When we came down for breakfast yesterday and looked out the front door, a winter wonderland revealed itself. Much, much earlier in the morning my husband had roused himself to go out to the backyard and shovel snow from the deck and the backyard walks so our two little dogs wouldn't have to struggle through the accumulation when they went out after their long night's sleep. So he was well aware of what everything looked like. He had come back up to bed to sleep for another hour before we finally roused ourselves.

Yesterday was the occasion of his 81st birthday, and he is now as old as I am. As it happened, since the snow continued all day, it kept accumulating and he was called upon to shovel now and again until post-dinnertime when he went out before we went up to bed to do the last of the shovelling, including the front walk and porch. For the last two years we've had the services of a local driveway clearing company so that, at least is well done without my husband's efforts.

In the afternoon we reasoned that since it was a Sunday there would be other people out in the ravine walking the forest trails which meant that we wouldn't be breaking trail necessarily. It was so mild, hovering on 1C with little wind to speak of, we didn't want to miss our daily woodland ramble, so off we set, no boots on Jackie and Jillie, just their lighter winter coats. And we found the trails had been broken more than adequately, so we weren't dragged down by too much snow on the major trails.

It was worse walking through the depths of snow that had accumulated on the street which hadn't yet been plowed, to get to the ravine trailhead, and the trail from our street into the ravine, but we managed to manage, and were the better for it. The sight of the forest smothered in snow is one not to be missed. It is overwhelmingly beautiful, mysterious and inviting, and we were more than happy to accept that gracious invitation.

Later, we collaborated on dinner. I made a split-pea soup; we had with it a small vegetable salad, smoked salmon and cheese, and my husband made up a delicious batch of vanilla ice cream for dessert.

He has a new book to read; our oldest son had sent a biography of the art historian Sir Kenneth Clark. Earlier he'd had a long conversation first with our granddaughter who had called in the morning and whose third-year university classes are going well, she said. Our daughter called later on, and our younger son in the evening. It was, overall, a very good day.