It was an unusual start to the day for New Year's Eve. Jackie and Jillie had their breakfast, but we didn't. We decided to wait until 'after'. After would be when we returned home. We had an appointment, a month in the making, for our COVID booster. The person to whom we spoke a month ago couldn't accommodate us closer to home, so we had a longish drive to our destination. A year ago when the first doses were being given, the elderly were prioritized. Now the priority is to vaccine all children in Canada from age five to 12 with partial doses of Pfizer.

 

The young woman whose desk we were directed to was utterly charming. She took all our health card particulars then told us we wouldn't be receiving Pfizer, it was being kept aside for children this time around. Our previous two doses were both Pfizer. Moderna, it would be this time around, like it or not. She was Chinese, a petite, pretty woman with the loveliest, kindest eyes imaginable. And she was a medical doctor. She expertly squeezed the skin together into a thick lump and inserted the needle into our deltoid muscle. And we felt nothing, not the merest whisper of a prick from the hypodermic needle.

We had been directed to an area intermediate school, quite a distance from home. A very large, sprawling, red brick building whose interior was absolutely labyrinthine. There were attendants everywhere directing us down long winding corridors that finally ended up in a huge gymnasium after we had been checked in at a number of initial entry desks. The gym was full of tables, chairs, and people awaiting attention, but it was so large there were wide distances between everyone.

There were people of all ages waiting to be attended to. Parents with their children. Mostly very young children. After we had received our dose and waited briefly before leaving, we heard a child emit a long piercing scream, repeating it over and over and over again. People kept their children close to them; no roaming about as children are wont to do, interested in inspecting everything. Everyone was patient, from the attendants to the people awaiting service. Very Canadian.

We'd had to wait briefly in our parked care, until ten minutes to our appointment time. And then we waited outside the doors of the building for another while in the damp morning cold. Several times vehicles stopped close to the entrance, and door attendants responded with wheel chairs when infirm elderly people arrived. They too waited briefly in line, joined by others of their families. By the time we left the parking lot, a spillover lot that had only a half-dozen cars parked in it, it was completely full.

Jackie and Jillie greeted us like long-lost travellers. We felt like long-lost travellers. Finally we had breakfast and I cooked a scrambled egg for the puppies as an extra treat. Then began my Friday morning baking/cooking routine. Decided on an all-berry pie for dessert for tonight. And turkey thighs braised in a thick chicken gravy, with parsnips.

Today, another  heavily overcast day, but mild at -1C, and no wind. We discovered that New Year's Eve must have suggested nostalgic memories of childhood to area residents, and we saw a number of families out with their children and toboggans. Conditions on the hills fairly good for sledding. And for the first time Jackie and Jillie witnessed the peculiar sight of children dressed in colourful winter clothing whizzing down hills. And they thought they'd join them. We managed to convince them otherwise, but it wasn't easy.

We all enjoyed, as usual, a nice brisk hike through the forest trails. There are times when the landscape looks a bit surreal. Particularly when early dusk descends, as it does now regularly shortly after 3:30 pm. As for our New Year's plans to bring in 2022, we'll put on the fireplace, get good and comfortable and read to our hearts' content.

From the time we were children together, just into our teens, books were always an important part of our lives. We'd go together to municipal library branches in walking distance. We would discuss book contents. We would read many of the same books. Eventually, still 'children', at the age of 18 when we married, we joined a book-of-the-month club where monthly we'd be sent a handful of books through the mail, return those of no interest and pay a nominal $1 each for those kept. There were few returned, and we barely managed to pay for the books. At that time $2,500 represented a year's salary.

Since the coronavirus erupted and interrupted all phases of human existence we haven't returned to our local public library. But over the years in 67 years of marriage we acquired books and have a sizeable collection of those we couldn't bear to part with. A few years ago Irving collected hundreds and hundreds of paperbacks off our library shelves, boxed them, and delivered them to our local Salvation Army second-hand store. That thinned the number of books, but ample numbers remained.

Many of which neither of us has yet read, but fully intend to. Bit by bit we get around to reading, and in some instances, re-reading books of all kinds from biographies, histories, novels, travel books, autobiographies, adventure stories. Among the publications we amassed over the years is a collection of hard-covered Harper's magazines, compiled year-by-year. Occasionally, Irving likes to go through them. The print size is too much of a struggle for me.

