It may seem fatuously absurd, but the question in our minds is how did we get here? Chronologically we've attained the age of 79. Hard to wrap our minds around that simple fact. A year from now, 80. That..is..old! It warps the imagination.

On our honeymoon at Huntsville/Algonquin Park

We get stiff if we sit for too long and have to wait a millisecond to allow our muscles to limber up sufficiently to move when we rise from that seated position. Doesn't help that I tend to sit with my legs under me, in a bit of a crouch. But I've been doing a set of simple physical exercises for the last 50-some-odd years, and no doubt that helps to keep me fluid enough. No problem balancing or moving smoothly along generally.

We've reached the age of 20, married two years

Sometimes when I look at me in the mirror I'm aghast. Sometimes I don't mind, when my brain is informed by my eyes that I look presentable at the very least, and tells my mind so. Sometimes when I look at my husband I feel a bit incredulous. Since we've been together since the age of 14, though that deeply intense intimacy of familiarity is as though I'm looking at myself; similar sensations, similar conclusions.

52 years old, still just kids

If I can't touch him, smell him, hear him, I feel deprived. I always wanted to be around him. And have been for all those years. And the years simply piled up, one atop the other to make us both 79 years of age. Good grief, it's not to be believed. Did we treasure those years sufficiently when we were living them? I surely hope so. We dredge up memories from time to time in a duo of recall and reminisce.

And whenever music is played from the '50s and '60s, he encircles me in his arms, and we dance as we did when we were fifteen. We haven't changed. Though everything around us has.

Still just kids at age 78

Winter has finally overcome its own obstinacy in making an appearance just as 2015 prepares to bow out into history, never to be recovered. Winter of 2016 has made its initial appearance, and it obviously intends to compensate for its predecessor's tardiness, to blanket our landscape with an explosion of snow with a fair resemblance to what should have fallen and remained on the ground had this been a normal November/December.

This morning the feeders were crowded with squirrels, and the top bird feeder hosted a few birds, but nothing yet signalling that they realize their opportunistic browsing in nature's fall landscape has been brought to an abrupt end.

Today is also my birthday, and last night on the cusp of midnight I was presented with my annual birthday card. This one quite large, and to me the most beautiful of them all, though of course I must say that every year. My husband sequestered himself a few days ago to create the latest card. He had, weeks earlier, presented me with the gifts he had bought for me; he is simply incapable of 'keeping a secret', or keeping anything from me that he has already committed to.

Looking at framed photographs of the two of us at various stages in our lives, it's surprising how many of those photos were taken in the out-of-doors, but perhaps not, since the great outdoors is what beckons us continually, as it has since we were old enough to observe and treasure those times when we, as urban children, were exposed to nature.

Well then, it appears that Winter 2015 feels it has procrastinated satisfactorily, compelled at last to lay down the initial snow blanket to accommodate Winter 2016 and we face a landscape transformed. My previous attitude that November is dark, bleak and unappealing also underwent a transformation during this unprecedented display of winter-as-laggard, and my eye began appreciating the brooding darkness of an early winter woods.

Still, it represents an aesthetic change to see the forest covered now with snow, etching its lovely quality of brightness on the landscape, seeing everything contrasting with its fresh appeal and placing an entirely different perspective on what we view. It was notably colder yesterday, less wind and ample sun to throw long beams of light onto the snow covering and it is transcendentally lovely.

We came across Max whom we haven't seen in weeks. Max is the kind of person who appreciates nature mostly for the opportunities his relative proximity to it offers for exercise and he hurries himself along the trails, engrossed on progress, his speed in covering a good distance with the help of two walking sticks his reason for being out there, propelling him along. He's always amenable to stopping and talking, greeting Jillie who always tries to leap on his legs to be noticed, while Jackie brings up the rear.

Max is forever full of the latest news and inside stories, and grievances about something or other. He has the precise nature of an accountant. He is a pleasant man, and we don't mind hearing him out; he politely, on the other hand, hears my husband out who sometimes agrees with him, occasionally rebuts him, but casually, and sparingly.

