We've had successive nights of icy cold temperatures -- down to -10C last night after -6C for the previous two nights. It'll be cold again tonight, but we'll see that beautiful anomaly, a 'blue moon', a full, round, bright moon in a clear sky. This is, after all, a Halloween day like none other that we can ever recall; no children will be coming around to shriek 'trick or treat!' this evening, waiting to be handed a chocolate bar, politely thanking the giver, and floating off in a little crowd of other costumed children heading toward the next house on the street.

This city has been declared one of four 'red hot' COVID zones and residents have been asked to set aside conventional Halloween activities for this year. So it will be a quiet night. Strangely quiet. It's been a bright, sunny day, with light winds and since the  temperature ambitiously nudged up to 5C, a Saturday geared to finishing up the yardwork.  After breakfast my husband took down the curtained screens hanging from the metal deck canopy, our 'privacy screen' for our 'outdoor room'. And he began putting away the outdoor furniture.

I waited until we returned from our early afternoon ramble in the woods with Jackie and Jillie before heading out to the garden to complete the tidying and clean-up of vegetation in preparation for winter's onset. There's also so many things to be removed from the gardens and put into storage, ornamental things with status in the garden that can be removed and given shelter from the elements. Sundial, metal birdbath, garden standards, poured concrete 'animals' and other like things.

Last night we had our usual traditional Friday night meal, complemented by the Chelsea buns I'd baked earlier in the day for dessert. I had baked a large, plumper potato pudding than usual and it was unusually good. Instead of cauliflower that I usually prepare to accompany this particular meal, we had asparagus spears, alongside the breaded, seasoned chicken breast that had gone into the oven to share space and cooking time with the pudding. The Chelsea buns were the piece de resistance, and we couldn't resist; we ate fully half of the eight rolls. The cinnamon-chocolate-walnut-raisin-brown sugar-butter combination was truly irresistible wrapped into the sweet raised dough.

When we headed out to the ravine in the early afternoon we noticed that a family of young children down the street was hosting a Halloween party, about ten adults and a myriad of children running about, no distancing, everyone behaving as though we were living in normal times. It's puzzling, given the prominence of the alerts that local medical and government authorities have particularly asked that this not happen, given that gatherings of this kind have spurred an alarming rise in local cases of COVID.

In the forest, all was still. There, with the trees as screening shield, there was barely a stirring of wind, and with the reduced forest canopy the sun no longer struggles to filter through to the forest floor. During the summer, spring and fall months sunglasses aren't needed, there just isn't enough sun that glares through to illuminate the landscape sufficiently to require them. It's an entirely different story now, the sun so dazzling that without sunglasses it's difficult to see properly at times.

That same sun that challenges our eyes with the strength of its illuminating powers happens at the same time to cast its generous warmth wherever it penetrates, making the ambient air comfortable, removing the sting of the winter-like chill. Because it's a Saturday more people are about on the trails and we came across some old acquaintances, ending up standing around together and talking for periods of time that fail to tax Jackie's and Jillie's patience.

It's the rare tree now that continues to sport any of its leaves, resistant to the call of nature to release them for another winter. In the garden, last night's really hard frost persuaded the mulberry and the magnolia to say a final adieu to their foliage. Sweeping up the leaves on the walkway and patios was the final little task I undertook when I had completed my garden tidying up after our woodland hike. And I refrained once again from cutting back the little white carpet rose. Though I could hardly credit it, the rose had sent out more fresh-looking, perky little flower buds. So once again I've left it to flaunt its beauty with the intention of lopping off the delicate little canes before the snow flies in earnest.