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.