Yesterday it was exchanges over the crisis in the Middle East, the floods in Britain, wildfires in Australia, and tornadoes in the U.S. Midwest, and how fortunate we are to be able to complain about the inequities involved in being charged 30% more for electricity in our part of the city as compared to the major proportion of city residents. This, the most we can complain about, when other parts of the world are so dreadfully challenged by the nature of humankind and that of nature itself, certainly marks us as fortunate.

Winter is awakening. It is recalling itself, looking around in wonder at the amazing reality that it has slumbered too long, failed to remember that this is its time. Surprising itself that it has allowed fall to linger. Crestfallen that it has failed in its most critical function to obligingly host that startling and most exquisite vision of a pure, white world. Winter remains in a bit of a wobbly condition, as though having indulged in too much of a party atmosphere, leaving it bedazzled and its resolve diminished, but it appears to have rallied to the point of restoration of pride and this morning winter left a calling card.

When we looked out this morning, there it was, that missed white coverlet. At the feeder there was a convocation of redpolls, some juncos and a lone crow. We have always liked crows, and this one, towering in size over the tiny redpolls, has been an unfailingly polite visitor, causing others no concern at its presence, more than willing to share the birdseed and the nuts.

Far more conciliatory than the squirrels in fact, who have been out in their numbers as well. The nuts that we put out for the squirrels and other wildlife that care to amble along to the feeder haven't as yet this winter become a dire necessity. Without a snow cover they have found more than sufficient forage to keep them in fine fettle. Local biologists have commented on the fact that they've rarely seen such well-padded squirrels; some, in fact, they've observed are so well larded that they have been seen to waddle.

Their presence throughout the day, and in particular the antics of one of the very small red squirrels, frantically acquiring nuts and hauling them a few feet away to the garden where a hole has been dug to deposit them in provides no end of entertainment for Jack and Jill, no doubt puzzled at this small creature's frenetic anxiety over securing food to take them through the long, cold winter months.

When we were out in the ravine yesterday it was clear and sunny with a brisk wind, but the temperature was still below freezing. It won't be that much more cold today, but it's likely that as we approach a normal cooling trend, the snow that has fallen will remain and it will form the basic layer for the snowpack we'll acquire throughout the coming winter months.

Yesterday, as I was planning the menu for our evening meal, a little different from the usual Friday night dinner, my husband thought of a dessert we hadn't had in a long time. In fact, if we had such a dessert it was usually at the Christmas holiday season. My version of a Yule log.

It hit all the right notes for my husband who is fond of both chocolate cake and whipped cream. And I had a new cookie sheet with raised sides that he'd bought me a few years back which I'd never used, since I already have several cookie sheets that have been well seasoned with use. I thought when he presented me with this new cookie sheet (he simply cannot resist "sales" items) that likely the first time I'd use it would be the next time I'd bake a jellyroll. And it's taken this long for me to use it.

For the batter I used a sponge cake recipe, rather than the usual jellyroll recipe; the difference being that it had five eggs, yolks and white beaten separately, rather than three eggs and baking powder. The batter was comprised of a cup of granulated sugar, five eggs, a tablespoon of water, a dash of salt that went into the egg whites when they were being beaten to a whipped froth, three-quarters of a cup of cake and pastry flour, sifted with a quarter-cup cocoa powder. The whites and yellows beaten separately, each sharing a half-cup of the sugar, then carefully mixed together, the water added and a teaspoon of vanilla, then the flour/cocoa folded it gradually; the finished batter poured over a sheet of waxed paper laid into the cookie sheet. Baked at 375-degrees for about 18 minutes, it was turned out onto another sheet of waxpaper laid over a tea towel, the waxpaper sprinkled with sugar.

