My dear Calvin,

Very many thanks for the kind remembrance and a happy "New Year" to you. I am sure it has been a new and perhaps not altogether pleasant experience to be so far away at this time of the year, but it is nice to have met people so friendly and hospitable. And what material you will be able to gather for any future character sketches. We had a very quiet time, which really is generally the happiest. Uncle was here and is talking of going back to England for good, feeling quite tired of "baching it" in St. Thomas. Nellie of course was up but Georgie did not come -- we see very little of him now.

Poor Ruby will have had a cold trip back to Ottawa to day -- about 8 below zero this morning, and the trains are running late. Hubert Culham was in to see us, he is developing into a fine big fellow. I hear he is paying his own way, too, up at Guelph I hardly expected so much from him.

I had a first try the other day at enlarging photos on Bromide paper, and was trying to get your house "8 x 10" but it didn't turn out well, am sorry to say. I want to get another view in the spring, all being well, and enlarge that. Have you felt the need of a camera yet? The next one I get, if I make a change will be a 4 x 5, mine is larger than necessary for 2 times out of 3 almost. It has advantages but the carrying it around is tiring. We had a holiday Saturday, so it made a very pleasant break in the routine, Thurs to Monday.

How are you liking the life? I suppose a good deal of your time is spent out of doors. I think I should like it, if it were possible to find suitable employments, there is more "get up & go" about newly settled countries. Have you come across Mr. Roger who was in the "YMCA" here. I suppose you get all the Hamilton news through the family? Very quiet in town, you wouldn't know there was an election on -- people are too cold to stop and talk today. With kind regards.

Yours sincerely

Willie [James]