Mid Winter

The good news to begin this post is that Bev is coming home on Monday and hopefully our two dogs "Murphy" and "Herb" will be following soon after.

Bev would like to genuinely thank all those who were able to attend her Dad's funeral and those who sent messages of support. The funeral went as well as a funeral can go with about 75 people attending.

On the home front in Fredericton, we are expecting what the locals call a cold snap -this means that we have gone from minus 18C yesterday to minus 25C today and a forecast tomorrow of minus 30C and this is before the wind chill factor. I have included a copy of the wind chill warning for today for the sceptics.

WIND CHILL WARNING: Fredericton and Southern York County Issued at 4:51 AM AST THURSDAY 15 JANUARY 2009
WIND CHILL VALUES OF BELOW MINUS 35 EXPECTED THIS MORNING TONIGHT AND FRIDAY MORNING. THIS IS A WARNING THAT EXTREME WIND CHILL CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED IN THESE REGIONS. MONITOR WEATHER CONDITIONS..LISTEN FOR UPDATED STATEMENTS.
AN EXTREMELY COLD ARCTIC AIRMASS WILL PERSIST TODAY TONIGHT AND FRIDAY. LIGHT TO MODERATE NORTHWEST WINDS WILL PRODUCE WIND CHILLS BETWEEN MINUS 35 TO MINUS 44.

It does not worry me because I have already decided that minus 20C is cold enough and if it gets colder that that then I will stay home in the blissful warmth of geothermal heating.

Realistically you only have to worry about the cold when driving on the slippery roads and when moving between the car and the building / mall you intend to enter, but you really need to be prepared clothing wise, because at this temperature the impact is instant and dramatic.

The forecast however is looking up, by this time next Thursday we should be enjoying a balmy high of minus 5C (shades of Tahiti).

University continues to go really well with a huge range of lecturing styles from the "I am just the facilitator and you guys teach yourselves" to the formal 3 hour lecture witha mid term and final exam. There is a fairly big emphasis on attendance with generally 30% of the marks being allocated for attendance and participation. I have been really well accepted by the fellow students who think Australia is "awesome" and all want to move there.

I have included some shots below of part of the down town area I took this morning on the way home from "school". First one is the Old Government House

This one is of a local park, which at this time of year does not get much use. However the amount of people, including kids skiing around the suburbs and parks on cross country ski's is amazing.

Just a couple of shots of the frozen St John River which runs through the centre of town.

These last shots are of the average type of house in a small downtown street.

As you can see I like the blue house so much that I put it in twice. The fact is that I am so new to this blog stuff that I cannot find a way to delete one on them.

Stay safe. R