With just slight misgivings over whether we should leash our puppies for yesterday afternoon's ravine walk, for fear of their slipping again down one of the long descents leading to the flowing creek, we set off for a traipse through the forest pathways. And found, besides ourselves, no one else out. No doubt, we speculated, leery of the footing they'd find on the trails, and with good reason.

Everywhere the forest floor was humped with snow, but over that thick layering of accumulated snow was the slick ice that had resulted from ping-ponging weather events of plunging temperatures interspersed with snow, freezing rain and just rain in concert with temporarily rising temperatures. All of which made progress along the trails awkward, even though successive days of smashing through the ice had regained us our navigable trails left them in pretty bad shape.

Which was why Jackie and Jillie preferred to walk beside the tramped-down, but uneven and icy trails, picking their way complacently instead across the unbroken ice and occasionally venturing far too close to the lip of one of the hillsides, finding themselves in the inevitable dilemma of a slide they're unable to stop. Unless we call them back before they begin that dreaded slide.

The potential in this situation repeating itself after previous such occasions kept us calling to our little dogs to ensure they were reasonably close beside us at those points in our walk when they became vulnerable. There's a certain irritation factor built into that kind of event; they're not free to wander where they will, and we are strained to maintain closer contact with them to avoid any other troubling events from taking place.

Other than that, it was a glorious day, the sun full out under cloudless skies of winter blue. Making for some sensationally lovely micro-landscapes we viewed as we traipsed along. As shafts of sunlight lingered on trees, unhindered by foliage other than for the generosity of of evergreen boughs, those areas of the trees on which the light shone looked alive with a shimmering flame.

The luminous landscape was a treat for the eyes and made for a pleasant woodland hike for all of us. Before we finished our circuit for the day we did come across a pleasant young man with his large twelve-year-old golden retriever whose weight was sufficient to break the layer of ice over the forest floor. It was his human companion who was experiencing some difficulties in loping along the trail because he had left his cleats at home. We never remove ours from our winter hiking boots and it stands us in good stead.