As a prelude to our planned hike, we surrendered to fond memory and decided to first embark upon a picnic; nothing elaborate, just the opportunity to sit quietly at a picnic table beside perfect little Lake Mulvihill before setting off on our Laurialt Trail perambulation. With that in mind, we brought along a little one-burner, freshly-ground [organic, free trade] coffee, rye bread, cheeses, and plums.

And then sat talking, observing the life on the lake from the perspective we had chosen, seeing three little turtle-heads skimming the lake close by the shore, countless little frogs at the lake's edge, and the sun perfectly reflecting the puffy white clouds in an otherwise-blue sky, a slight wind lapping the water against the shoreline.

We watched as a Great Blue Heron made its way languorously across the lake. We watched as Riley did his utmost to cadge treats from the picnickers whose habits he is so intimately acquainted with.

And we lost ourselves in the reveries of times past, when our son and his siblings accompanied us countless times to this very place, in the near-distant past. Forty years is a reasonable facsimile of the near-distant past, for us.

The lake shimmered and whispered to us as the breeze incited it to gentle movement. A tiny red squirrel scolded from a pine overhead. And we finally roused ourselves to clear away our picnic things, store them back in the car trunk and embark on the hiking tour of Laurialt Trail, to work off the coffee and the edibles and re-acquaint ourselves further with the delights of Gatineau Park.

After our hike was completed we returned to a slightly different part of the lake, to the dock from which perspective we could gaze deeper into the lake, and the sightlines were further. We spent the next little while exclaiming at the number of schools of fish eager to respond to the crushed dog biscuits we sprinkled on the surface, courtesy of Riley who would far rather have preferred eating them himself, having no patience himself with the law of sharing, the little scofflaw.

Again, we watched the Great Blue Heron tease us, eluding our camera lenses. But the little painted turtles didn't disappoint, they're obviously well schooled in the art of attracting the attention of nature-lovers, oohing and aahing over their presence, tossing out tidbits to their expectant satisfaction.