{"id":12213,"date":"2026-01-22T01:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T01:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=12213"},"modified":"2026-01-22T13:12:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T13:12:52","slug":"winter-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=12213","title":{"rendered":"Winter Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">OK, I&#8217;ve said it. It is the first time and maybe the last. If I want to stay in Canada and not follow my wildest dream of selling up and moving to Spain (without Spanish) I have to start enjoying Winter. For the last month my walking paths have been glazed &#8211; more like iced &#8211; with a middling layer of grey frozen snow. I&#8217;ve had trouble walking even with icers on a mild day. It&#8217;s made me feel old and feeble. I had to fight back. I sourced &#8220;boots with cleats.&#8221; I needed to walk and feel strong again. FaceBook sent me ads for a myriad of footwear. I was intrigued by a pair of boots from Sweden &#8211; Icebug. They had a store locator on their website with the names of a few outlets in Northern Ontario &#8211; go figure. The store in Sudbury didn&#8217;t have my size, but the store in Ottawa did. I paid a king&#8217;s ransom &#8211; $200.00 for a pair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"192\" height=\"256\" src=\"http:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/mud-creek-winter-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12268\" style=\"width:398px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They arrived. They fit. We had a dump of snow &#8211; 12&#8243;. I walked to the dentist in my new boots. I loved them. The next day I walked to the Brickworks and back (10kms) in my new boots. They were perfect.  I haven&#8217;t tried them on thick ice yet and they are a little slippery on tiled floors, but they have given me hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Buen Camino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OK, I&#8217;ve said it. It is the first time and maybe the last. If I want to stay in Canada and not follow my wildest dream of selling up and moving to Spain (without Spanish) I have to start enjoying Winter. For the last month my walking paths have been glazed &#8211; more like iced [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12268,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"disabled","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12213"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12270,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12213\/revisions\/12270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}