Yesterday? An utterly dreary (albeit rather rare in that respect) weather day. There was a robust argument up there between the cold, the wind and the moisture in the upper atmosphere; that crowd couldn't agree on what to deliver for the day. So we ended up with alternating snow and freezing rain throughout the day. And since the highest the thermometer nudged up to was 2C, and the forest canopy is much depleted, it didn't seem enticing one bit to haul ourselves out to the ravine for our usual forest trek.

Jackie and Jillie were in agreement. In fact, yesterday wasn't one of their best days. They generally moped about, poor little tots, not feeling at all well. Breakfast? No, thank you. Dinner? They took another pass. So they were, so to speak, feeling 'under the weather'. One of those days. We're convinced they wouldn't come down with these queasy-feeling days if they forbore from eating garbage while we're out with them on the trails. We haven't been able to convince them yet that foraging in the wild is no longer on their agenda as little house dogs accustomed to eating prepared canine fare, both that which we purchase and that which we prepare ourselves.

For me, there was ample to do in the house. Some cleaning, baking, cooking, writing, reading. And I inwardly celebrated that I had, the day before, planted those spring-blooming bulbs, for to do so in this kind of weather is somewhat less than appealing.

And as for my husband, he got around to dealing with the last painting we'd bought, a mid-seventeenth century oil of a young boy and his pet rabbit. It was not in very good shape. Both the canvas and the frame were somewhat the worse for wear. Which accounted in large part for its giveaway price. After thoroughly washing the face of the painting which is to say the entire canvas, and allowing it to dry, a cleaner, brighter painting emerged. It took my husband countless tries to match the colours where tiny tears in the canvas had presented themselves. Mixing hues to finally come out with the correct shade, each a triumph, and there were about twenty of such triumphs.

Now he's reconstructing the somewhat shattered ornamentation on the frame, building it back up to eventually resemble how it looked originally. The painting will eventually be re-varnished and the frame re-painted. And then we will hunt for a suitable place to hang what we feel is a delightful painting, somewhere in the house.

Today's weather? A tad warmer, if 4C can be considered warm, and almost as wet, but no snow, just rain, light at times; sufficiently so that we did get out for a shorter-than-normal turn in the forest. The blazing yellows, oranges and reds fallen from the trees made our trek through the the trails, thick with fallen leaves, a kaleidoscopic adventure dazzling our eyes.