I had given it some thought; another week away in our favourite vacationing place, the Waterville Valley in New Hampshire. We'd been there in June and enjoyed ourselves as we always do, and always have since the first time we ventured there perhaps forty years ago. There was a time when we became accustomed to one week in spring, another in fall, but we haven't practised those autumn visits the last number of years.

September came and departed and we gave little thought to embarking on another trip. For one thing, we were far too busy, welcoming family members for their brief visits, arranging for our little toy Poodle's surgery, and any number of other concerns, and before we knew it, September was over. And that's when my husband asked how I'd feel about going off once again, this time in October. Late for us, we'd never gone there at this time of year, but we both agreed it might prove a good experience.

Besides which, my husband is restless, he always has been, and if gets the bug to go somewhere, it's a good idea to accommodate him. Riley, since his operation, has become far more mobile, able to exert himself better, a great improvement since the removal of the lipomas, and so we decided to make reservations.

We packed all the items of warm clothing we were certain we would need since it is invariably cooler and quite certainly wetter up in the mountains where the climate tends to be that way in our experience. And while we did need warmer clothing, we were able to dispense with layering ourselves for warmth on several days while there. One day it was too warm even for sweaters let alone a light jacket. Rain didn't interrupt our activities, for there were only two rain events and both occurred overnight.

The fall foliage was still magnificent; a red maple beside the cottage was in full blaze, the highways we took daily in our forays to various hiking trails and our searches for 19th Century paintings at antique shops and other similar goodies, took our breath away with the scope and brilliance of the oaks, maples, birch and beech leaves. When the wind blew, a confetti of colourful leaves drifted through the atmosphere.

After that week away we're both agreed, mid-October might just represent the best of all possible times to go off hiking in the woods beside mountain streams, seeing the grandeur of the mountains at close range (ha!) and listening to the thunder of the water falling down the mountain slopes, bubbling and frothing over and around rockfalls and our enthralled witness to erratics growing miniature forests on their tops.