Truly, I had nothing whatever to do with it, though thoughts of sabotage occasionally have flickered through my mind. And I must admit that when my husband informed me yesterday that his bread maker was kaput, I didn't at all mind, offering to bake a bread by hand, instead. He enjoys making bread with that machine. I don't have much regard for it, myself. He'd mentioned he planned to bake a fresh egg loaf for dinner, which was when I suggested I do it, instead.

He demurred, he is always so gung-ho about experimenting with that bread machine. And then he discovered that something had happened to the screw that holds the paddle in place. It was no longer in a fixed position, but loose and useless. His face grew dark, mine brightened, and I said, never fear, mother is here.

So I set about assembling the ingredients required and in no time at all put together a bread dough for the very kind of bread he was hankering to bake himself. I prepared the dough to rise, and we prepared Jackie and Jillie for an afternoon walk in the forest.

A cold day at -10C, with a blustery wind, but a wide open sky and a brilliant sun, so off we set. It didn't appear to us that it was any colder than the day before when it was -4C, but accompanied by an even worse wind. That changed as we got closer to the conclusion of our circuit yesterday, when the wind really began making headway through our winter jackets, and several sweaters layered underneath.

Jackie and Jillie were layered with winter jackets and sweaters too, along with their boots and they didn't appear to be suffering any cold; it seems to invigorate them, particularly when there's new snow, not yet tramped down on the trails. We saw a few other people out with their dogs, and that's the thing about dogs, they all adore the snow. One shaggy-coated large black fellow we're familiar with and came across yesterday was literally digging himself into the snowbanks, in an ecstasy of pleasure. Jackie has been known to thrust his little maw into snow, but that's about as far as he'll commit, sensibly enough.

First thing we do on arrival back home is get those boots off their little feet, in fear of their being too constrictive. Then off come the layers of clothing, and they're free of constraints. They usually head directly for the refrigerator. Awaiting their lettuce leaf, a leaf that just about as large as they are which they're eager to devour. How strange is that?

And I set about punching down the dough, determining that there was a tad too much for one loaf pan, so made a smaller one to take up the extra, let them rise, and then baked them. And so, there was fresh bread for the dinner table.

And the bread machine? It's fixed. Irving went directly down to his workshop, where he has assembled all manner of bits and pieces and parts of things with the expectation that one day they'd all come in handy. Well, something did on this occasion as it invariably does on so many others. The bread machine is now once again operational. Sigh.