There are many fascinating stories, reports, autobiographical accounts in these collections dating from the mid-1800s onward. Stories that were current to their day, but now regarded as 'ancient' history.  Accounts of what was common in society of the time that may clang in our ears now, or arouse amazement because though well over a century has passed, some things appear current and others incredibly prescient. 

There is little that is more comfortably satisfying than thumbing through literature in front of a warming fireplace on cold winter days. Fascinating articles that capture the imagination and fire thought processes then become topics of lively conversations. But we do eventually break ourselves away from the warmth of the fireplace and the fascination of the books to take to the out-of-doors daily with our two little dogs.

It's been heavily overcast all day today, yet another dark, damp winter day. Leaving the house at three to set out for our hike through the forest trails, usually means we'll be back home by five. Around half-past three, we're aware that dusk is on the cusp of entering the landscape, and a half hour later a veil of grey is full established. Brightened considerably by the snow-packed forest floor.

The landscape is actually like a winter sandwich; above is the top layer of silvery white, below the bottom layer, and all that lives moves about between. On the upper reaches of the ravined forest we can often see in the distance the orange glow of the sun beyond the cloud cover, settling on the horizon. It's a difficult glow to capture with a camera, though the camera of our eyes experience no difficulty.

It's long been a tradition on my birthday that Irving will hunker down at the last moment as it were to storm up a birthday card for me. I've got years' worth of those birthday cards, usually large colourful cartoons of a quite personal nature, all of them stored away in a chest. When the children were young their father made cards for their birthdays as well, mostly jolly jokes poking fun here and there.

Usually we trudge up to bed after midnight. So by that time the year has turned -- yesterday from 84 to 85 -- though I hardly felt a year older; a day older, at the very most. The bed will be turned down, and there on my night table, propped up against a framed photograph of him and me taken many years ago on a bridge leading out from a forest trail in Tennessee, the new card will be awaiting my discovery.

He usually gets me a piece of jewellery for my birthday. I've so many bracelets, watches and necklaces it's downright indecent, and I don't want any more. In fact I don't want any more of anything, aside from more years we can share together. Social isolation and the need to ensure we are not overly exposed has meant the last few years no opportunity has presented for him to be out shopping for an unwanted gift. He's slowly getting used to the idea.

When our granddaughter called this morning she wanted to know, among other things, what I was given for my birthday. Love, I said. Usually early morning calls means offshore calls with someone at the other hand offering us the opportunity to get our house ducts cleaned out. It's infinitely more pleasant to speak with our daughter and granddaughter.

It's been a slow, low-key, comfortable day. Not too cold out, with an afternoon high of -3C. We had about an hour of sun before an impenetrable shield of pewter clouds took possession of the sky. In no hurry to get ourselves out to the ravine for the day's hike, we eventually did break away from the house to enter the forest.

Jackie and Jillie are so spoiled now, being offered little cookie treats while we're out on the trails, they have identified two areas where they must be accommodated at once. Just as we begin our day's foray through the forest, and a mere hundred yards on. From then on to the final stages of our ramble through the woods no additional treats will be meted out -- unless and until we come across other dogs who ask for treats and then it'll be treats all around.

No such occasion presented itself today. But they had shared a chopped-up hard-boiled egg after they'd devoured their breakfast this morning and they were missing nothing. And when we return from our daily hike they always get a little bowl of fresh-cut vegetables to tide them over to dinnertime.

Today there was a narrow timespan between their afternoon snack and dinner. We arrived back home just before five. We'd left the house just shortly after three, but dawdled along the forest pathways, stopping now and again to chat with friends. At half-past three we were already aware that dusk was closing in and it followed us closely, becoming ever more dark as we progressed. 

By the time we were ready to leave the forest, dark had descended. The bright white forest floor and the white overcast gave us ample light, but we were very aware that this was the time of early evening when coyotes tend to emerge, so we kept urging Jackie and Jillie to remain by our sides, somewhat reluctant to leash them until we'd reach street level. 

