We were on the lookout for possible sightings of snowy owls along the Eastern Parkway, since there has been another winter influx of them, and we were hoping to spot one, but no such luck. Their flyways tend to be more on the west side of the city, so that's where they tend to be seen logically enough. We saw only the black shapes of crows against the pewter sky, and a group of three geese flying above the Ottawa River.

It's a chilly day, even though the temperature has risen today to a relatively mild minus-one degree under heavy overcast. A vast improvement over yesterday with its stiff winds and minus-ten degree misery. The river is just beginning to show a thin ice layer in some sections, but it's dark and coldly inhospitable looking just now. When it does ice over the snow that will eventually cover it much lightens the atmosphere. Before freeze-up, however, remaining geese take advantage of the yet-open water.

At the Byward Market we did our usual shopping for magazines and ducked into our favourte cheese shop for specialty items, and then stopped as well by the Rideau Bakery for good rye breads and onion buns. No one bakes rye breads of all varieties like a Jewish bakery.

Rideau Street is far more lively with pedestrians than the pedestrian areas of Byward Market at this time of year. All its bustle is now over, though it remains just as difficult as during the summer, spring and fall months to find a parking space nearby. The difference is instead of strolling about and looking at the outdoor vendors' wares, everyone who frequents the market now is installed somewhere in the interior of its full selection of eateries.

And the only outdoor vendors at this time of year are represented by those selling Christmas decorations made of imaginative use of pine, cedar and spruce, enlivened by bright ribbons.

Anyone who does venture to the sidewalks to pursue whatever goal lured them there, walks briskly, booted, hatted, gloved and winter-jacketed. When we saw a frail-appearing woman obviously suffering from osteoporosis, pushing a stout walker before her, we thought how useful it was that she was dressed in a startlingly white winter coat, to make herself fully visible, for her head had been forced by her medical condition to an unfortunate permanent downward cast.