As an organized creature of habit I had long ago, since retirement twenty years ago, set aside Mondays for house-cleaning. Understandably, it takes hours to complete the dusting, dry-mopping, floor-washing. And when it's done that's when we usually hie ourselves out to the ravine for an afternoon walk on forest trails with Jackie and Jillie. It's usually between three and four in the afternoon that we set out, returning an hour or more later.

But we've been assailed for weeks with unending days of rain, and yesterday was no different. Except that the window of opportunity yesterday was in the morning hours. So, setting aside other things, as soon as we finished breakfast we decided to make a run for it, as it were. The rain had temporarily halted. When I went upstairs to make up our bed before leaving, the bedroom had become very dark. As soon as we left the house, clad in raingear, we could see why; in that short period another eruption of rain had come down, but stopped as we emerged.

So off we went, hoping that the rain would hold off for the most part. At least not come down heavily again while we were out. As it happened, we took our time, and decided to go a little further on an elongated circuit, than what we'd first planned. As we made our way through the dusky forest the overhead clouds informed us we'd be lucky to get through the hike unscathed.

True enough, from time to time spitting light rain came down. We encountered a few others hikers out with their dogs, with the same intentions as ourselves; not many, but a few hardy souls. One we hadn't seen in a year who told us he could no longer negotiate the descents and ascents of the ravine because his knees were in such bad shape. He's a tall, very large man, his weight no doubt contributing to his joint aches. But he still valued time out in the woods even if circumstances confined him to the upper flats.

The beeches are still holding their own, despite the copious rain events and the high winds accompanying them. Still some fresh maple leaves to be seen in the piles of now-swiftly-deteriorating foliage deep on the forest floor, but it's the beeches that are now responsible for bright, insouciant splashes of colour that take our eyes' attention in their flamboyant defiance of the season.

Finally, as we neared the end of our middling-long circuit, rain accelerated, but still failed to soak either us or Jackie and Jillie. It was only on our return home that heavy rain settled in for the remainder of the day. And I became involved in cleaning the house. Once finished, I set about preparing a Shepherd's Pie for dinner, substituting chicken for beef, and decided on a pear-plum compote for dessert. Because I'd been unable to get spinach last time we shopped I'd acquired a baby spinach-kale combination and we had that with the pie. Good and warming on a wet, cold day.