Last year around this time, I was taking pictures of ice formations and remarking on how wonderful it was to be able to go outside with just a fleece on for minutes at a time. It was an especially warm February, and subsequent cold snaps made it obvious it was to be a fairly standard Kingston winter.

Yesterday I biked around the Stanley Park seawall in a light jacket and a t-shirt. The bike rental places were open and people were out on tandems. Kids were running on the beach and people were blading in workout suits. Later I made dinner with the patio door wide open, the sounds of curling and Go Sailor mixing in the background.

Vancouver and the Lower Mainland has things exactly backwards from the rest of Canada; while out east, the transition from winter to summer is two weeks long, out here the only two seasons in existence are autumn and spring. So here’s to spring in February. Wish you were here.