Night before last the sky was an astronomer's dream; cold and clear. A dark velvet blue prevailed, with stars and planets shining their glorious heavenly light down upon little old Earth. A bright moon, not the kind of day we would appreciate years ago when we used to enter the ravine for one of our daily walks at night, after the workday was over. For it was when the sky was completely clouded that the nighttime ravine would be illuminated in bright shades of pink or mauve.

It was the light from the inner city glancing off the clouds and returning to the landscape, unseen other than within the confines of the forested ravine, for some strange atmospheric reason familiar to astronomers but not such as we. There was so much light under those conditions, and particularly during the winter months with the added reflective properties of ground-covered snow, that we had perfect perspective, it was so clear to our vision.

That night before last had also the properties that make for cold to penetrate the atmosphere, and we had a good-old-fashioned 'winter's coming!' frost. We know when that happens, not only because the following morning the frost leaves its evidence on roofs, but because trees sensitive to frost like our two little caragenas, the two mulberries and the two magnolias on our relatively small property's gardens react with the kind of shock that impels their foliage to descend en masse.

So we had piles and piles of discarded leaves to rake up. But that was after we'd gone out for our daily ravine walk with Jackie and Jillie, all of us well bundled against the cold. The sun remained out throughout, the wind was light and the temperature rose to 3C. A pleasant walk it most certainly was, as all our such treks through the forest trails tend to be.

There had already been ample fallen leaves on the forest floor, not yet leaving the deciduous trees looking bare, but yesterday afternoon it was clear enough that as much that had descended prior to yesterday was added to in equal measure in one fell atmospheric swoop. And the newfallen foliage is mostly shades of blush and yellow, difficult to capture in photographs, but dazzling to our eyes.

We've a lot of poplars in this forest, and most of the maples turn not red but yellow similar to the poplars, though there are ample crimson-turning maples as well. Birch which also produce yellow leaves, have for the most part already shed their foliage. Oak leaves turn brown, and beech a burnt orange. The willows shed their slender leaves as green as they are in summer. Bass fail to produce colour.

Jackie and Jillie discover all manner of fascinating odours hidden in leafpiles, lingering long over them and snuffling into the piles as though there is some olfactory treasure there they cannot part with without their skilled communication interpretation. Messages, for the most part no doubt of other dogs passing through on their own forays into the forest. As we concluded yesterday's hike, trudging the last uphill clamber to the street we live on, we came across a tall, courtly man we'd never before seen.

He acquainted himself with Jackie and Jillie and when we pulled astern he told us he could hardly believe his eyes and his senses when he first discovered this forest a short while ago, in the midst of the community he has lived in for many years. But now that he had he meant to make the most of his proximity to it on a regular basis. Another nature lover, another pleased and grateful person for whom jaunts in the ravine will enhance the quality of life.