It was a turn into a new year, another to add to the notches on our internal ring-growth somewhat like venerable tree stumps offering up their age and climatic experiences, along with the years when they throve because all conditions to do so were just right, and others when growth saw infinitesimally incremental advance resulting from adverse conditions.

Becoming aged; in our case, eighty years of age which is not, some wag noted with comically ironic understatement, for the faint of heart. Yet, we have had the good fortune to meet all of those years with confidence that each would offer up to us opportunities that we could make the most of, and we did.

Algonquin Park, 1956

Yesterday, the first day of the year 2017 was peaceful and pleasant. The youngest of our three children has been spending time with us before he flies back to Vancouver after a brief stop in Montreal for a conference. We enjoyed our usual leisurely meals together and as usual challenged each other to discussion over both trifles and deeper matters, some of which we agree upon and others where our opinions diverged, despite stemming from the solid position of shared fundamentals of philosophy.

Jordan, 1 January 2017

In the afternoon we shared with one another a brisk and beautiful ramble in the wooded ravine we access up the street from our home, coming across a sparse few other local residents who decided like us to touch in with nature after a copious snowfall of the day before.

I decided to make a moussaka casserole, which I'd never prepared before, as something a little different for us for our first evening meal of the new year. Accompanying it with a coleslaw salad I'd prepared earlier. I substituted ground lean chicken for traditional lamb, added some cumin seed to the other herbs and spices and the end result was extremely edible. Finishing off the meal with blueberries grown and picked and sent off to Canada from Peru.

In the evening, we played a game of Pictionary. Humbling me as usual by the crude nature of my drawing as compared to those both my husband and our son are capable of producing with ease and verisimilitude. It was, in short, a splendidly appreciated day to begin 2017.