All is well within our tight little family. We are fortunate indeed. This past week each of us, my husband and then it was my turn, made a yearly pilgrimage to our respective cardiologists at two different hospitals. It's two and a half years since my husband's open-heart surgery, bypass and mitral valve replacement. The diagnoses from tests taken is that everything is working well, and he feels that he has now recovered his full energy capacity post-surgery.

As for me, my doctor was concerned about arrhythmia, that I might need surgery or a defibrillator installed internally. This, resulting from several incidents last year of losing consciousness briefly with no discernible reason. Since then I've been put through an incredible battery of tests including an MRI none of which revealed an underlying cause, but I've never lost consciousness since. So, having interpreted all the test results, the cardiologist doesn't feel another visit to be warranted until a year-and-a-half hence.

That will give him ample time to recover himself from his impending open-heart surgery, a man whose work is so extremely stressful and whose body and mind have for too long been concentrated on the health of his patients, a man almost 30 years my junior. He takes great pains to explain to us every last little detail of precisely what is involved so we can be knowledgeable, my husband and me about what's going on with our own medical concerns. So we're 'free' for another year!

Yesterday, my husband was at our public library branch to return a few videos, and while there visited the 'friends of the library' cubicle, coming away with gifts for both of us. For him, arts and antiques picture catalogues and for me two books, one titled Seven Years in Tibet which I'd read reviews on several years ago, and another, Human Behaviour in the Concentration Camp which will inform me of the psychology of human beings under the most extreme of existential threats.

Little wonder we balance ourselves by seeking out nature daily, as we do. And yesterday was no exception. The weather has turned icy again, and the high for the afternoon was minus ten degrees Celcius. Which means that not only did Jackie and Jillie, our two little poodles, require the warmest of their coats, but also boots since their tiny feet cannot withstand such cold. On with the boots; we've discarded the large, cumbersome Muttlucks, since they were an abysmal failure, constantly falling off. Instead, we use tiny rubber bootees, almost as difficult to fit on as the former had been, but far more successful in protecting their tender little paws from ice and cold.

Surprisingly, despite the cold, where the wind made it seem even much intrusively colder, we came across a number of ravine-hiking acquaintances and their canine companions. Larger dogs with no obvious need of protection from the cold, particularly when they're able, with their humans, to trot along at a faster pace than we do now.

Despite the cold, it's refreshing to be out, and it's also unfailingly dependable as a means by which our busy minds can relax and simply melt into the natural landscape, giving us comfort and a sense of internal serenity. Feelings that everyone would do well to seek out by immersing themselves from time to time in natural surroundings wherever and whenever possible.