He's getting restless, I know the symptoms, I've seen them most of my life and when he gets like that it means that like it or not we'll be going somewhere. I don't particularly want to, even though I've never regretted having gone to so many places near and far with him. The simple fact is that with him I would be comfortable going anywhere. It's been several years since we've made a trip. I'd be just as happy staying home, doing all the things together that we love to share. We've got everything we need right here. And at age 84, nudging 85, do we really need to be travelling?

When our children were young there wasn't a weekend that we weren't exploring some conservation area around Toronto, getting ourselves out to green spaces and good clean air and exercise with the children. As they grew older we went further and not just for day-trips any longer. We explored the east coast of Canada, and so many places closer to home, as well as becoming more aggressive about the landscapes we'd introduce the children to; the ocean in Maine, mountains in New York state, Vermont, New Hampshire.

Eventually, when the children were adults and his professional life took him abroad I accompanied him on several occasions to live awhile outside Canada, a great privilege and incredibly informing and entertaining. Right now, where we live we no longer have to haul ourselves off to nearby forests and mountains to explore the great out-of-doors, we have a landscape of hilly forested terrain right nearby readily accessed daily, an exploration-in-miniature that satisfies both of us at this stage in our lives.

His sense of adventure while diminished over the years, still actively propels him to consider outings. We'd regularly taken twice-yearly week-long visits to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the regularity of our trips cut off by COVID. Over the years familiarity with the terrain, the forests, lakes and mountains satisfied the adventurer in both of us. We have memories, and they're dear, but I have no wish to renew them in person to acquire more.

This morning out we went pre-breakfast with Jackie and Jillie for our daily romp through the ravine. The creek was swollen once again from last night's voluminous rainfall, and a rolly-polly little furball was in the muddy water, happily digging in the clay bottom while his human waited beside the bridge for him to tire of his antics. Our two little 'water dogs' would do anything to avoid emulating that little adventurer. Which is just as well, considering the run-off that ends up in the creek and that broken bottles and cans sometimes end up in it.

Irving was busy giving out cookies to dogs passing by who just happen to stop and look appealingly at him. There was one black standard-size poodle that looked like a giant cousin of Jackie and Jillie. Later on, during our tramp through the sodden trails -- vegetation on either side glistening as though lacquered, the sun not having yet attained enough warmth nor its fingers penetrating the forest canopy to aid in evaporation -- Irving reached up to pull down to his level a branch heavy with small ripening wild apples. 

The combination of early morning, morning sun, and evaporating rainwater created a luminosity that hung over the creek viewed from the promontories above. To our surprise we came across a wildflower anomaly; at this mid-summer stage a small clump of fall asters already in tentative bloom. What an amazing summer it has been for accelerated vegetation growth and early-season maturity!

And then eventually we arrived back home and sure enough the garden too reflected yet another blandishment by nature for all growing things to thrive and to surprise us with their robust, colourful presence in a tableau that has become our garden, heavy with ornamental trees for architectural focus and conceited with the glow of seasonal flowers whose shades are illuminated by the sun glancing off still-wet foliage and petals.