By no means could yesterday qualify as a weather-pleasant day. Having plunged below -12C during the night, freezing temperatures greeted us in the morning. And while we did acquire a passing acquaintance with a peek-a-boo sun by afternoon, those intervals were of short duration  and infrequent, as much as they warm us psychologically when that sun emerges. Happily, though, for the duration of our traipse through the ravine the sun indulged us.

When we embarked on our daily ravine walk at Bilberry Creek Ravine forest, oddly enough the wind followed us, when it usually does not. That, added to the temperature unable to struggle above freezing meant that the trails that the week before were slowly succumbing to a warming atmosphere melting snow and ice and creating a slushy surface, turned hard and icy once again overnight.

So due care in proceeding was required. On my part, at any event; Jackie and Jillie are far less inclined to take care anywhere at any time, and they've been known to come a cropper, as a result. So it was cold, the wind was sharp and penetrating, and uphill clambers were pretty dicey, downhill no less so, but it was still a beautiful day, one when a pause now and again to look around garnered lovely still-lifes, the forest frozen still in winter, the forest floor a mixture of deeply-packed snow and areas where the sun had freed the soil and the woody detritus upon it to shout out 'look at me!', as we passed.

Unusually, we came across quite a few of our ravine-walking acquaintances, out with their companion dogs. Among them Benjie, the Bernese Mountain dog whose back-end resembles a teeter-totter whenever he comes across anyone, anxious to be noticed, petted, remarked upon, a good-natured clown. And then there were the two  Irish Setters, not of the same litter and years apart, the younger of which has a penchant for leaping up on people, and that's what he did with me, my good fortune he did so when I was on a level, non-icy perch.. And Dan with Charlie who had mastered the art of making friends and influencing people long before Benjie had.

Altogether a fine walk on the forest trails for Jackie and Jillie, coming across so many of their friends, affording them the opportunity to disport themselves happily, indulging in a doggy-appropriate level of competitive racing and wrestling.