with kids will do their usual mass exodus out the city or the province for the week, making work very slow. I hate it when I it's slow, I like my days busy and fast.

Hamish was due for his senior, 6 month wellness check up, so we took both cats to the vets yesterday, Shakespeare managed to hurt his tail about a week a
go (we don't know how or what happened) but we thought we should get it checked out at the same time).The boys were as good as gold on route and whilst there until Hamish had to have blood taken. Being held by the nurse and having a needle jabbed in him was not his favourite part of the day and there were some pretty blood curdling noises emanating from him. A long 15 minutes later and they had the results...He is as fit as a flea. He has however lost a little weight since September. Shakespeare on the other hand has gained and is bordering on overweight now, so he needs to be put on strict rations. His tail appears to be fine and not infected, we think the lump is just a little scar tissue now....So $286.00 later and the boys were on the way home. Ouch!

Having handed in our notice to terminate our lease agreement on May 31, we had a letter back from the property management company stating how we are to leave the house in terms of cleanliness. Seriously some of it is hilarious considering it was never spotless from the time we moved in. So in order to minimise our efforts later on we have initiated Spring cleaning mode as well as de-clutter pre-move mode. I washed all the covers on the sofa and chair this week, and have been tidying through the house as I go, Rob has been washing floors, and whilst sorting out the sofa, we cleaned behind it and under it. We were astounded to find approximately 15 of Shakespeare's toys under the sofa. He was buzzing around super excited as we threw them all one by one over the sofa to him, within 10 minutes he was lying on the cushion-less sofa on his back in a sort of daze, he looked completely overwhelmed, it was very funny to watch. If I had to imagine what what was going on his mind, it would be a schedule of sorts as to how and when he was going to fit in playing with them all...Oh and the repeated phrase..."I thought I'd lost that"!

So what have I been watching on the Goggle Box this week?....The Bletchley Circle on Netflix. I do quite like that. And I also decided to give Luther a try, never bothered with it before, but OMG, it is so good!!! possibly my fave drama since Breaking Bad and it's British!

On cable, Big Brother Canada Started this week, Of course I will be glued to that, however many of the contestants are pretty annoying. I would say mostly the guys actually. Kyle our sole representative from Nova Scotia, is quite possibly the biggest tool of them all, I am gutted that he is representing the Province. If I had to pick a winner out of this motley bunch at this early stage I would say that Kenny from Newfoundland stands quite a good chance. I am also thoroughly enjoying The Voice USA (it is knocking spots of the UK version). The banter between judges and contestants is so funny and the talent is amazing, I am thrilled to see Usher and Shakira back this time along side Adam and Blake.

Well I guess that's all for this week, I will leave you with a funny cartoon that I was sent this week...Made me chuckle!

Home Show

Another week done and it's March already, I find this very scary! We had some more snow this week which came and went quickly thankfully. As am typing this the snow is falling outside, Worryingly they are small flakes, which round here means (usually) big snow. I have stopped looking at weather forecasts now as they are generally wrong and of course irritate me no end.

On Friday evening I dragged Rob kicking and screaming to Leon's Furniture Store. They had a 3 day sale event on and I had my heart set on a sofa and chair that I saw weeks ago in there, we ended up putting down a deposit to hold the sale price and stock is due in in April. We only have to pay the tax and then have 18 months interest free to pay the rest off. We have had our current suite for about 14 years, so I think it is long overdue personally. The old one will go in our family room and the new on in the living room.

Saturday Anne and Smiffy invited me along to the Home Show in Halifax. Having not been before I wasn't sure what to expect...It was much much smaller than the Idea Home Show in London with no gadgets, but more booths on heating, flooring, windows, roofing, decking etc. Anne and I picked up a whole load of leaflets and filled in a wad of slips to win things, I think she and I are both hoping we win the pergola, hot tub and smoker prize...:o) For a small show we spent hours there and it was fun to get out of the house and hibernation!