16h without heating & electricity

As if Mr. Season knew it was first of December. Winter suddenly came and showed us what it can do. Friday morning when I went home from work I was facing some ice rain. But soon enough I was in the warm metro and the bus. I went grocery shopping right away and since I didn't feel like carrying my shopping bags through ice rain I had them home delivered (it only costs a dollar more). Later that day the ice rain was replaced by regular rain, but the temperature outside dropped below zero causing freezing rain, black ice (ijzel). This phenomenom is known in Canada as an ice storm. In the warmth of indoors it quite magical to see ... everything is transformed to ice sculptures. (see the picture of the tree in our back alley).

But then it happened, suddenly the electricity was gone. So we got some candles out and looked across the street and they still seemed to have power. So we decided to go to a new pub just around corner and wait until the electricity problem was being sorted out. Since only half the block was out of power, I was convinced that in 1-2 hours the problem would be fixed. The pub Helm was warm and cozy, and all power was still running. They have a wide selection of beers, an organic interior and they server chique tapas (like mushrooms stuffed with foi gras, stew of elk, etc). Helm likes to call itself a "Brasseur Gourmand" and it rather fits that description. After 5min sipping my red ale and T. enjoying her cider, the power went out as well. so we finished our drinks and went home. But once outside we discovered that many more blocks were out of power. So then we started to realise that it might take a little bit longer.

Without electricity we had no heating as well (because the central heating is hooked up to an electrical thermostate). So I managed to make some croques (luckily we have a gas cooking stoves), we had candlelight dinner and an early rather frisky nigt in. Power was only restored, 16 hours later the next morning around 10am. Later on we learned that 200.000 families in the Montreal area were cut of.

We've been seeing ads on TV of getting prepared for major outages and floods, but we always kinda laughed at them. After this experience, I guess now we start making our emergency kit.

Early sunday morning it started snowing ... small snowflakes they were ... but snowing it did, so there's about 4-5cm snow outside. So finally winter is really kicking of. Maybe after 4 months of winter we'll get tired of it, but for the time being: it's GREAT!!