 

First it was my daughter some years back, to my disbelief, telling me she was suffering from chilblains. I couldn't believe it. I remember in the dim and distant past reading books about poverty stricken people in Britain in the 19th century and chilblains was a common affliction during the winter months. It was true, she was diagnosed with them, and I felt so badly for her. A year ago I first had my own encounter with the malaise. Not pleasant. And this year discrete areas of my hands/fingers erupt in small red, angry patches that become painful cuts. I imagine my exposure to cold through our ravine hikes and my constant hand-immersion in water doing household chores in the winter has gifted me with them. There are worse things.

 

 

Yesterday Irving got a little sentimental. I had gone downstairs to the basement, with Jackie and Jillie traipsing after me, and he was there, at one of the bookshelves, looking through old poetry journals and chapbooks, re-reading some of my old published poetry. He found them, he said, extremely well expressed, very personal, and thought I was a great writer. Occasionally he says things like that. And bemoans the fact that I no longer send out any of my poetry for publication consideration. I just don't.

 

 

Partly because I can't bother, partly because I publish them myself, on line. Every day. Because I tend for the most part to feel inclined through a sudden burst of inspiration to write a poem. Every day. I derive great satisfaction from it, and it seems like an indulgence to my feverish muse. Writing, it must be said, has always been a passion for me. Just as reading has been. They go well together.

 

 

I should know, I've been flirting with both for long enough. Considering that when I was a child my parents, too poor to buy me toys, did procure the occasional book for me and eventually introduced me to the children's section of a local public library. That was a long, long time ago. Today I've passed a milestone of some kind. For another day, I'm 84 years and 11 months, 364 days of age. I've had ample practise.

 

 

Today also, we hied ourselves and our two officious little overseers out to the ravine for a long hike through forest trails. The day began with light snow that briefly turned heavy, then petered out. And the sun came out to cast its brilliance across the newfallen coverlet. But by the time we felt like leaving the house for the ravine, banks of silvery clouds had obscured the sun, though no more snow fell. 

 

No wind, -3C, but damp, so it felt cold. But we were all well dressed for the cold and trundled ourselves down into the ravine, Jackie and Jillie racing well before us, as usual. The water in the creek was low, and it was dark. We could see where several dogs had gone in for a dip in the frigid water, leaving a trail of dense, dark drops when they emerged. The water in fact looked pretty dense with floating detritus and long-haired dogs carry it out with them, shaking off the excess, and carrying the rest along with them as it gradually dissipates, leaving an easily-read trail behind.

 

Jackie and Jillie have never expressed any curiosity about the creek or any wish to enter it for which we're grateful. The creek is essentially treated as a storm run-off for the municipality and there's little doubt it also contains run-off from nearby farm fields, best avoided for optimum health. There are days when it seems a little physically arduous to clamber uphill to reach the forest's main trails on the spine of the ravine, but today wasn't one of them. So we agreed to continue on for a longer hike, since we had decided yesterday to forego our usual daily outing.

 

There were plenty of people from the wider community with the same thought in mind. We must have come across at least twenty, twenty-five other hikers. Some so grim-faced one has the impression they believe the forest floor would crack into a wide crevasse and swallow them as punishment for smiling. Or even acknowledging a friendly greeting.

Meeting up with someone we know, and our puppies given the opportunity to run about a bit with someone else's dog they're familiar with, is compensation, however. When we returned home I told Irving I felt like staying out a bit longer, and I'd shovel the porch and walkway. He knows how much I enjoy doing that; it's actually exhilarating for me. While I was at it, I decided to shovel the walks in the backyard, and when I finished that, I did the driveway. Not much snow, likely no more than 4cm, but it was amenable to being shovelled away.

Just as well we took a prolonged circuit through the forest trails yesterday afternoon, giving ourselves a really good airing on a perfect winter day. There was no dampness in the air, it was -3C, and though there was wind, it  howled high above through the forest canopy. A day so perfect that many others in the community came streaming out to enjoy the day with the bonus of a forest landscape enveloping us all. 

After we returned home from our forest idyll the temperature kept falling. Until it hit -15C overnight. By morning it was back up to -10C, inconsiderable wind, but damp, heralding snow at some point during the day. When Jackie and Jillie go out to the backyard, they focus now at the very back, centre of the fence where we leave carrots out for the rabbit. We're relieved they're not interested in the rabbit droppings.

