It wasn't particularly early this morning when we finally arose from our comfortable bed, but it was very dark. Dark as in either the night hours or a raging storm outside under a bleak, black sky. It was, of course, the latter. Which explains in part our reluctance to emerge from sleep to greet the day, since the day's greeting wasn't particularly enthusing. Another night of rain. On an already well-doused landscape. What was a little different about this weather system was that in the early morning a surly thunderstorm broke the silence. Thunder claps right over the house, no less. And a sudden, brief flash of illuminating light from corresponding lightning flashing through the bedroom.

 

And not only arousing all of us, but sending Jackie and Jillie into a barking fury. Breakfast was eaten in comfortable darkness outside and warm and dry conditions for us. There was a sense of ease, no need to hurry, just take our time, since it seemed unlikely we would be given the opportunity to take Jackie and Jillie out for their usual tramp through the ravine today.

They too lounged about comfortably, and one wonders if they connect weather conditions directly with their chances to get out into the forest. They just seem to take everything as it comes. By early afternoon they were clearly anxious. Drooping with disappointed expectation on the loveseat in our bedroom. They had a hangdog look about them as I viewed them seated dejectedly in the upstairs hallway behind the balcony balustrade, as though behind prison bars.

 

But the rain stopped even though it remained darkly overcast and a glance at the sky told us rain was only on hold, not finished for the day by any means. Still, we went downstairs to visit with Irving in his workshop and suggested a brief hike through the main trail of the forest, and he agreed. We hurriedly put on rain gear and off we went.

 

 

Well before we reached the valley bottom of the ravine we could hear the creek churning and thrashing down below, full of the rain that had fallen, coursing downstream, carrying fallen leaves and light twigs on its way. Its width had grown impressively, and it seemed deeper and wider than it does during spring runoff. The trails underfoot were deep in slosh from an overabundance of rain. The leaf mass remaining on the trees shed droplets of rain, but the rain had stopped, however temporarily.

 

 

At our feet the fallen colourful foliage scintillated in their heavy varnish of rain. Uphill and downhill clambers called for careful negotiation, but unlike the woman we'd come across yesterday who'd slipped  and fallen, we were in no danger of doing likewise. There were scant few other people out but we did meet up with one of our trekking friends and he was in a funk of a mood. Usually we stop briefly to chat then move on, he at a much faster pace than we muster. Today he stayed with us for the duration of our tramp that turned out much longer than we had intended.

 

 

He needed to ventilate, he was taut with anger and his anger went beyond a mid-life crisis. He had suffered poor health caused by a number of conditions but finally he was over all that. A man of action who sought out tense situations by profession from a long career as a special-action forces policing agent, he was given to athletics of the most extreme kind. Now that he is older and feeling much better than he had in a decade, he yearned for adventure and certainly not a sedentary life in a city. His wife has decided life in the city is just what she needs and the tension between what each of them foresees for their future together is mounting.

 

 

We listened, commented when we felt it might be useful, gave no recommendations on a course of action that would satisfy each of them from the height of our age and experience, but hope that anything we might have said would be useful, give him pause for thought and reduce his resentment toward a partner who had shared that life with him for forty years.

 

Rain did come down, heavily as the sky heaved itself into a darker mood, but by then we had returned home. I gave Jackie and Jillie their little fresh vegetable salads, and put on a harvest soup for dinner for us.

Still