Winter politely knocked at our door yesterday. When we awoke in the morning it was to be greeted with a thin layer of snow. Always a surprise, that first snowfall, light as it normally is. Repeat performances introducing the early stages of winter onset year after year never quite prepare us for the reality. Along with the snow there was a cold, biting wind, matching the colder-than-normal atmosphere. Not that it is particularly early in the season for our first introduction; in other years we've experienced heavy snowfalls around this time.

Because it was so bitter out, we waited until early afternoon before setting out for our daily ravine jaunt. By then the light snow covering had melted. And for the first time this season we dressed in warm layers against the chill wind. Out came winter jackets for Jack and Jill, and their harnesses went neatly over the jackets. On came our own winter jackets, gloves and hats.

We don't really appreciate November days; they're invariably dark and brooding, a gloomy atmosphere and appearance seems to settle over everything, little colour is seen and we miss the sun. Yet, perhaps because I was forced to miss almost an entire week of ravine jaunts last week as a result of my sprained foot, everything looked wonderful, even the fallen foliage, now turning from a monochromatic yellow to that ghastly brown-grey of crumbling leafs as colour drains from them. The woods look empty, in a sense, the trunks of trees appearing like dark masts against a moderately darkened arras, the sky above metallic grey, with darker clouds hovering into view.

Even so, now I find an austere beauty in it all, and stop from time to time to gaze more deeply at the layers of detritus mounded on the forest floor descending gracefully into valleys, the denuded trees marching off into the distance in their various sizes, the deciduous interspersed with the presence of dark green pine needles; spruce, fir, hemlock, cedar and yew.

Jack and Jill didn't seem to mind their snug coats and trotted along with their usual sense of purpose and curiosity to be satisfied. We were comfortable against the probing, icy wind since we were adequately dressed against it. We were enjoying ourselves to the extent that we both agreed it would suit our purposes to carry on, and so we diverged and took another, adjoining trail off our usual circuit that took us further onto other trails to lengthen our ramble, taking full advantage of how we felt and how the woods presented, and the readiness of Jackie and Jillie to forge on.

In a sense, these forays are reassuring in their normalcy, at least for us, in a world that seems so often, to have gone mad with a collective psychotic hate and violence. The thought of the carnage in Paris receded briefly as we immersed ourselves in the peace and tranquility of our surroundings.