A Winter Rant

Last night I received a "winter rant" from my friend who lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The photo above was taken outside her house during one of the recent snow storms we've had. While it is a familiar sight for those of us who live in Canada, the experience wears thin quickly. My friend was annoyed by the fact that she had to forgo attending an annual Christmas party due to icy roads AND the forecast for the rest of the weekend did not look good. The many errands and outings that she had planned would be reduced to the grocery store and the liquor store - no, the liquor store then the grocery store (gotta have your priorities straight!).
I know that life could always be worse - check my last blog post - but I have to say that winter weather is one of my pet peeves as well. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate living in Canada and all it has to offer but the winter can really get to you. My mother used to spend many winters in Florida during her "golden years" and she always said that spending the winter in the southern climate added 10 years on to the lives of those old people (not her of course, she wasn't in that "old people" category).

So here it is. Reasons to hate winter.

• It takes you longer to go anywhere - allow extra time for putting on boots wrapping scarves and pulling on gloves - brush the snow off the car - let it heat up - drive slower - find a parking spot in between the snow drifts
• hazardous roads - make driving dangerous and force you to stay home when you want to go out - cabin fever sets in
• you plan a party and nobody comes because of the icy roads or they've got the flu
• your nose runs and your glasses fog up
• cars get stuck
• you slip on the ice
• you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark (okay, I did this also when I was working last year in Bangladesh, but at least it was warm and my glasses steamed up when I came out of the air conditioning to the heat outside)
• winter hats mess up your hair
• your heating bills are higher
• your Visa bill is also higher because you've booked a trip to the Caribbean to escape the cold winter weather!

Winter - Yuk!