She is one of our oldest friends. We go back, as the saying goes, a long way together. We knew one another just as we entered our teens, schoolmates in high school, at just about the same time that Irving and I met one another and became fast companions. Several years later, she met the boy who was to become her first husband, and they and we would often go around together. 

There was another mutual friend, whom we both knew. My contact with both had lapsed for many years until about fifteen years ago we re-connected through email. The time distance between us is 70 years, but the geographic distance is another factor. They remained in Toronto while Irving and I moved to Ottawa. We last saw them in person about six years ago.

Over all those years we had certainly changed, but it was still possible to see the teen in the septuagenarian. At that time, when we sat together, discussing the trajectory of the years that had passed and how we all were then, six years ago, one signalled to me her concern over the other, of diminishing physical capabilities. And now the one who had been concerned for the other, is no longer alive.

While the remaining one now uses a walker to get around, but hasn't really left her apartment but for a few doctor appointments in the past year, during COVID. Her daughter has done her mother's grocery shopping and drops it off for her. Because my friend is fairly computer-literate and is also a devoted telephone-user, she speaks to her friends, and sends emails, but sees no one.

And now, tomorrow, she is scheduled for heart surgery, for valve replacement. I could hardly believe that the procedure she'll undergo no longer requires open-heart surgery, but can be done with minimally-invasive surgery which means recovery time is infinitely easier and faster. Still, as with any serious surgery, the risk-element to mortality is high. We've discussed her situation via email, and tomorrow she undergoes surgery.

As for us, it's been another routine, ordinary and wonderful day. We're back into sub-freezing weather again, with night-time lows nudging -20C, and icy winds. Yesterday's new snow is now entirely disappeared off the trees in the forest, sheered away by the strong winds. We set out with Jackie and Jillie in mid-afternoon for the ravine, and walking up the street noticed that municipal works had been busy, removing some of the snowpack lining the street.

The street becomes progressively narrower through a winter, when municipal plows clear the road and send the snow flying into driveways and builds up large snowbanks alongside the street. Not only does the street become narrower over time, but sight-lines are also impaired. In sheering away some of the snowpack, however, the slope that leads into the trail toward the ravine has been compromised. The height of the trail from the road reflects the amount of snow that has been trodden down to create a dense challenge of height that requires a vigorous leap to reach its level.

So we made our way around the group mailbox where a narrow alternate trail has been formed because a contractor comes around after snow events to clear away the snow in front of the mailboxes, and it's a bit safer using that as an option. All the while the wind bit fiercely trying to gain its own entrance -- inside our winter garments, serving to speed our pace in the knowledge that the forest offers some protection from the wind.

The meanness of the weather contributed to people deciding to remain at home, or at least avoid trekking out to the trails, a result of which was that we  hardly met anyone else out other than a few people with their dogs. At one point we came across a quite amusing little scene, where someone had hung a fairly large cut-out of a decorative 'snowflake' and suspended it from one of the trees adjacent the last of the bridges fording the ravine's creek, which is beginning to freeze over again.

It will have ample opportunity, since the forecast for the next three or four days is for daytime highs around -7C to -9C. with of course, winds to match....