It's hard to believe our current passports are due for renewal; where did that five years fly to? We went along to have our photos taken for passport renewal, and it was dispatched in no time at all. The young woman looking after the photo establishment was pleasant and efficient, the process completed expeditiously. I was even holding Riley in his carrying case over my shoulder at the time she took my headshot.

He was tired and asleep. I looked fairly dishevelled, with my grey mop of hair in dismal head-clutching disarray resulting from having clamped and tied a warm, lined wool hat over my hair when we hazarded a ravine walk earlier, despite the wind and the cold. And despite having, we felt, more than adequately shielded ourselves against the icy minus-16-degree temperature with wind, I could feel the cold clamping over me, penetrating even my mid-body layers. Progress on the trails was necessarily slow, since Riley's gait was hampered by his boots. In any event, I haven't the energy level of a decade earlier when our speed traversing the trails kept us warm through our level of energy expenditure. Though not much of my face was bared to the cold and the wind, it felt frozen, my nose painful.

The photos completed, we took them, along with the forms we had earlier filled out to the Service Canada offices closest to us. Which just happens to be where the Beacon Hill Salvation Army Thrift Shop also sits. Last month my husband had plowed through his clothing and accumulated a hefty bagful, and I had done the same thing several weeks later, clearing my cupboard of items extraneous to my needs and which hadn't seen action for quite a while. So we hauled those bags along to the Sally Ann, and went to Service Canada for passport renewal.

Last night the temperature plunged to minus-30-degrees Centigrade, was minus-27, (with an expected high of -22) when we came downstairs for breakfast. I think we'll give our daily ravine tramp a pass this day.