The hot-from-the-oven flat cake was then rolled inside the waxpaper and towel, and left to cool. When it was ready to be finished, it was unrolled and spread with freshly whipped cream, re-rolled, and a butter-cream chocolate frosting flavoured with rum spread on top. This is not a particularly sweet confection, but it did fulfill all the taste sensations that my husband yearned for.

Christmas Eve yesterday brought a hugely unusual gift from nature to residents of the National Capital in Ottawa. Those people who believe that winter in Canada, and most particularly Christmas in Canada must be frosted deeply with fresh white snow are not among those who think that 17 degrees on December 24 represents a natural gift, but among all of the people whom we came across enjoying an afternoon walk in the woods with their dogs, none complained.

All waxed enthusiastic about this hugely unusual weather pattern that an 'extreme El Nino' brought to this part of the world, with far warmer than usual temperatures ensuring that the plentiful precipitation that fell came down as rain. True, we do miss the beautiful landscape of a full snow covering in winter. And Christmas doesn't look like Christmas when people's colourful lights blink in a landscape of dark night unrelieved by reflective white.

But nor do we miss shovelling all that snow, and driving in often-dangerous weather conditions. So we're satisfied that we can handily accommodate our expectations for snow to arrive later this winter, as it invariably will. And the fact that the rest of winter will be slightly milder than what we normally get won't be too hard to take either, even if it does mean the occasional ice storm.

Today, Christmas Day, the woods have been quiet; we barely saw anyone else out, in contrast to yesterday when, under a beaming sun in a crystal-clear sky, the trails were teeming with people, many whom we've never before seen, but everyone cheerful and calling out holiday greetings to one another. The wind was high and brisk and brought down ample detritus; a bit of concern over some of that detritus hitting an unwary trekker, but nothing of that kind occurred.

In today's walk we did see one mature fir had come down, a victim of the fiercely blowing wind. But because it was so balmy out, we wore no hats, gloves, scarves, only light jackets which the wind barely seemed to penetrate. Because of the forest canopy bare of foliage at this time of year, we often hear the droning undertone of traffic from surrounding highways, and yesterday was no exception. People were out frantically shopping for last-minute items before the arrival of Christmas Day.

Today, that day having arrived, there was no sound whatever that drummed through the woods from traffic; a perfectly tranquil day, sun shining and little wind, with a temperature high of 7 degrees; simply unheard-of!

Now this is truly an atmospheric mystery. Ottawa, one of the world's coldest winter capitals, outdone only by Ulan Baator, Mongolia, Astana, Kazakhstan, Minsk, Belarus, and Moscow, Russia, is now basking in sunlight, and perspiring in a high for the day of 17 degrees Celsius. There is no snow in near prospect, not for today, not for tomorrow, Christmas Day. This is (almost) unheard of, and weather records have been falling steadily for the past month. We should be at least shin-deep in snow, but there is none to be seen anywhere in the area.

Little wonder I've been having strange dreams. Last night, for example, was a contrast to the one earlier in the week when my husband hushed me awake soothingly while I was in the throes of whimpering for 'help!' at the mercy of some demented evil-doer intent on doing me harm. In last night's dream I was raking a very grassy-green front lawn and discovering the presence of ready-for-harvest squashes, cabbages and tomatoes. Generously offering them to our neighbours.

It was extremely pleasing to see our lawn playing host to large, fresh and ripe vegetables, acting out a role of agricultural plenty, and how much closer to home could such an assurance of food plenty and security get? The winter woods remain littered with fallen foliage, with no snow to blanket them in an overall coverlet of dazzling white.

It is beyond puzzling that this season has been dawdling its way toward winter. And when not just the calendar, but the environmental-weather winter does eventually arrive, what will it present as? An answer that only time can provide.

At the drop of a ski hat, literally, he can go skiing at Cypress anytime the mood takes him, and it often does, since he lives in Vancouver. For that matter at any season of the year he can take himself off in any direction to access the ocean, the mountains, the rivers that offer recreational pleasure and eye-catching beauty. He can take his choice of mountain hiking, kayaking, canoeing, or skiing virtually at his doorstep.



