Tag Archives: weather

March Mayhem

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I’d like to say that I don’t talk about the weather, but lately in Victoria the weather is all anyone is talking about, or so it seems. It has been pretty crazy! After the last few days, I’m quite happy not to be working on the boat at the moment. Yesterday we had seriously intense, practically gale-force winds that shook the house and broke the sign outside the shops behind us. I was waiting for it to come crashing through my window at some point during the night.  

The wind often carries rain that beats down in driving sheets. I had to time my visit to the grocery store yesterday: I laid everything out to go and as soon as it looked like I would have a clear fifteen minutes, I dashed out the door, down the hill, and across the street to the Fairway. I made it back just before the heavens re-opened.

I was similarly lucky today. As I was walking home from work around 5 pm, I noticed it was starting to spit. Seconds after I closed the front door behind me, the heavens opened and rain began beating down once more. A few seconds later it turned into a blizzard.
It is getting fairly ridiculous. March is half way over and we should have bushes, trees, and gardens full of beautiful flowers. It should be warm and sunny. Or at least warm. The birds should be out and I should be able to walk down the street without worrying if I am going to be blown away. I had enough of that when we lived in Lethbridge (being blown off of a bicycle in the middle of a downtown intersection is never fun). Right now, I feel sorry for the poor plants that have been sending out buds only to be thwarted by frigidly cold weather. They must be getting a little confused by it all. I am confused by it all. And I feel sorry for me too. I hope it is nice tomorrow when I walk to class…

Spring Snow

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This poor tree is about how I feel right now. It is February in Victoria where things are supposed to be warming up and in another couple of weeks we will count all of our flowers and brag to the rest of the country about how nice it is here. But the last few days have seen noreasterlies/easterlies bringing cold weather. It feels like below zero temperatures and there has even been occasional snow over the last two days (nothing that sticks, it just makes us feel colder). Like this tree, we are all gearing up for spring only to have it be yanked away from us by the grim reality of winter. Brrr. I can’t wait until spring!

Frost and Flowers

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As already noted, Victoria doesn’t do well with snow. In fact we pretty much shut down. 
We were spoiled for a number of days over the last week or two with some spectacularly sunny days. And then the snow warnings began. We’ve even got contingency plans for our workshop tomorrow. I guess we have learned from the delays of our Christmas Pageant. 
This morning I woke up to a fine layer of frost that looked like snow on the roof outside my window. I had momentary visions of no classes but laughed that off fairly quickly. 
I still find it amusing that this city is already complaining about our winter when most of the country is still under snow and will be for a number of weeks to come. Out here, once the snowdrops are up and blooming, (and they are up) we consider spring right around the corner. After all, the annual flower count is coming up in 4 short weeks and we have a reputation to uphold.

Rain Rain Rain

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It has rained a lot in the last few days.  In fact, it has rained so much that there is flooding all over the province.  I mentioned yesterday that I had a class cancelled because of the flooding in Sooke.  It seems that half of the south-west of the Island is shut down because of flooding.  According to CBC Radio this morning, the amount of rain we’ve had in the last few days is comparable to the rain we had in January 2006.  January 2006.  Oh yes, the continuing Saga of the Oil Tank.

Plateau

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The excitement of the last few days of snow and wind has somewhat plateaued and I’ve settled into the routine of couch potato.  It is difficult to motivate oneself to go outside into cold and snow when it is completely frigid outside.  I know, “frigid” is relative, but for me, it is pretty darn cold.  It doesn’t help matters when everything in Victoria also shuts down as a result of the weather.  I left to go to church on Sunday evening and there was no one there.  It was disappointing.  Both staff Christmas parties I was to go to this week have been cancelled

Don’t get me wrong, however, I did leave the house today.  It was a beautiful sunshiny day with the temperature hovering just above zero.  If it wasn’t for the deathly icy roads in places, it would have been a fabulous walk.  It was a fairly productive walk.  I now have my UVic student card for next semester, complete with bus pass and gym membership.  I was able to get a new one so I no longer look 14 on my university student card.  Bonus.

Then it was home to resume my status as resident couch potato.

SNOW

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The forecasted 10-15 cm of snow we are supposed to get overnight is well on its way to becoming reality.  In true Victoria fashion, drivers are taking 2 lanes and driving 15km/h with 4-way flashers, roads are shut down, tires are spinning and people are spinning out. My bet is that there will be no bus service in the morning.  I wonder if we’ll still have the Christmas Pageant at church?

I find this all very amusing and if I had a helmet for my new bicycle I would ride to church tomorrow morning.  However, as much as I trust myself, I don’t trust other drivers and I’m not going out with them without full body armour.

The snow is making me feel much more like it is Christmas.  I haven’t really seen snow for 2 years (other than a bit of ice in Beijing in February).  Victoria looks quite beautiful now.  If it lasts, I’ll get some photos in the morning when the sun is up.

I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas

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Starting to feel a little better this morning – I didn’t get woken up by the phone to cover a shift so I slept in a whole half hour.  Then I sat it bed for an hour and decided that I needed to get on with things.

So Christmas music is now playing, really for the first time.  Maybe thats been my problem, I just needed to get some serious Christmas music going: of the good kind (no sappy carols yet.  Perhaps I’ll play the How the Grinch Stole Christmas…)

And I had leftover homemade pizza for breakfast.  On reflection, maybe my mood is entirely due to the pizza. 

I’m also trying not to look outside as that will almost dampen my spirits.

Greetings from… Okinawa… Bah.

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So… two guesses where I am right now.
Yes, that is right. I am STILL in Okinawa… oh Okinawa, how I love you but am getting very very tired of you.
Staying today has meant that today I have been able to find flour which is not readily available in the supermarkets. It is like a return to Tahiti though, where all the packages are no bigger than 1kg. Being here today also means I was able to call my uncle Gord for his birthday, except it was just after midnight on his birthday and he was already in bed so I talked to my aunt Bev for awhile instead. In my defence, they were logged in to Skype, so I did not wake people up to call! And I tried Gord, I tried! 🙂
Today is a strange mix of weather – hot and sunny one minute, cold and raining the next. I:m wandering around with my sunglasses in one hand and my umbrella in the other. I feel like I have done everything that needs to be done in Okinawa. I can pretty much find my way around the town, I:ve downloaded learning Japanese podcasts and have added words like `please,` `I am sorry,` and `I don`t understand` to my vocabulary. Oh, and `Do you sell flour,` vital to my shopping success today. Actually, I found the flour all by myself, but when I go back to buy it later (I didn`t want to cart it around with me for the whole day, so I scouted this morning and will go back and buy later) I will confirm it is flour. Perhaps I will attempt to write down the characters to see if it matches. I have discovered all sorts of ingenious ways to do things without having to know Japanese, and I have expanded my character vocabulary as well. I have no idea what the word is for many of them, but I know what they mean. I will be an asian language machine by the time I get home… okay, wishful thinking, but here`s to hoping!
Well the weather is supposed to be coming back down, although we were hoping to be able to leave today, so maybe tomorrow? I`ve only been saying that for 8 days now though.

Not to be repetitive…

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Good thing we didn`t go anywhere yesterday – crew on the cruise ship told us that waves were up to the break on the bow – that is 5 stories up, at least as high as the yard on our foremast. If we would have still had a foremast in 11m seas, which is what is forecast at the moment. Looks like Tuesday is the earliest we`ll get out. I would like to get to Shanghai sometime before we have to leave though!