Single Digit

Summer is over. The temperature reading is at a single digit as of last night. The 7 degrees early this morning felt like 5 degrees. The cold is biting, yet this is only the beginning.

This is how it’ll be as the Fall season sets in, maybe in a couple weeks or so. Thankfully the sun peeked out mid-morning and it warmed a bit.

Going places by bus is going to be twice as hard from the looks of it. Standing outside in the cold for 10-15 minutes or more (if there are some delays) waiting for the bus to arrive is not fun.

Kids going to school on bikes or walking likely felt the same. I still haven’t figured out the reason why students at the secondary school where my son goes to, who reside less than 3KM away from the school for certain grade levels (like 9-12) are not eligible for the school bus. The school’s service bus is operated independently from the school itself, so they can’t tell me much either.

I felt sad saying goodbye to ‘longer’ days, when the sun rises before 5:00 A.M. and doesn’t get dark until 10:00 P.M. It was one of the things I liked when I first landed in Canada a month ago. You get to do more stuff in the daytime. You soak in the natural lighting from the sunlight more than artificial lighting indoors.

We have ‘shorter’ days in my home country, where the sun rises after 5:00 A.M. and gets dark by 6:00 P.M. I guess that’s how it’ll be with Fall and when Winter comes.

I’m not whining about the weather, by the way, because dealing with the cold and harsh winters is a given the moment I decided to live in Canada.

It is one you learn to adapt to and eventually appreciate, as you become part of its ecosystem.