Christmas Tonight

Such a lovely few days so far in the country. Despite all the snow and whatnot Friday, both my brother and I succeeded in getting here, if a little later than planned. We were lucky enough to miss the freezing rain on the weekend that got Toronto and other parts - not a hiccup on the part of our electricity, (and even if it had conked out, we've got a well and a wood stove, so it's not a big issue). The scenery is beautiful outside, even if you're not facing one of the bird-feeders with dozens of little finches and other birds bouncing around in a bird version of Brownian motion.

Mom and I got to a performance of Handel's Messiah by a local group on Saturday, which was really very good, and of course much more interesting when you know half the people singing, including a friend's mother who taught me to spin years ago.

Had a nice visit with a friend who came down yesterday - after she managed to get here. Due to a misunderstanding of road names, she got lost, and was delivered here by the postman. He pulled into the yard and honked like he does for parcels if you need to sign, then asks me if I'd heard about the merger between Canada Post and CAA...at which point I noticed the second car that had arrived and got the joke!

And today I got Skype set up on my computer, so we could have a chat with my sister and her boyfriend. They couldn't come for Christmas - they just bought a house in Whitehorse, and are saving up vacation days to visit in the spring when they come to move furniture back there - so this was the next best thing, opening presents and chatting together, seeing their house - we had a virtual tour, thanks to the power of laptops -  and showing them the new cat here.

Pity they aren't here to help us eat Christmas dinner, but I suppose we'll manage. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

The Phantom of the Apartment

This morning I woke up to the strains of Shania Twain on my radio. There isn't anything strange about that. I have the radio tuned to a country station, and the alarm turns it on every morning, and I can catch the news and weather and maybe a song before it turns itself off again. This morning a second Shania song started after the first. It was nice and upbeat, so when the radio shut off as usual, I went to turn it back on.

That was when I found it wasn't the radio that was playing. It was a CD. And now I am completely mystified. The alarm will turn on a CD instead if that was the lsat thing used  - but I know it was the radio rather than the CD playing Saturday morning. I didn't use the radio other than that on Saturday. I don't even have a recent memory of using the CD player. The last thing I remember playing was the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack, on cassette. And when I checked my suitcase of music under the bed, Phantom was under 4 CDs, the top one of which was the Shania one. I was in all day yesterday, apart from taking Julia for a walk in the yard. And there is no logical reason for someone to wait until I took her out, sneak in, find the CD, and set it to play, and not touch anything else I can see.

I tried fingerprinting the CD case, and I've got a fairly clear bit I can't positively identify as mine, but not sure if I'm right, or I just didn't get the right part of my control set properly printed.

In any case, it's a bit bizarre, and even if the girls at knitting think it was either an electrical glitch or the cat, I am being very sure to lock the doors at all times now.