In moderate-atmosphere Vancouver, there is now deep snow in the Coastal mountains, the siren song for outdoor winter-enthusiasts. Here in the snow-and-ice-belt that is Ottawa, where we should normally be deep in snow, there is not one scintilla of the stuff to be seen anywhere. Lots of rain, though, morning, noon and night of various densities, all of which should have fallen as snow, but not with above-zero temperatures prevailing as they have been throughout November and December.



Today's high is to be ten degrees in Ottawa, tomorrow's an incredible seventeen degrees. No snow in the near forecast. He'll be visiting with us for a week before setting off for a conference in Newfoundland. We've got plenty of ski gear stored in the basement, but it doesn't look as though this year it will get much use, if any at all.



This week he went along with some of his graduate students to a secluded portion of Wreck Beach on a dark winter night, and they had a bonfire, and a jolly good time, before the holidays kick in and people depart for other places around the country to be with family.

Little wonder he decided to stay in Vancouver once he achieved his doctorate, to live there the kind of life that so appeals to him.

The hugely odd fact that Ottawa will not have a white Christmas, since there is not a scintilla of snow on the ground whereas the average Ottawa winter at this time of year generally boasts a snowpack of at least 51 centimetres accumulated over November and December, quite affirms that this has been a peculiarly puzzling winter thus far. Our temperatures continue to rise above freezing throughout the day and often just barely nudge frost levels at night.

For the past several days another pattern has emerged, of light rain during the morning hours turning to steady rain in the afternoon. Had this been a true Ottawa winter the rain that has fallen incessantly over the past few months would have come down as snow. Instead we are treated to freezing rain episodes, and light snow dustings that melt in the blink of an eye.

We had our ravine walk early this morning, preferring to be in the woods in a light shower, avoiding the rain destined to pour through the afternoon. The days have been dark and brooding, as though fewer daylight hours at this time of  year isn't punishment enough for what winter always gifts us with. We'd had to venture out last night in the rain and wind and it was dark and miserable. I had a dental appointment to replace a weary filling that had decided to separate its long relationship with a tooth and the sad separation felt like a canyon had suddenly appeared in my mouth. The young woman who has been our dentist for the past decade after the retirement of the old one is far more skilled, gentle, capable and efficient than the old dentist ever had been, but the new tools of modern dentistry certainly go a long way to making such visits less stressful.

After our walk, Jack and Jill were given baths. Mostly because we wanted to ensure that the charcoal treatment that Jackie had been exposed to during his weekend hospital stay which left hard clumps on his haircoat would be taken care of. While Jillie is being bathed Jackie is frantic with concern and when she's being dried while another tubful of water is being run for his bath, his concern is only accelerated; the few times we ever hear him whine. Each, once immersed partially in the water, become calm and patient, allowing me to wash them thoroughly. But once the process has been completed, they gallop through the house together with renewed vigour, enlivened by the procedure; being wet seems to electrically animate our little fellows.

She decided last year that one year living in residence was enough. She was in one of the supposedly best residences at University of Toronto, a former hotel converted to a student residence, and the chefs had been retained from the hotel service and the food was reputed to be good. She had a food voucher as well, that she could use to supplement what was served at the residence. But she hated all of it, other than for the friends she met there. The room mate assigned to her shared accommodation and she got along quite well. There were quite a few international students; her room mate one of them who had transitioned from living in Moscow to life in Toronto with equanimity.

She has always been intense about studying, very disciplined about assignments, intent on extracting from the system and her own academic abilities, the most she possibly could. She was a child who never needed reminding about doing her homework; she took it on of her own volition. And that habit has continued on into university. Her nose, it seems, forever to the grindstone. I know, because she either telephones daily or leaves a lapse of several days between calls.