Slate-back juncos, chickadees, crows, cardinals and even a bluejay were busy on the porch today. The chickadees don't mind sharing space with the squirrels but the other birds are incredibly flighty; as soon as they sense a shadow hovering nearby they instantly take flight. A contrast to one of the black squirrels who doesn't even bother moving aside off the porch when I shake out one of my dusters.

Well, today was our weekly house deep-cleaning. And I dawdled about between fits of attention to  the job at hand. By the time I finished washing the floors and changed from my work clothes it was quarter to four, the time of the afternoon when dusk quickly enters. And the temperature hadn't nudged up past -8C. So we decided to forego a hike through the forest this afternoon. 

The later hour as it were -- any time after four -- with impending darkness in the forest interior along with the damp cold persuaded us we could miss one day. Sharp in our memory was the two red-on-white scenes we came across on separate trails yesterday. This was no mere signal of a dog having split his paw on the icy surface of the trails, it was the signature of predator carnage. From the amount of blood scattered on the hard snow surface, it must have been a squirrel caught, we imagine, by a coyote.

Someone has pinned up coyote warnings again on the trees at several junctures along the trail system. We will avoid taking Jackie and Jillie out to the woods when natural light is fading, until spring arrives. Yesterday, by the time we wound up our circuit, to ascend to street level, we looked back at one point in the dim light behind us and saw in the distance that another hiker was wearing a head lamp, its brightness piercing the semi-opaque grey of dusk.

Painting of our younger son at a lookout in the Gatineau Hills, Quebec

Whoever he was, he might not be aware that with the dense pewter cloud cover of yesterday when the dark of night fell the ravine would be flooded with a bright, shimmering apricot light, clear enough to give absolute perspective. It's the effect of the overall snow cover and the faroff city night lights reflecting off the clouds and bouncing back down into the forest landscape. An effect that cannot be seen at street level, or even hinted at from the street looking toward the forest. You've got to be right in there.

So we tootled around the house for the time we usually spend out-of-doors. I took a few photographs of paintings that Irving had done decades ago, in the first few years of his retirement; that's almost thirty years ago. He left painting to devote himself to making stained glass windows instead. Jackie and Jillie followed me about. They even followed me downstairs to the basement where they rarely, if ever, venture. 

Spoke with my sister yesterday. Seems there's not much to discuss lately but gloomy events. The grimmest is that though she's four years younger than me, she isn't in the best of health. Something is always going awry with her. She needs to check in with her general practitioner for one thing or another, be referred to specialists, given prescriptions that don't really make any difference. Her husband prepares most of their meals, he does the cleaning in the condo they moved into a few years ago. Before that, he did most of the cleaning in their house.

She has been 'reading' via talking books for years since she's also legally blind. She used to be an enthusiastic walker, and a dedicated social dancer; any kind of dancing, she loved it. Now she rarely leaves the house. It's too painful for her to get about, so she seldom accompanies her husband to do the grocery shopping. Our conversations aren't gloomy, though, they're always lively and full of laughs. Tomorrow is her 81st birthday. Last year she told me she was astonished that she'd made it to 80.

I received a birthday card in the mail from her yesterday. Our birthdays are only two days apart, but four years' distanced. We each had three children, me two boys and a girl. Her the reverse. So there's always the children to talk about, even though mine are quite a bit older, in their 60s. Two of her children live in Toronto so she sees them often. 

Had it not been for the new Omicron COVID variant we would be enjoying the company of our younger son who had planned on arriving here Christmas Day. When Omicron entered the picture our plans changed, and now we look forward to spring when we can be together again; he's a long way off, in Vancouver. 

So Irving and I have to make do with our little canine family to be together with. And together we went out this afternoon on a heavily overcast and windy Boxing Day. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day saw relatively few people enjoying the winter woods, but today it was quite different; we came across scads of people, mostly with dogs, enjoying a beautiful winter day in the woods.

The wind was present, swaying tree tops of the forest canopy, but not making its presence known at ground level and since it was relatively mild at -3C, and the trails were in excellent condition, it all made for a pleasant few hours dawdling through the forest. Jackie and Jillie had plenty of company now and again as we passed or met up with any number of various breeds of dogs from Labs, to Bernese Mountain, to terriers and Australian Shepherds.

