Trusting Neighbours

I wrote some months ago about the ridiculous hail storm we had in July. Because I'd left my wind-open windows open to full, the hail hit them at almost right angles and so the uPVC frames were riddled with golfball sized holes. As is most of the rest of this side of the building. It looks like it's been strafed with machine-gun fire, or that it would be more at home in Forest Lawn or something. 

About a month ago, two very rickety looking contraptions were rigged up outside, seemingly in preparation to replace them. Look at them. It's hard to tell, but on the way out to the dumpster (right underneath my windows!), I can tell you the winding cable is little thicker than electrical flex. Would you go in such a thing? Up to the sixteenth floor? I certainly wouldn't. Sure enough, two weekends ago I got a note saying 'we are replacing your windows on Monday, please be out of the suite (suite?! ha!) by 8am so we can replace them'.

The work has been postponed because of the high winds/snow/insane cold, but it looks like we're getting closer again; here's the view out the window. Piles of window frames that have been there at least a week. But not one of them stolen. Can you imagine the same situation in the UK? They would have gone in the middle of the night, and been hawked around the back rooms of pubs in the days afterwards.

Broken

The identikit IKEA coffee table on the right is the first bit of furniture I ever bought when I moved here. 

I suppose, for a cost of $20, it has served its purpose, but as you can see it is rather suffering these days. It has had the broken leg held on for some months with nails but has finally given up the ghost this week. I'm oddly attached to it for the reasons above, in the same reason that the laundry basket in my bedroom is still there whilst similarly falling to bits. I should go and visit IKEA for the first time in approaching three years, and get replacements. 

Except it's a bit of a trek on public transport from where I live, and the thought of having to drag it an hour or more on the train/bus isn't much fun.

Cold

On the Canadian permanent residence form, there is a box for you to indicate where you would be living. 

Unfortunately, 'the second coldest place on the planet today' wouldn't fit. There aren't sufficient words in the English language to describe what it's like outside right now.

I got a very amused look from the boss man, whom I passed in the hallway on the way downstairs as I arrived at work this morning. I was still fully wrapped up, and with pained expression, after nearly ten minutes of walking through heated buildings. Just..............painful today. The only exposed bit of skin was the band between woolly hat and top of coat, about two inches worth. It was like being stabbed in the eyes.

Winter

Once, very long ago, one of the first computer games I ever owned was 'Cannon Fodder' for the PC. A shoot'emup in which your soldiers were guided around the screen by the mouse. One of the very first levels was called bugger me, it's cold which amused my 13 year old self lots.

I found myself muttering this this morning after a gap of some twenty years. Here's the scene at Beige Towers this morning, after 36 hours of steady snow, which hasn't stopped all day and isn't forecast to until tomorrow morning.  And as I walked home tonight, trying not to fall over in the middle of the road on the polished smooth surface, I reflected "well, if the residence application comes off, get used to many many more of them, and quit your moaning since you've done this voluntarily!"