TRA DUE SEDIE

Climate Change Christmas is upon us. It's time to participate in some new ancient traditions: waterskiing, pumping water out of the basement, and bemoaning the various wildlife species we're about to eliminate. A friend told me of a pair of geese and their newly hatched goslings on a pond in London, Ontario on Christmas Day. Here, I've noticed squirrels the size of small rabbits, awake and foraging when they should be hibernating, and giant crows, with unshelled peanuts in their beaks. I didn't even know crows ate peanuts, but there you go. They adapt, or die. However refreshing it is to see green outside, instead of unending white, I wonder whether we'll be taking a raincheck on really cold weather, and we 'll find snow on the ground in June. This is one of the drawbacks of rural living. When there's snow in the yard, it's acres of snow, for months. A couple of years ago, I halfheartedly embraced the idea that it's not the winter, it's our response to it that matters. We just have to wear layers, or goose down, or Goretex, or whatever they're selling this season. I call baloney on that. If the snow is ubiquitous enough, it's also deep. Thigh high, at least. This property is hilly; that's one of its charms. Walking in deep snow is exhausting and dangerous. Snowshoes? - I can just hear you now. No thanks. Not on hills. I don't want to be found by my relatives next spring (in, say, September). That's not the hill I want to die on. So I'm (as the Italians say) tra due sedie: between two chairs, neither here nor there. In short, I'm indoors. On one side of the dining room, I have this semi-tropical region: I call it the State of Florida.

Whatever I could say about the building of this house's old wing, I can't fault the siting of the building. It's brilliant. It takes full advantage of the morning sun, and that makes mornings here a joy. That won't change with Climate Change. I don't have curtains on the windows, because I don't need them. Yet the sun is so strong, I marvel that the carpet here hasn't faded. It's like travelling by plane, without any of the associated guilt, delays, cancellations, or announcements from your Captain. If I have to be 'tra due sedie' in 2024, I will gladly take this seat. It probably comes with peanuts as a mid-flight snack. Served by crows.