Saturday's a day-off for us. Nothing much has to be done, everything's already been looked after; our day of rest. So we can do anything we like without a prompting of a little guilt-imp inside our heads. Or do nothing at all. Last night's meal preparations kind of sapped me of an interest in doing much in the kitchen today. Going to make a cream of asparagus soup and sandwiches for dinner tonight; that's it, with grapes for dessert.

The tortierre came out fine. I just didn't like it much, myself. I was happy, though, that my husband ate it and liked it and in fact ate more than he usually does for dinner. I was less enthusiastic. It was the thyme. For some odd reason the smell of thyme hasn't thrilled me one whit of late. I've always used it in cooking and liked it, but I no longer do. I had put a very small amount of thyme into the meat pie filling when I was cooking it, reasoning it would lend a bit of savoury appeal alongside the sage and onion and garlic, salt and pepper and the tiniest amount of cloves. All I could smell when I cut the pie was thyme; strangely sharp and sour.

As for the apple strudel, I was willing enough to make it when my husband suggested it, and it was in fact fun putting it together, but after I ate it for dessert last night, I recalled why it was that such a long time had passed since I'd last baked a strudel. Again, my husband ate his with gratifying enthusiasm, but I found it much less taste-intriguing than he did. Somehow, it lacked the baking virtuosity I recall in my aunt's version of the Vienna-inspired dessert treat. Well, that's life.

Truth is, I bake and I cook with my husband's taste in mind for the most part, and when he's pleased and given to eating and appreciating what's put before him at the dinner table, I feel fulfilled. There are certain things he dislikes that we also have in our diet and he usually makes an effort to eat them but without much enthusiasm; the list is long, but includes broccoli (he ate it in a stir-fry last week), avocado, green onion, cucumber, macaroni (yet he enjoys spaghetti), and so on. But he will eat cauliflower, asparagus, squash, and eggs in any form at all (with the odd exception of quiche, a favourite of mine}, so I have no (few) complaints.

Dawdling about this morning through the house I took a few photographs; sketches my husband produced 50 years ago of two of our children when they were young. Photographs of when we were young. Some of the artwork hanging on our walls. Jackie, following me about querying in his inimitable way when I would stop putzing about and get us all out for a stroll through the forest trails?

No point waiting for the day to warm up a bit. We've been plunged back into winter; -6C first thing this morning, after plus-4C yesterday, and teeming rain. Some light snow fell this morning, about two cm-worth which at least has covered the landscape with a bright, white coverlet on a windy, overcast day. I finished writing a long email to our granddaughter, my husband emerged from his workshop, and we hauled rubber boots over two little dogs' feet and set off.

The temperature was in fact, falling. When we set out it was -7C, and with the wind whipping about felt even colder. In the forest, sightlines now offer us light layers of snow over everything protruding from mother Earth. The creek at the bottom of the ravine is flush with two days of rain, running wide, muddy and noisily downstream heading for the Ottawa River. Jackie and Jillie are straining at the leash, serious about their employment as sled dogs with the mistaken idea that we're sleds.

It's Boxing Day. People are at home, released from two days of unrelenting rain, anxious to get out with their children, young ones still at home, and older ones visiting for the weekend. For quite a while we see no one else out on the trails and the outing is as usual, a super-pleasant perambulation through newly-snowed trails, the forest floor nicely bright with white despite the heavy overcast. And then our elevation changes as we clamber uphill and then uphill again to reach the forest plateau.

There, on a network of trails, people are out, released from home interiors into the wide open spaces of the out-of-doors, breathing the fresh air accentuated by frigid temperatures so everyone is well bundled against the cold, many walking their companion dogs, others walking their house companions. Everyone without exception seems happy and contented with life, among them perhaps some who have been personally touched by loss or illness due to COVID.

When we're on the home stretch of our circuit after an hour's striding through the trails, my fingers through my thick, double-walled mittens begin to freeze. Thre are areas on the trails that are ice-slick and require some careful manoeuvring around. Jackie and Jillie seem impervious to the cold, their little legs pumping purposefully like pistons, their tiny orange boots keeping rhythm with the cadence of their trot. Such tiny creatures, yet such strength, both of purpose and physical, in hauling us through the trails....