Against all logic I love winter, however I have never been able to reconcile this rationally. It's cold, it's dark and people in this city of mine can't seem to drive on ice, despite a lifetime of practice. Tonight though, I think I figured it out.

Spring, Summer and Fall are fine and all have their share of strikingly beautiful days, so much so that I think a lot of us take them for granted...They blend together into a beautiful season. Winter, on the other hand, may only have a few really beautiful days, where the precipitation, light and temperature all conspire together to give you a strikingly beautiful experience.

Tonight was one such night. After a disappointingly tight night at the pizza place I got home with more than a little chip on my shoulder, however I was struck by the fact that it was a perfectly beautiful night...perhaps the first of the season, and most definitely the first of 2009. Ignoring my husbandly and fatherly duties I strapped the skis to the roof of the car and went for the first ski of the year. The picture above sums up the experience rather nicely I think.

Even the tunes were perfect...My iPod was playing Grant Laurence's top 10 picks of 2008, which were all wicked, but the song below stuck out in my mind...as Grant said on one of the commentary tracks, it nicely sums up a commonality among Canadians...something which is pretty rare in this diverse country of ours.

*A note on the photograph; perhaps if I'm gonna take a picture, where I have to slog through a snowbank, I should leave the evidence of my slogging out of frame.