She likes her history classes, not so much philosophy, finds both criminal law and law and society absorbing. She complains bitterly if she gets a mark under 80. Which commits her to more intense application of her mental resources to extract marks she considers more acceptable to enable her to advance toward her professional goal.

Last year, at least, she would often go along to the university gym, and work out a bit, use the track lift some weights and do some swimming. She loves to swim; when she was four I had taken her for swimming lessons to the wave pool in our community, since we were responsible for her weekday care while her parents were at work for the first nine years of her life. But this year, not once has she ventured back to the gym. And when her friends go off somewhere and she's supposed to accompany them, she is conflicted, agonizing that she can't spare the time. There is always studying to do for some test or exam, or a paper due to be delivered that she simply must work on.

Instead of the shared room at the residence, she now lives in a three-bedroom apartment, a short walk from her campus. Her former room mate and another university friend live there with her sharing the apartment and splitting costs. Conveniently they're not far from the university, areas of cultural interest, the Eaton Centre, and there's a good supermarket in the basement of the apartment building across the street from theirs, where other friends happen to live. Her arrangement and that of her friends definitely is not the conventional vision of the impoverished university student.

Finally, she's had a break from studies and researching assignments and editing her friends' work, something she's good at and they take advantage of. She went out shopping for new underwear, winter boots and a handbag, very pleased with the results. She usually sends me photos of things like that when she emails me. And there have been some get-togethers with friends in the evening, finally. Everyone is celebrating time off for the Christmas and New Year's festivities. One small party in particular struck her; she's a foodie, and a dinner she and a group of friends enjoyed at another friend's apartment was particularly delicious, she said. And she told him he's a far better cook than she is.

They are incorrigible browsers. From the time we brought them home to live with us, any time they were out in the backyard or on walks their browsing was constant and seemingly unstoppable. Almost anything seemed to qualify as edibly attractive, from evergreen needles to bits of desiccated plant matter. When we took Jackie in to the emergency animal hospital yesterday afternoon one of the technicians said they were suffering from pica. It's actually, she said, a mental condition where animals fixate on browsing and continually look for objects to satisfy their need.

But when researching pica, I find it's essentially non-food items that qualify in the pica classification and what attracts Jack and Jill are things that might be considered food for animals; they don't try to eat plastic, paper, light bulbs. While in their puppy stage which they aren't entirely yet free of, they would chew just about anything and then swallow the bits though mostly they were scattered everywhere. This was a habit separate and apart from browsing. Elk horn seems to help their chewing need, although given the opportunity they'll chew on leather gloves on occasion.

Yesterday, just after we returned from our usual ravine walk and as I was cleaning Jackie's paws from the muck that the trails are now full of awaiting a covering of snow, I could see something was awry. His stance was awkward, his legs somewhat akimbo and he was not responding as he usually does. When I set him down he was swaying. That continued and became more severe. It seemed to us that something had affected his central nervous system.

Again, the browsing. In various parts of the ravine there are wild apple trees. The apples now fallen to the ground have been fermenting. These tidbits are particularly attractive to Jack and Jill. We try to restrain them, but haven't been overly concerned when they happen to ingest bits of apple. We should have been. At the hospital they told us that because of the milder-than-normal weather those apples and mushrooms that might be lying about on the forest floor have been perfect hosts for mould. The mould contains toxic chemicals. While I thought that Jackie might be mildly inebriated because of his actions, they felt he had been poisoned and asked permission to make him vomit.

Driving to the hospital he had become more reactive; sharply drawing back, acutely aware of sound and movement. One moment he would seem to be nodding off, the next he would jerk his head back, and then the trembling would begin. The veterinarian who examined him recommended that we leave him overnight. They wanted to monitor him closely, do bloodwork, and other probing examinations, hoping that his liver would not have been compromised by the toxins in what we presumed to be the problem-causing apples.

