Yesterday it was cold and damp but not windy. Oh, and much of the day saw snow flurries, so when we were out in the ravine with Jackie and Jillie it was constantly flurrying. There was a substantial build-up of new snow, since we also had snow falling throughout the night before. And when our two little imps have wet(tish) feet they become overtaken by a spirit of exuberant mischief, so they were racing about happily after one another for the first quarter of our ramble in the woods.

Jackie in particular gets so excited he covers a lot of ground, quickly and repeatedly. Jillie crouches in expectation of his swift return when they execute a double pirouette and start all over again. Sometimes a fleeting boxing match ensues and I'm never quick enough to catch the action in progress. When they were puppies and outside in the swirling snow they would constantly run about frenetically after one another and then, when they'd stop they'd rise on their two back feet and pummel one another like kangaroos; quite the show.

Usually when we return from a ravine walk and they're back at home they'll engage in one of those races, stop briefly for a boxing match, try to outmanoeuvre one another, with Jackie providing commentary. It's more than a little amusing.

We'd had to hurry through our walk yesterday because there was so much to be done at home. My husband busied himself removing all the moulding around our six-foot-wide patio doors; both the moulding that was placed originally around the doors when the house was built, and the deeper mouldings my husband prefers throughout the house that he applied himself. It took awhile. He also had to shovel the walkways from accumulated snow.

We had to do the food shopping and get that out of the way, all of which takes time and energy. This morning he was up at 6:30 a.m. to shovel again, in preparation for the arrival of a replacement of our patio doors. The track is worn beyond redemption; replacing the wheels would be only temporary. Over the three decades that we've owned our home the doors would have to be adjusted from time to time but my husband discovered several months back that the adjustments he could make no longer worked. Thereafter it took a monumental physical effort to move the doors for ingress and egress.

We then made arrangement for their replacement. Only to discover that it would take months for that to happen. And so we waited, and each time we went out to the back we'd have to leave the sliding door slightly agape, since it was impossible to slide them open from the outside. Today turned out to be colder than yesterday, with a -6C reading, more flurries and a blustery wind exacerbating the cold. And of course in these conditions with no doors in place while the two men replacing them are working on installing the new ones, the wind and the icy temperatures have blasted through the house. Not nice.

Given the hours of work it takes two men to do the task, my husband who had thought of doing the work himself has been spared a physical task that is now beyond his 82 years. He made a pot of coffee, I made grilled cheese sandwiches, and the two tall, sturdily-built men who arrived to do the work are in good spirits. It's hard, detailed work to disassemble the original framing for the doors, to enable installation of the replacement. But it will be a relief to be able to use the doors normally.

Yesterday, before we concluded our ravine walk we came across a couple walking a golden retriever none of whom we'd ever seen before. The man, with long blond hair falling over his back and the sides of his face truly did resemble the dog. The pair were as jolly as their dog. And the woman was wearing floppy boots with floppier black pom-poms dangling from them that intrigued Jackie and Jillie no end, to the extent their fascination inclined them to follow the boots as they made their way past us.