Winter weather

Winter is definitely here. We've had our first winter storm of the season. 'Cold' temperatures - 60°F - and rain. [Now 60° may not sound cold to you, but remember, many buildings here don't really have inside space. If it's sixty degrees outside, it's pretty much sixty degrees inside at work, at the restaurant, etc.] As always there is a story attached (this is a blog after all).

We had spent the weekend over town to pick up our Christmas decorations from our storage locker and finish our Christmas shopping. These tasks went relatively smoothly, although I ended up doing most of the shopping due to what I'll just refer to as 'technical difficulties'. Anyhoo, we had brought a cooler with us so we could go grocery shopping, but with all the presents and the two boxes of decorations and the Things, there wasn't room in the car for groceries, too, so we ended up not going to the store.

We take the ferry back to the island and return to our house that is pretty devoid of food. Sweetie said "I'll just go over to Avalon tomorrow and go grocery shopping."

"No you won't," I replied, having just looked at the weather report.

So that night it rains, and it was a fair amount for us - 3/4 of an inch on the West End. Doesn't sound like a lot, but when all your roads are dirt, things get messy quickly. And then Monday night it rained, and Tuesday it rained, and we were starting to wonder if we were ever going to get to the grocery store. It was Thursday before Sweetie was able to get into town, and by then the lunches we were sending the kids to school were getting very creative.

Fortunately, when she got there, there was food in the store. Normally, in the winter time, barges come once a week with food for the grocery store in Avalon, and if you get there the day before the barge, there's pretty much nothing on the shelves. This year, we also had to deal with the refrigeration compressors going down at the store, so for several weeks, you'd go to the store and they'd have no dairy products at all, except maybe a gallon of milk. Their consistent lack of bread also leaves me puzzled.

So now we're planning our Christmas feast. We're having another family over for dinner. Sweetie will be serving fresh local lobster tails, some sort of risotto, and prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, with cheesecake for dessert. (Bit of a toss-up on whether the Things will eat any of it, but they'll have other stuff on their minds...)

Look for a blog post sometime after Christmas. We'll be traveling to the farm right after, so it may be delayed a week or so.

Merry Christmas (or Happy Hanukkah, depending on your persuasion), and Happy New Year.