By eight in the evening he was much improved, they were giving him a charcoal treatment, and he was being irrigated continually. Shortly after six this morning they called to let us know he seemed normal, that we would get a call around noon to come and pick him up. That call came at nine, and off we went. We hope to prevent future such ordeals. He came back to us wired and exhausted, both.

Jillie didn't seem too troubled by his absence throughout the afternoon and evening, which completely took us by surprise, given their closely bonded relationship as twins and playmates. She was matter-of-fact about their temporary separation; we had been doting, giving her more attention in his absence, fearing she would be deleteriously impacted; no such thing, evidently.

He almost leaped out of the vet's arms into mine when we regained possession of his little suffering frame. While at the hospital he was frantic-in-motion, just couldn't keep still for a moment. The minute we got into the car to return home, calm suffused him and he settled down, and slept.

It's close to a year that we've had the pleasure of Jack and Jill's company. In that time they have been exposed to a wide circle of canine friends and their human companions whom they recognize and
take joy in greeting.

From fluffily dainty little white-and-pink Rosie, the beloved Bichon Frise who gets walked two or three times daily around the block, (who lives on the street behind us), accompanied by a plump, sweet-natured pink-and-white little old lady, to Cannelle, an elderly Golden Retriever who lives next door, they have a wide circle of acquaintances.

Yesterday, on our ravine walk, we saw our friend whose surgery to implant a permanently-installed pump to his brain to constantly drain the water that accumulates there, but who was still suffering dreadful headaches. The corrective surgery took place just a few days ago, to remove that pump and replace it with another, along with a computerized device that more finally graduates the amount of fluid being drained. And it's made a huge difference to him. The headaches are gone, though he has an uncanny feeling of floating on air which is an indication that this pump too requires fine-tuning, but his world has changed, for the better.

His wife can now relax somewhat; she has been grinding her teeth at night, has acquired an entire new set of worry-lines, and her doctor has informed her she has to make more of an effort to relax her vigil; perhaps now she can. Their three Border Collies represent an example of what affection and firm direction can accomplish in these working dogs. They are obedient to every quiet command that is emitted from the patient lips of their humans.

The dogs skilfully evade the presumptuous gallumphing leaps that Jack and Jill make toward them, in their friendly, but rude overtures. And when the dogs await their humans' decision to continue on with their ravine walks after standing about talking, they are still as statues. That stillness confuses and concerns Jackie. Efforts to entice the three to romp fail; their silent, still attitudes evoke confusion in Jackie's mind, and he slowly backs away from them, uttering plaintive little murmurings.

The 'fresh' cherries from Chile that we had for dessert last night following our main course of Halibut fillets in a crisp blanket of egg and seasoned Panko alongside sweet potato rounds baked in the oven, preceded by a fresh vegetable salad, did not in fact taste as wonderful as we hoped they would. So I thought the best thing to do with the rest of the cherries would be to use them as a topping with a little bit of cognac flavouring, for a cheesecake.

I always like to have cream cheese in the refrigerator. If it's flavoured with smoked salmon we enjoy it on toast for breakfast. If it's plain, it has many uses, among them cheesecake filling. Every few months or so I decide to bake a cheesecake, and this morning was the day. Starting out with a simple graham cracker crust, a mixture of crumbs, sugar and butter patted into the bottom of an oval baking pan, I partially bake the crust, then set about with the filling.

I thought of grating lemon rind for the cheesecake, then thought not because of the cherries and the cognac. So I used two 250-gram boxes of creamcheese, three eggs, a quarter-cup of sour cream, three-quarters cup of granulated sugar and pure vanilla extract (though I don't see anything wrong with artificial extract, actually) and beat it together until smooth, pouring it into the partially baked crust, then returning it to my trusty little countertop convection oven.

While that was baking I halved and pitted the cherries, mixed a tablespoon of cornstarch with a quarter-cup sugar and a third-cup cranberry juice, and simmered it all together until the cherries were al dente and the liquid thickened (then added cognac flavouring), to pour over the cheesecake once it had cooled.

We expect now that the cherries will be more to our taste.

