{"id":11476,"date":"2016-01-06T06:13:46","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T14:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=11476"},"modified":"2016-01-11T12:06:14","modified_gmt":"2016-01-11T20:06:14","slug":"open-space-victorias-winter-lacking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/01\/06\/open-space-victorias-winter-lacking\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: Victoria’s winter lacking"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know that a lot of people choose Victoria as home because of its mild climate and temperate winters, and the comfort of a year in which no season ever really gets messy. We harvest from our gardens all year long. In February, while the rest of the country is tunnelling through snowdrifts to reach their front doors, we pick daffodils in our shirtsleeves. Whose definition of paradise doesn\u2019t include such easy opportunities for gloating?<\/p>\n

Well, mine, actually.<\/p>\n

A recent \u00e9migr\u00e9<\/span>\u00a0from the top half of our province, I just can\u2019t seem to fit to the weather down here. Green grass all year long? Never having to dig out the car? Call me crazy, but winter in Victoria leaves me pining for the north.<\/p>\n

\"NEXUS<\/a>
This story originally appeared in our January 6, 2016 issue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Winter, real winter<\/i>, as I\u2019d call it (that is to say, winter in the mountains) is far from the monstrous confluence of bad weather and oppressive darkness it\u2019s sometimes made out to be.<\/p>\n

Sure, at first glance the world dies. Hard. At 28 below, even the sky holds its breath. And yet, there is always a quickness of life to be found in the stillness of winter. Fat little juncos crowd at the feeder. Low-slanted light hangs on the crisp edge of the day. It\u2019s a season of many senses\u0143you hear the cold in the cracking of ice; you smell the approach of snow.<\/p>\n

The potentials of stillness and darkness are somehow more pronounced when the world is frozen, playing coy under its quilt of snow and ice.<\/p>\n

Victoria has its own version of winter, of course. It\u2019s vaguely greyer at this time of year, somewhat soggier; the days peter off a little earlier each night. But for all the niceties of a temperate clime, of not having to put winter tires on the car, not having a separate closet just for winter wear, never feeling the burn of cold as you fumble for your keys in the dark… for all that I would take just one day of cold air, crisp light, the squeak of really cold snow underfoot.<\/p>\n

Call me crazy. But I would.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know that a lot of people choose Victoria as home because of its mild climate and temperate winters, and the comfort of a year in which no season ever really gets messy. We harvest from our gardens all year long. In February, while the rest of the country is tunnelling through snowdrifts to reach […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,157],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views","category-january-6-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11476"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11545,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11476\/revisions\/11545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}