No better way to relax the mind than in a serene winter landscape, while simultaneously exercising one's limbs. At the very same time it's often a social occasion when people who know one another, know their backgrounds, know the troubling aspects of their day-to-day lives, meet and are drawn deep into sympathetic conversations.

 

Although today turned out overcast and the house sits in a kind of perpetual gloom with so little light penetrating, all we have to do is look at one of the house windows to feel an appreciable lift of mood. The windows look back at us in gleaming colours -- if anything, enhanced by the ill temper of the outside environment. When it's a bright sunny day the gleam of spectacular colour from those windows is eye-overwhelming, but the eye is caressed by the soft glow emanating from the windows on such overcast days.

 

 

We have flowers and exotic vegetation, birds of many descriptions on the windows, frozen in time and place warming our views of the day. Irving painstakingly over the years designed every one of those windows, built them of stained glass and installed them, one after another. The view from our house through those windows is unchanging and glorious, bright colour and form and texture to captivate our attention in an arrest of motion and time.

 

 

Regardless of the time of day, the weather, the seasons, those windows always have something to say to us. As mute companions go they do a very good job of comforting us with the warmth and glow of their presence. They convey heat in the winter months that warms the house when the sun is blazing,  And in the summer months they're  put to sleep with a shimmering layer of sheers softening the colours to a pastel shade and restraining the communication of heat.

 

Each of the windows has a personality of its own; landscapes familiar and landscapes imagined. When he ran out of windows, Irving built doors or window shutters  to hold stained glass inserts. The house is a kaleidoscope of living colour.

Conversely, the out-of-doors has been transformed from its summer guise of manifold colour schemes to a monochromatic theme on white-and-black as winter descended and frigid air, boisterous winds and cloud systems carrying copious amounts of frozen water falling as snow and ice banished colour and invited stark black and white to dominate.

 

Usually, on public holidays the ravine we visit daily becomes a gathering place for the community where family guests are ushered into the forest in a brief exposure to the natural forest that runs through the geology of the area. Last winter the forest trails were full of people from the community and further afield who had never before entered the forest but were so fatigued by boredom brought about by instructions to physically isolate at this time of the global pandemic they would do anything for fresh air, exercise and a change of scenery.

 

Today, the trails were mostly absent others besides ourselves, though we did encounter a handful of people here and there with their companion dogs. Jackie and Jillie have this fanciful notion that they are the proprietors of the forest and only those given prior consent by them may enter their kingdom. Today they met an Akita, unassuming and friendly and happy to be companioned by them.

 

Something different caught my eye in the seafood section when we were shopping on Tuesday. Greenshell mussels from New Zealand. I thought they would make an interesting addition to fish chowder. But yesterday, musing about the evening menu I thought why not paella? I hadn't made it in ages and yesterday was as good a time as any. I had all the necessary ingredients; rice, saffron, onions, garlic, chicken, fish, tomatoes, bell peppers...so why not?

The first time I ever had paella was when Irving took me to a restaurant, I think in Shinjuku district, called Almond. Downstairs it was a cafe, upstairs a restaurant. And there we ordered paella. Irving had eaten paella before, in Vancouver, but I wasn't with him then, it was a business affair. I thought the meal in Tokyo was superb; imagine in Japan a classic Spanish dish. But in Tokyo cuisine reflects special dishes from all over the world; we ate Indian food there, too along with Japanese classics while living there and I cooked a lot of Japanese-type meals.

And last night's paella satisfied us immensely. Don't eat too much Irving cautioned me. He rarely tends to, but I often do. And last night I did, though suffered no ill effects afterward. All that nutritious goodness and sensational taste, how could I?! 

And though it doesn't seem quite right when everyone around us is celebrating Christmas, eating fruitcake and fruit pudding which I've often made in the past, we decided something else would do this year. I offered mincemeat pie or pumpkin pie? Irving chose the latter. As it happened, I had frozen the contents of half a can of pure pumpkin back in October when I'd used the first half for a pumpkin pie. I took it out of the freezer last night, and out of the refrigerator this morning. And later on set about baking a pumpkin pie.

