January 15 1957

15th Jan. 1957.

Lots of love from us all
xxxx from L. & C., Cyn

Dearest Mummy,
I am in the middle of a long letter telling you all about what we got for Christmas etc. but it doesn’t seem to be getting on very quickly so I thought I would write you one of these in the meanwhile. We are practically frozen! We talk of nothing but the weather up here as we are having a terribly terribly cold spell – Ottawa was 38° below zero last night – and Aklavik on the Arctic Circle was 40° above! It has been going on for 4 or 5 days now & no sign of a let up – in the daytime it has been about 15° below zero still although the sun is shining away. I wonder what Monie etc. say when they say “Ottawa – the coldest place” on their T.V. weather charts!! Our hot water pipe into the kitchen is frozen, which really isn’t much, but when you’re not used to it boiling kettles seems such a nuisance! Cec has a heating wire from work & is trying to thaw it out now.
I have had 2 nice letters from you – thank you so much. One was an A.M. & one the registered letter with the $5.00 & as we paid Mr. P. by cheque I took your money & bought Lindy & Charlie new Vitamin drops! Thank you very much for it – I hope the batteries arrive safely & won’t take too long.
Since I last wrote we have done really nothing – Cec is working hard & went back to work every evening last week & the children have had these wretched colds. I let Lindy go back to school last week as she seemed pretty good & Charlie’s eyes cleared up, but the cold seem to hang around without really developing you know. Charlie didn’t eat well & was sweaty at night & apt to be weepy, then at the weekend Lindy’s eyes began getting bloodshot & sore & she suddenly got very deaf, although her ears didn’t hurt at all. On Sun. I had the same thing with neuralgia & ear ache so I didn’t go to S. School. However, with all these symptoms we decided to take them to Dr. Whillans for their check ups & see what he said, so we went today. The children were both wonderful – not a squeak – even when Lindy had a big penicillin shot in her bottom! They had their 2nd polio shot at school last week with no trouble & are getting quite blasé about shots now! Hooray! Dr. W. said they were both rundown after the measles & that the colds on top had caused all the eye, ear trouble etc. He gave Lindy the Pen. shot as she is so bad about medicine but gave us a prescription for Charlie & thinks the infection should clear up. They have both grown a lot in the year but hardly any weight gain which is bad, but he says they probably lost a lot with the measles. They are both full of beans & v. cheery tho’ so I feel that it can’t be too serious! xx Cyn
[And here she runs out of room and has to put the usual good-bye as a P.S. at the beginning.]