Like their father, all of our children have a multitude of talents and interests, exploring as much of what life has on offer as presents to them. Our youngest is a scientist, but that hasn't stopped him from becoming an expert furniture-maker, using the tools of the 19th Century -- and a potter in his spare time. His passions are the great outdoors; hiking, canoeing, kayaking, skiing, wilderness camping, but he finds time to produce objects of mundane but invaluable use. From wooden mixing spoons to rolling pins and clay teapots, pie dishes and casserole and cookie jars.

Yesterday I used one of the casserole dishes he had made for me many years ago. Cobalt blue, capacious enough for me to produce a full meal for two in its interior as I did yesterday in making a Spanish-style paela, absent lobster and clams. The only fish in it was shrimp, but there was chicken and chunks of sausage to give it texture appeal and saffron, garlic, onion, oregano and smoked paprika to give it ample taste appeal. I used an oriental-style short-grain rice, and chopped up firm tomatoes and at the last minute more or less added frozen, thawed green peas.

The end product was colourful, hot and flavourful, making for a delicious meal, though it was prefaced with chicken soup and rice, a Friday-night staple. I had wanted to make something different for New Year's day. And we had the chocolate-maraschino-cherry layer cake that I had baked earlier in the day for our dessert. We eventually pushed ourselves away from the dining room table, surfeit and pleased with the meal, a bit on the rich side and not to be repeated too often.

Overnight we had snow. Quite a bit, though nothing out of the ordinary for an Ottawa winter. Everything looked gloriously fresh and lovely, piled high with newfallen snow. We realized, after we had finished our leisurely breakfast, that the silent phantom had struck again; our walkways, porch and side entrance had all been shovelled clear of snow. I had rushed to the door, hearing Jackie and Jillie bark, but by the time they had 'noticed' it was too late and our benefactor had disappeared.

We also had an open blue sky, the sun brilliant and warming, and before we knew it the temperature had risen to zero. After dawdling about the house awhile we decided it was time to get out into the ravine after my husband shovelled out the backyard walkways for Jackie and Jillie. 

Always in the past, up until last year after a heavy snowfall so few people would enter the ravine to tramp through newfallen snow over the forest trails that soon a narrow trail ensued, bespeaking the few feet that tramped through the snow. There would be the occasional snowshoer, and a few skiers now and again, but for the most part once the snowpack began accumulating, a fairly narrow pathway would emerge, on either side of which the snowpack would build ever higher.

It won't be like that this winter. Instead of the narrow trail where others before us broke trail, there is now a wide pathway indicative of hordes of people passing through the trails. We will no longer have our treasured ravine to ourselves, that much is obvious. Since the pandemic and the lockdowns that came with it, people have been looking for diversions to occupy themselves with, and the great outdoors has beckoned. Shopping venues have closed, entertainment sites as well as exercise clubs, so the alternative has been to look elsewhere.

The old trailwalkers who have valued the ravine and its forest, taking time out every day to exercise their option to -- as it were -- commune with nature, now share the trails with the larger community who have suddenly realized the forest's value as a leisure attraction. For us personally it is an inconvenience. We can no longer take our time taking a pace that most agrees with us and our age, rest when we crest a hill, relax and enjoy the landscape in quiet contemplation as we take our time through the trails.

 

Now the object is to get around clumps of people congregating in areas they are unfamiliar with but anxious to get away from their home imprisonment, hoping to distract their children for a brief venture into the forest, entertaining other family members or friends who have popped by conveniently or inconveniently. It is the weekend, after all, the weekend of the spanking new year. Who can blame them?