It's always a pleasure to come across him. He's a large, bluff young man, courteous and helpfully good-natured. His profession seems a natural fit for him, as an local fireman. He laughed yesterday, telling us he's on 'vacation', since it almost seems to him as though he's working part-time. That, because he has four days 'off' this week. A result of working two back-to-back 24-hour shifts.

He always has with him not only his own two middling-sized terriers, the white one which used to be standoffish, the calico one that always greeted us with wild enthusiasm, and a neighbour's chocolate Lab. Yesterday that chocolate Lab, which had initially been fairly wildly obstreperous when our friend first began bringing him out for ravine walks, was wild with happiness, to be out there, in the ravine. Our fireman-friend admitted that he'd been somewhat lax, not having invited him with for several days previous to the present.

He'd had his furnace conk out on him earlier in the week and had been busy as well with other matters. One of his professional colleagues who used to repair furnaces for a living, had hied himself right over and saved him the bother and expense of a new furnace, by handily repairing the old one. We too, my husband told him, have the original furnace that had been installed in our house. As far as we know, all of our neighbours have had to replace their original furnaces. We'd been told the firebox in our model is known for its longevity. Let him know, said our friend, when we needed to change our furnace; his colleague would be glad to do the work required and wouldn't charge much.

This wasn't the first time this young man guided us to a preferred option. It was he last winter who described for us the animal hospital at Ogdensburg, New York, where we ended up taking Jack and Jill to be neutered and spayed using laser technique, at an affordable cost. The people at the clinic were obliging and kind, and we felt we'd placed our two puppies in skilled hands. Their online profile had been reassuring, and our experience with them indicated that the positive reviews were well deserved.

It's impossible to think of our friend as being anything but upbeat and good-natured. His natural response to anything anyone mentions, is agreement, perhaps topped up with his own opinion closely aligned to what you feel yourself. A more accommodatingly pleasant person would be hard to find. I've told him he looks different than he had a few years back, and he laughed when I said that months ago, telling me he attributed the difference to working out at the gym; he looks leaner, his face in particular.

Unsaid is the fact that he's no longer with his long-time partner. They had a parting of the ways almost a year ago, their mother told us in a rare encounter last summer, with great regret. So although he is in a profession which tends to result in close-knit, collegial relationships, it's hard for people when they're in long-term stable relationships to suddenly find themselves wondering where that stability went, leaving them bereft of intimate companionship, and lonely.

Our appointment was for two yesterday afternoon and that's when I entered the medical complex where our family doctor operates out of. Not to see him, but for his nurse to administer the anti-flu vaccine recommended each winter, particularly for the older demographic. The appointment was for both of us, and we planned to do as we have in the past; that I would go in first while my husband sat in the car with our two little dogs, then he would follow on my return after having received my shot.

Quite unlike previous such occasions I waited a half-hour in the reception room before I was called. I had explained that my husband would follow me in a few minutes' time. By the time I exited and went back to the car, my husband wasn't too enthralled with the prospect of himself waiting an additional half-hour on entry to the facility, and I persuaded him that he would not have to; the explanation for my wait was that the nurse had been deployed to assist the doctor with a patient.

So when he entered the complex and registered with his health card at the front desk and the receptionist chided him for his late entry, after the appointment date he was none too impressed. To which he responded tersely that his wife who had come along before the appointed time and had to wait a half-hour, hence his own late appearance. The receptionist had been informed by me when I'd registered that my husband would be along to follow once I'd exited. She's a young woman and has an air of detached superiority, itself grating to one's sensibilities.

My usually courteously-friendly husband had to repeat the explanation when he did see the nurse for his inoculation, who also observed that he was 'late' for his assigned appointment time. He had exasperatedly informed both the receptionist and the nurse that it was they who had erred in not maintaining the appointment time, not we. And that kind of set the tone for the rest of the afternoon.

