Speaking Too Soon …

“A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.” ~ Winston S. Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician, army officer, and writer, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. As Prime Minister, Churchill led Britain to victory in Europe in the Second World War. Churchill represented five constituencies during his career as Member of Parliament (MP). Ideologically an economic liberal and British imperialist, for most of his parliamentary career he was a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955, but for twenty years from 1904 was instead a member of the Liberal Party. A noted statesman, orator, and strategist, Churchill was also a prolific author. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his own historical writings, “for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.” Out of respect for the well-known American author, Winston Churchill, Winston S. Churchill offered to use his middle initial in any works that he authored. ~ Wikipedia

So, the quote above has little or nothing to do with the subject of this particular post. My reason for beginning with Winston S. Churchill’s quote was that my posts tend to be on the long side, and I sometimes am reminded of that. However, I am not going to change for the sake of others … I write for me and it gives my retired gray matter some much-needed exercise. This is a shorter post though, at least when it comes to words …

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I awoke Saturday morning to the usual dark house. I am so looking forward to spring and summer and the longer days that accompany those seasons. The days are definitely starting earlier and getting longer now, but it is still dark when I get up. When I got up Saturday morning I did my usual blog reading while I had my morning coffee with the television news on so I could check the weather. I looked outside periodically, and as it got lighter I could see that there was some activity in the flower beds with some of the tulips beginning to poke through the soil. The weather was now on the television, and as I waited for them to get to the local weather, the meteorologist began talking about Alberta and the fact that it was -23C with the windchill making it feel like -34C. I immediately thought of my brother Jeff, went out to the garden with my trusty Canon DSLR in tow, took a couple of pictures of the tulips coming through the soil, and promptly texted him the pics.

We have had an unusual winter here, it snowed for about two hours earlier in January, but nothing really stuck to the streets and the only evidence that it had even snowed was the light dusting of white on the top of the flower beds. Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day here, and it got to about +9C, with the sun shining gloriously down upon all of us in Parksville. The couple of pictures I texted to Jeff were just my way of saying hello and that I was thinking of him as he was probably slogging through the driveway with his snowblower. And I hadn’t even taken my shovel out of the shed this winter! Jeff was NOT amused!

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When I got up Sunday morning, put my coffee and my iPad Mini on the small table near my chair, opened the blinds … it was still dark, but the flower beds seemed to be reflecting light this morning?

And here’s exactly what did happen Sunday morning when I opened the blinds. The pictures below were taken about 9 AM Sunday morning from the back patio and the inside of the garage door …

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So here we are, it’s now Monday morning, and here’s what greeted me this morning as I opened the garage door after retrieving the shovel from the shed where it has been all winter … until this morning …

I think I should keep my big mouth shut in the future! But after seeing all the extreme weather events in all the provinces and states east of us, I still feel very fortunate. After all, it is going to reach a high of -3C here in Parksville today which is a lot better than the “high” of -25C to -33C in Edmonton. I think it’s going to be an in kind of day today though. Just stay warm, wherever you are!

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Till next time …

K.