Christmas Storm

 Rather an odd Christmas this year:

Chris, Jason, Cigi, Mike, Aimee, Avery, Maya, River and myself celebrated about a month ago in Edmonton, with the focus on the meal and the children.

Nicola, Simon, Mark and I took Christmas dinner to Mum and Dad's the weekend before Christmas and the focus was on the meal and gifts for Mum and Dad.

Rick and I had planned to go to Nic and Dave's on Christmas Eve, to spend it with them and Kevin and Broghan but that was cancelled due to the weather. Rick drove down from Hamilton in, to quote him, perhaps the worst driving he had ever done, and we spent it quietly at home. Christmas Day we drove up to Hamilton for his families Christmas dinner (focus again on the meal and I got to meet family members that I had only heard by name) and then up to Guelph for the delayed Christmas Eve celebration, sans Kev and Broghan.

All a bit messy.

But the high winds and freezing temperatures turned the Port Dover lakeshore into a fantasyland  of ice sculptures:

Some rather unhappy looking Mallards

as the harbour is full of ice pancakes

and everything is covered with a thick crust of ice.

Not the sparkly, glittering crust of ice on a sunny day, after freezing rain. No, this is so thick it turns bushes into solid mounds of ice, slightly dirty looking due to the sand churned up in the waves.

The Fisherman's Memorial is almost unrecognizable

with their three heads looking like walruses or aliens.

In the more sheltered area, by the stores, only the seats of the benches are draped in ice but that area flooded during the worst of the wind storm.

The bench by the memorial is absolutely encased,

as are the ones out on the pier

and some have been pushed out of alignment.

I have seen many pictures on Facebook and I understand why. It is fascinatingly photogenic.

The walk out to the end was treacherous, with Rick and I holding each other up (or going down together). There were more ducks in the open water

as well as Common Mergansers.

The lighthouse had some protection from the high walls at the end of the pier

but the shed out there didn't

nor did the east lighthouse,

that had grown roots of ice or

the lighthouse at the marina entrance.

We drove around to the commercial harbour

for another slippery walk

marveling at the effects

of the waves on the trees.

It didn't take much imagination

to find hooded figures with long flowing robes,

monsters, and fairies and elephants, oh my.

Even ED2 suffered, weighed down by a coat of ice.

The temperatures are supposed to rise this week and all of this will disappear.