It's not all that often that we come across others during our daily ravine walks. A few days back, however, on the return portion of our circuit when we had drawn close to the last uphill climb we came across a young couple, the man struggling to push a baby stroller up the short hill we were then descending. We stopped to greet them coming from the opposite direction and were asked our opinion of the feasibility of the stroller going much further on the trails. This was obviously their first venture.

So we explained where they might go to encounter less resistance, but the ravine is a ravine and it is full of hills and awkward and 'inconvenient' curves and dips, the trails sometimes passing between trees with not much room to manoeuvre, and tree roots disturbing easy passage. We recommended a baby backpack, as we made do with for the first two years of our granddaughter's life when we hauled her in for daily walks.

But on Sunday we came across old acquaintances, preceded by a delightful little King Charles Spaniel puppy accompanied by a relatively small-sized fully grown fawn-coloured boxer. While both dogs were friendly the puppy was endearingly and sloppily eager in his attempts to become familiar and cuddle with our boots. A few moments later we heard a familiar Liverpudlian voice alerting us to the identity of the dogs' companions.

Twenty years ago we would almost daily come across others with whom we became ravine-companionable, people like ourselves out strolling in the forested area of our wider neighbourhood, grateful for the presence of this patch of wilderness in the sprawl of a large city's suburban area. In that twenty years the canine companions of our acquaintances slowly died off. Some of them acquired replacements for their beloved pets -- most often the same breed, consoling them to their loss and reminding them of the original one they had loved and then mourned.

But daily encounters that we had experienced in the early years fell off dramatically. It was as though the passing of the original dogs had so disheartened their owners that they somehow connected the ravine with their irreplaceable loss and with a heavy heart began to avert its long trails and the painful encounters with old acquaintances who still had their cherished pets with whom their own, now lost, used to joyfully greet and play with.

For this couple, the sweet little multi-coloured, silken-haired creature we saw represented the third time around. We had heard not all that long ago from another acquaintance also now rarely seen, with his own original-replacements, that they had lost both of their beloved dogs. So here was the replacement third time around, and with it the companion animal of their daughter, visiting them from Vancouver.

We chatted amiably, the men off to a side and the three women speaking of things that women speak of; first the acquisition of that adorable mite we all watched gambolling about clumsily, curious about everything it saw, tumbling about following the two-year-old boxer, emulating what it did. Talk turned to family and I was asked about mine, and responded with the latest news to fill an eight-month gap. The daughter was divorced, her twelve-year old child remained behind in Vancouver, gone on a Sechelt camping trip with her father whose new girlfriend the little girl resented.

Now that's a burden, I thought; recently lost two beloved pets, had to adjust to a daughter's divorce, and missing seeing a grandchild on a trip that left her temporarily in her father's care. Little did I realize there was more, much more, related to my husband by her husband as they stood apart, speaking of things we hadn't.

After an inordinately lengthy period of chatting, and parting, my husband informed me why it was that our friend looked so exhausted, ill-kempt, so unlike herself. Amazingly, while she mentioned nothing of it to me, her husband had informed mine that their only son, 47 years of age, latterly ill, separated from his own family had been living with them -- and just very recently died.

On our return trip we passed one another again; the goofy puppy, the alert and beautifully conformationed boxer, the friendly, overweight daughter, and the older couple we'd known however remotely for two decades. Not many more words passed between us, but we two older women clasped and hugged one another before finally turning away.