So we decided, since the weather has turned so marvellously summer-like once again, why not haul our temporary guests off for a trail hike, and since it only takes a half-hour drive from home, the Larriault Trail once again took centre-stage. It is picturesque, and the trail varies from easy-going to tricky footing, uphill here and here, and then downhill, with a variety of landscapes, some running water and fairly good overviews, and the opportunity to see woodland creatures if we're fortunate.

They agreed, and so we set off soon after breakfast, but not all that soon, and breakfast was late anyway, and even later since we lingered over it, finding more than plenty to talk about, as is common with family members who haven't seen one another directly for quite some time.

The drive into Gatineau Park, taking the Eastern Parkway of the National Capital Commission-operated roadway alongside the Ottawa River is beyond pleasant. Passing the Aeronautical Museum, Rockcliffe Park and various large and picturesque foreign missions and forking off between the National Research Council building and Foreign Affairs we drove over into Gatineau on the Quebec side to make our way to charming Chelsea with its puckishly-named pubs and restaurants, coffee shops and craft shops, to enter the environs of the Park itself.

The ground-covering thyme is still in evidence at one particular fork that we take to deliver us through the park to the area familiar to many visitors at the Mackenzie King Estates, from which the Lauriault Trail  and Lake Mulvihill can be readily reached; we attain it from the back entrance, since there is a parking fee at the estates, and none where we begin the trail.

And from there we began the loop that would commence with a bit of an uphill stretch, leading to an overlook now well grown in by maturing trees obscuring the view below, and the meandering trail where wild geranium 'pinks' still evidence themselves among the pussy-toes and the asters, the goldenrod and what's left of the columbine, the Solomon's Seal, yarrow and Queen Anne's lace.

We saw nothing spectacular, aside from one pleasing sightline after another, the sun glowing in various places through lapses in the canopy overhead. This time, however, unlike our hiking foray several weeks earlier with our younger son, the water level in the creeks running through the area had been restored to normal, whereas before it had been amazingly low.

We enjoyed ourselves; our older son, our daughter-in-law, we and our little dog. There's no life like it. It was surprising that on such a popular, easily-accessible trail, on a lovely, warm and sunny summer day in an area where over a million people live, so few others were to be seen on the trails; we passed a mere handful doing what we were doing with ease and satisfaction; enjoying nature.