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!