This is the first time I can recall being a virtual prisoner in my home on the occasion of my birthday. It is, of course, solely voluntary. On other, earlier years of my birth date weather played no part whatever in deciding what we would do in winter to exercise and amuse ourselves. Venturing out into a woodland setting to enjoy the winter atmosphere was always our choice and we pursued it. Not necessarily without also doing other things, but celebrating winter was integral to our living in a climate in which winter is an emphatic presence.

This winter, during the time of my birthday, my 81st birthday that also coincides with the universal celebrations for Christmas and of New Year's, outdoor activities are writ large in the leisure activity schedule of many people, and certainly it always has been for us. This, however, has been an unusual week, one of widespread polar Arctic cold carried over a wide geographic area in North America following an unusual amount of snowfall also for this early part of the winter season.

Our youngest son is spending time with us, my husband, our two little dogs and me. The weather he has become accustomed to in Vancouver is nowhere near as dramatically extreme as it is in Ottawa. He, however, seeks out his own lifestyle adventures by venturing into the mountains to ski and to hike; even there, ascending the mountains, the atmosphere doesn't tend to reach the frigid icy temperatures we have in eastern Canada. Here, extreme cold carries with it moist conditions that exacerbate the cold. In next-door Alberta and in Saskatchewan and Manitoba though, the temperatures do drop just as they do in the Northern Territories and in the Canadian Arctic.

Yesterday, late afternoon, our son went out skiing in the forested ravine that we have voluntarily shut ourselves out of for the last several days. We'll venture back in there and resume our normal daily hikes in the forest as soon as the temperature no longer sinks to a daytime high of minus-17C, with wind that cuts right through you.

My husband busied himself in seclusion for hours creating a birthday card for me. That too has become a tradition. When our three children were young their father made them amusing birthday cards. Mine this year was a reflection of our garden. A sketch of part of the garden and bright watercolours to bring out the focal points, the garden's architecture, a hint of its texture and coloured hues of the many perennials and annuals that grace it. Needless to say the garden today bears little resemblance to its vibrant summer presence.

I could become accustomed to being indoors for such long periods, but I prefer not to. We both feel that something critical is missing from the day when we can't spend at least an hour in the woods on the trails. When our little dogs lose their boots from their ecstatic leaps and bounds and scampering on and off the snowbound trails, we've got to stop and restore them lest their tiny feet freeze. I can imagine they feel as bound up as we do in layers of clothing to retain body heat, wearing sweater, coat and harness. In the backyard, during this weather, they're good for a good brief romp and then their feet freeze up.

Yesterday, in a nod to the season, my birthday and the freezing temperatures, I baked a lattice-top mincemeat pie, put on a chicken soup to cook and matzo dumplings, roasted turkey breast, roasted cauliflower, and made up a potato pudding for a robust, stomach-filling, chest-warming dinner we all enjoyed.

In the evening we watched a film that gave rise to a good, lengthy discussion between us afterward. A French film with English subtitles, The Measure of a Man, wasn't quite entertaining in the sense of the meaning, but it was a good and timely reminder of the era we live in and the accommodations we are sometimes forced to make to sustain ourselves. As much a reminder of the unknowns about the personal lives of other people and their heroic efforts to live normal lives, as it is in essence, a nudge at our universal values and priorities in human relations.