Yesterday we experienced a true weather anomaly.  It turned out to be, in fact the warmest December day in this city's history of weather-record temperatures, beating the previous record attained on December 3, 1982 of 16.3C. by one degree and that of the following day in 1982 of 13.9C.  Perhaps I should, but I don't recall those previous occasions of Nature hesitating on her way to winter, resorting to mystifying us by leaping forward to spring.

As we made our way through the ravine on our usual ramble, mist rose steadily from the lower depths of the ravine, and it felt humid, and wonderfully balmy, though when we set out the temperature was at 6-degrees and had gone as high as 8-degrees by the time, an hour and more later when we returned to our front door.

The ground, though still firm, no longer had the feel of winter-frost permeating it as it had a few days earlier when we slipped and slid on the ice and the thin snow covering, reminding us it was time to change to winter boots and possibly even ice cleats.  Yesterday there were a few remnants of ice gliding over the surface of the forest floor, but the snow had all melted and the creek, which had itself iced over, was now free again.

We often see fungi, odd-shaped and coloured mushrooms, like Indian Pipe and other types on the forest floor when it has been warmly damp and humid.  Yesterday it was most certainly that but it hadn't occurred to us to look for mushrooms there, we were too busy satisfying the greedy appetites of all the squirrels that converged upon us from every point in the forest and beyond.

It most certainly was an extraordinary weather day.  And it remained mild throughout the night, as well, though by the time we emerged from our lovely snug bed the temperature had dropped again below the freezing mark.

And this morning, after breakfast, when I looked out the window at the front garden closest to the house, where previously the soil had been well covered by a snow coverlet that I assumed was there to stay and to grow into a puffy cloud of stubborn snow-drift, there was instead a colony of white mushrooms, very inviting in appearance, looking fresher and whiter and firmer than those button mushrooms I usually buy at my neighbourhood supermarket.