When, shortly afterward, we went out for our ravine walk, we hadn't been out very long before we came across a fairly frantic Border collie. We tried to recognize which he was; one of the three that accompanied one of our ravine acquaintances, one of the two that were with an English couple we'd known for decades or one of two sometimes seen in the company of a friendly Scot. We thought, in any event, that the dog would soon locate its human, because it soon sped off again. And then several more times we came abreast of it, running back and forth.

By then we'd come across a young woman we know with the military who walks a large brindle part Lab, part boxer, and she and my husband deterred the border collie to find identification on one of its collar tags. She had her cellphone with her and dialled a telephone number but there was no response, so she left a message. We soon parted, and came across another ravine friend walking his white German shepherd, and he knew the identity of the dog by sight. It was indeed, one of the two belonging to the British couple whom we hadn't seen in years, and this dog was often lost, then retrieved. He was himself, he said, fed up by the cavalier attitude of the pair, leaving the dog to fend for itself, and eventually retrieving it.

My husband had the dog on leash by then, and it was happy enough to walk alongside us. Until we finally heard, faintly off in the distance, a calling voice, and we let him off leash. Before long we came across the woman whom we'd known whose husband with their previous two of the same breed used to take them out for competition in sheep-herding trials. And to her, my husband unleashed a tongue-lashing about their responsibility to ensure their dogs were in sight and not getting repeatedly lost, counting on the goodwill of others to help them locate their animals.

The sight of the frantic dog, running back and forth, overheated and distressed triggered an outpouring of vehement condemnation that no amount of hushing on my part could interrupt. Our acquaintance, taking the brunt of my husband's chastisement, said it wasn't very nice of him to berate her so, particularly during the approach of the Christmas season, and that they do the best they can; their dog simply insists on wandering off. She lingered in our direct vicinity, waiting to hear some indication that she wasn't such a horrible person, and I didn't mind at all, telling her that.

It was a gloomy, dark, windy and damp day. Yet because the temperature, at plus-3 was so moderate, we saw many people out on the trails yesterday, where often we will see none at all. Our two little dogs were delighted to see so many dogs about and made the most of the opportunity to test the patience of the larger dogs whom they recognize as potential playmates whose interest in them lasts a split-second.

My husband's ill humour gradually lifted and the rest of the day went far better. I made a quiche for dinner, using Gouda cheese instead of the usual Cheddar, and it, along with a fresh vegetable salad and persimmons for dessert, which made for a nice meal. Along with the shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate I'd baked after giving Jack and Jill haircuts earlier in the morning.

They're little guys, and nicely defined, but their haircoat grows so swiftly that it takes little time before they begin looking a trifle shaggy. Besides which, their hair grows in tufts between the pads of their little paws and because of our unseasonably mild weather and the constant rain, the clay base in the ravine has become thick with mud. At this time of year we've already usually generated a respectable snowpack over the frozen ground. Not this year.

Jackie left, Jillie on the right

So snipping the hair about their paws neatly helps to keep them clean, requiring just a quick pass with a soft, wet sponge to do the trick in the laundry room after entering the house from our ravine walk. Of course if I'm trimming their paws I've also got to trim their faces, and before I know it, I've once again given them complete haircuts. And they look pretty attractive with their newly groomed appearance. We know we have to appreciate it while it lasts.

And how long does it last? At least a day, perhaps two, three at the most.

Jackie's favourite 'bed' is top of the back of the sofa

Once the haircutting was done and they were released from the dreaded ritual they regained their usual devil-may-care attitudes. The grooming is not one of their favourite tactile experiences. But I have nothing to complain about. They are truly well-behaved throughout the process. On occasion they may feel they can escape before I'm completely finished, and I can't blame them for trying. But holding them firmly between my legs and using a variety of scissors, I'm able to manage every inch of their little bodies until I'm satisfied the work has been done well enough.

'Well enough' is the operative attitude here, and it's just as well I'm not a perfectionist.

Here's Jillie in her favourite bed