Lingering abed seems the most sensible thing to do on such dark mornings you're certain you've awakened in the middle of the night, and just turn over, and a little internal clock kicks back, informing you that, no, it's time to get up, chum. My husband's clock is in better working condition than mine, murmuring lovingly in my ear, 'get up!', but I just ignored him. Too warm, too comfy, too entangled.

Jackie and Jillie soon set me straight; they'd had enough of snoozing and insisted it was breakfast time. For them, this morning, it meant an extra treat. Whenever my husband has soft-boiled eggs for breakfast, another egg is popped into the pot to be halved for them. So they know the routine, they get to eat their own breakfast and when my husband peels 'their' egg and chops it into their bowls, pandemonium breaks out.

 Their entitlements are their entitlements. Last evening we had stir-fried vegetables served over steamed rice, with soy-infused chicken scattered over. Our puppies are enamoured of everything we eat and demand their due. We don't feed them from the table, actually, but they know when we move from table over to the kitchen counter there may be some offerings. Yesterday they were comprised of bell pepper and chicken bits.

The stir-fry itself was made up of chopped onion, garlic, mushrooms, bell pepper, snap peas and bean sprouts. Steamed rice formed the base and I had steeped pieces of chicken breast in garlic, cornstarch, soy sauce and olive oil preparatory to quick-stir-frying it separately, to top the vegetables. Nice and warming and wholesomely good tasting; Jackie and Jillie agreed.

It's wintry out there. Blustery wind, cold, heavy overcast; Nature cast the die and it came up winter. Who are we to argue with winter? My husband set off after breakfast for a quick reconnoitre at Canadian Tire. They had advertised a new shipment of men's slippers at half-price. While there he meant to have a look at their winter-boot icers. We've worn our old Mountain Equipment Coop icers for decades, and they're well, worn. The studs have been replaced countless times, but the icers are tired.

And they're either too small or too big. But at Canadian Tire he found nothing to fit the bill. And I looked on-line later at the MEC offerings. We've a fairly good idea what we want, something that will secure at both toe and back of heel, which our current ones fail to do, accounting for their occasional displacement which is beyond irritating. It's become a mission to secure a reliable set of icers for each of us, since slogging through the snow and ice in the ravine has its winter-dangers; we've slipped and tumbled too often.

While my husband was out with his chore, I was busy with mine. Changing our bed linen over to reflect the need for greater comfort and warmth to match a winter need. I hadn't meant to make that change-over yet, thought it could wait until mid-November, but cold is cold, as convincing a reason as any to proceed. It's always a bit of a trick to properly insert a duvet into a duvet cover; takes patience and a certain skill. Eventually it gets done, and that's the signal for little dogs to take over ...

Our afternoon ravine walk was great, once we plunged our way into the ravine; the walk up the street to gain the ravine entrance was not particularly pleasant; cold and windy and starkly dark for mid-day. As usual, Jackie was his generally frantic self, veering off to the left to the right, standing to attention watching a pair of little red squirrels at play, listening to his sister's alerts that someone may be heading in their direction and to keep those barks going in a chorus of 'who goes there?!'