The somewhat different combination I tried out yesterday for dinner was fine. Irving preferred it that way, though I thought they were both good. This time I left out the mozzarella cheese at his request, and added zucchini to the eggplant/tomato/tomato sauce combination, and retained the oregano and thyme. And I sprinkled the casserole before putting it into the oven with panko and Parmesan. We both 'cleaned' our plates.

When we herded Jackie and Jillie out for the final time before bedtime last night we were surprised though we shouldn't have been, to see that about five centimetres of snow had already fallen. We hadn't even realized it was snowing again. The temperature had risen steadily throughout the day from -17C in the morning to -2 by the time we went up to bed. In total, the snow amounted to another 11 cm of snow to add to the winter snowpack.

We had things to do to keep us busy after breakfast; me cleaning the bathrooms and Irving downstairs to work on  the second of a pair of stained glass windows to fit into shutters he had made for one of the upstairs bedroom windows. Before that, he had decided it was time for a trim of his beard and hair. The little hair he has left on his head gets buzzed off regularly; his preference.

There's something about living together most of our lives; when one of us does something the other invariably does as well. We do share thoughts often, but actions also prompt reaction. It's like the contagion of yawning, for example. Before I cleaned our bathroom I hauled out scissors and trimmed my hair, too. It seems to me that whenever I look in the mirror I see a trimming waiting to happen, and I hate to disappoint that expectation.

When we did finally set out for our daily ramble through the forest trails with Jackie and Jillie who certainly know priorities when such stares them in the muzzle, it was windy, heavily overcast and mild, at 0C. So we dressed a little lighter and didn't regret that we had. The wind was forceful enough to have sheered quite a bit of last night's snow off the forest canopy, and continued doing so as we traipsed the trails.

Hard to believe that spring is peeking around the corner; we just cannot see her promised presence through the weight and depth of the snow that is suffocating the forest floor. Yet we can hardly blame spring for her famous procrastination. It's like this every year; cantankerous winter and hesitate spring. Oh, and incessant snowfalls, interplaying with frigid sunny days and overcast milder days.

Today it's mild, tomorrow the daytime high will be -8C, which is a whole lot colder. In fact the forecast is to expect a succession of these truculent colder daytime highs. Winter refuses to forego his season, stringing us along and claiming precedence over all successors.