 In the afternoon Jackie and Jillie informed us in no uncertain terms that they were fed up with our carousing, and it was time to leave the house for a leisurely tramp through the woods. We agreed and off we went on a quiet day, Christmas Eve, in fact with no one around on the street but us heading up to the ravine entrance under a silvery sky, snow crunching underfoot. Our street now boasts a winter-permanent layer of snow-on-ice that will disappear in spring.

It's only three days since the shortest day of the year, and though the forest interior is always shy of exterior light it was obvious that dusk was intent on arriving surprisingly early. We came across a friend of whom we asked how his grandmother was faring. He had last told us that his 99-year-old grandmother, living in an old-age home for the past several years had been feeling poorly and that COVID had been identified in several of the residents. She since died. A long, busy and fruitful life.

At one junction Jackie began loping along on three legs, keeping one of his back legs hoisted. Soon afterward he asked to be picked up, quite unusual for him. Jillie had done the same thing yesterday. We had been standing around talking to people we know, and assumed she had a bit of a chill.  Then it occurred to us that the two incidents could be linked, that Jackie could be wearing the bootie that Jillie had worn yesterday and it had a puncture. That's just what happened, we discovered on our return home, so that boot won't be used again.

By the time we exited the ravine, people's Christmas lights had come on, and the street was beginning to blaze with all the colours of the rainbow. 

Though we go through seasonal changes all our lives we tend to 'forget' physically what a season like winter can bring in terms of weather conditions, compelling many people to the belief that exposing ourselves to the bitter cold, raging winds and frozen precipitation is best avoided. We have the opportunity to acclimate since the changeover is gradual; as days grow colder we gear ourselves accordingly for comfort in chillier conditions.

Still, nothing quite prepares us for the deepest cold days of winter when there's often good enough reason to remain in our warm homes rather than venturing out into wind, sleet and bone-chilling cold. A lot of how we feel about winter reflects the perception that if it's cold out the environment is hostile to human comfort. Yet humanity has of necessity adjusted to weather conditions through the ages and the natural environment in all its presentations remains an integral ingredient in our ability to function.

Perhaps even more so, appreciate that our subconscious is deeply aware of our need to expose ourselves to natural surroundings from time to time. And that need is a reflection of the fact that we are a part of nature. We experience sensations of quiet pleasure feeling our limbs, our sensual emotions, all of our senses being attuned to the freedom nature offers us, along with nature's other companions, the creatures of the forest whose home it is. Our sense of vision, of smell, of touch all employ themselves autonomically when we're within natural surroundings.

Sadly, there are many people who live on our street and the streets adjoining ours who have never felt the compulsion or simple curiosity to explore the forest that runs through this community. People oblivious to its presence and how important the forest is in providing us with clean air to breathe, the surrounding verdance fulfilling a need we're unaware of, but which comforts us psychologically.

As domesticated as our pets are, accustomed through the ages with sharing our homes and our habits, their need to explore the out-of-doors and more particularly a green landscape is even more acute than ours. Today is one of those cold early winter days. The sun sailed in an ocean of blue most of the day, melting the snow that had accumulated on top of the metal canopy over our deck, despite that the day is a cold one, at -10C.

When we were out in the ravine it hardly seemed that cold, in the absence of any wind. The trails were well covered with the initial start of this season's snow pack which will build over the coming months to hard-packed layers of ice and snow. The fresh snow that had fallen in the past few days still looks glaring  white, though wind that had accompanied it knocked quite a bit of detritus out of the trees to lie dark and desiccated over the snow.

People you do come across hiking through the forest trails are invariably cheerful, happy to be out on a wintry day, a brief exposure to the rawness of weather systems in the heart of the outskirts of an urban area of a million people. Being there is a respite from concerns over the pall news related to the global pandemic with gloomy stories day after day of infections, hospitalizations and death. Out there, walking through the forest, thoughts of those issues melt away.

In their place a sense of tranquil satisfaction settles through one's mind busy taking in the surrounding vistas, the cold, clear air, the scurry of squirrels on the forest floor, the murmur of birds in tree branches, the crunch of boots on the stiffening snow pack.