When we returned from our hike through the ravine yesterday I checked on the mixed-bean-vegetable soup I had put on just before we left, to see it was bubbling away nicely. The mixed-bean selection I buy doesn't need overnight soaking, it simmers on the stove for an hour and a half, two hours and though it is comprised of a mix of all kinds of beans that usually have to be soaked overnight before cooking, there must be some kind of processing before packaging that takes place to eliminate that step, and it's a real bonus.

Then I set about to bake a few miniature challahs, using that same rich dough I had baked the cinnamon buns for breakfast with. It takes no time at all, to put the challahs together, braiding three lozenges and popping them into a little bread tray I had acquired somewhere long, long ago, to produce miniature breads in lieu of rolls. The little breads were perfect with the soup on a cold, (-7) winter day.

We do enjoy our food. I mean that generally, everyone does. Our tastes may differ, but the pleasure we derive in consuming food - an existential necessity of course -- has few competitors in the feel-good category. That's as good a way to introduce a peculiar incident as any, one involving withholding one of our most favourite breakfast foods through a mysterious occurrence.

When we did our grocery shopping last Tuesday, our regular shopping day, nothing but green bananas was available. This was on the display that sells bananas, not green bananas, not plantains, not organic bananas, just plain old Canvendish bananas. There are times when the display hosts mostly ripe or ripening bananas and some occasions when only unripe ones are available. They usually begin to ripen within a few days until they become edible. Edible for us is well ripened and sweet.

We relish, each of us, a banana, alongside our slice of melon to begin breakfast. So this week we've gone without because those bananas we bought have never ripened. They feel like wood as though they were actually carved of wood. They cannot be peeled. A few days ago I tried an experiment, cutting away the skin, slicing the hard-as-wood banana and frying the flat side in butter, first one side then the other. And when we taste-tested the end result it was pretty disgusting. Hard in texture, and tasting like uncooked potato, pretty nasty.

But today we enjoyed another wintry-weather day of complete overcast that turned, by the time we cast ourselves out of the house and into the ravine, snowy. Mild, at -1C, no wind and just plain pleasant. All the more so since there weren't quite as many wanderers out on the trails. We did come across quite a few of our hiking friends, so progress along the circuit was fairly slow, since everyone wants to stop and chat. Mostly focusing on the unaccustomed traffic in the forest and incidents that people have been exposed to, not impressing them the least bit by the nature-loving calibre of people streaming through.

Because of the overcast conditions plus the snow there was that enclosed feeling of calm and sound absorption in the ravine along with an early entrance of twilight. But as we made our way along the trails, twilight swiftly turned the show over to dusk and it wasn't prepared to be around too long, in its turn inviting the dark of night to feature its presence. So that, by the time we completed our circuit and climbed our way back up to street level, all the street lamps and exterior house lights were brightly shining in a night-dark atmosphere of comfortable silence.