After a spate of truly sub-zero days and nights the current turn to slightly below-zero temperatures has opened the Ottawa River in some places, although thick ice still prevails, and will close up again as soon as the temperature dips significantly again, as it most certainly will. Our usual January thaw doesn't generally last that long before frigid winter returns with a vengeance. Our leisurely drive along the Eastern Parkway is always pleasant, no matter the season. And the reason, most often, is to drop in at the Byward Market.

It's a colourful area of the city, and during the spring, summer and fall months bustling with shoppers who stop at all the stalls operated traditionally by area farmers and growers with their bulging baskets of fresh produce and flowers in abundance. During the winter months it is a far quieter scene, but still busy with people stopping in at the various restaurants offering their specific brands of food experiences. We mostly go by to stop at a magazine shop that carries a wide choice of art and antiques magazines. And, on more clement weather days, to dally, popping in at shops we've long poked about in, with exotic cheeses, excellent breads and other choice offerings.

On our way to our destination we pass fields covered with thick layers of snow and ice, the stubs of the corn and pumpkin crops that had been lavishly displayed in the fall no longer to be seen. We pass parkland with magnificent trees, and trails following the river as it winds its way along the landscape, the prized and beloved Gatineau Hills in the distant background. Passing the Aeronautical Museum, eventually a number of foreign embassies, the Canadian Mint, the Catholic cathedral, the National Gallery of Canada, the Peacekeeping Memorial, and a number of other notable sites, we eventually approach the market and park there, to discharge our mission.

Taking in the colour of the Market atmosphere, the people intent on shopping or strolling about, the low-rise architecture of the Market buildings, the nearby American Embassy with its odd bunkered appearance, then en route back home, pass External Affairs, the National Research Council, Japanese and Saudi embassies, and the old City Hall, now part of External, where a small crowd of protesters has gathered, waving signs such as one that reads: "Respect First Nations", outside the meeting venue where Prime Minister Harper and several hundreds First Nations chiefs are gathered to discuss a new focus on the country's direction in addressing the never-ending dilemma of the country's First Nations peoples.