When we spoke a day ago, our younger son told us it was time for him to fly out from Vancouver to spend some time with us. He usually comes along several times a year, but as a result of the pandemic and British Columbia closing up along with the rest of Canada, we've missed seeing him. This morning he sent along all the details of his flight reservation. So he'll be with us transitioning from 2021 into 2022 and slightly beyond. And he'll also be with us at my 85th birthday that falls between Christmas and New Year. A greater gift for me is hard to imagine.

I sent along a link for him to read about a McGill Professor, a visible minority himself, failing in two fairly routine research grant financing applications. And the reason given was that he had failed to convince the bureaucrats vetting the applications that he was prepared to give advantage of minority groups in his hiring for the laser research he specializes in. He had responded on the application that he hires on merit alone, and that didn't pass muster with government granting authorities; the bureaucrats past whom the applications must go before they reach other scientists tasked with reviewing and approving such applications. 

NSERC was one of the granting bodies. Our younger son has a connection with that federally-linked science-centric body since it was they who awarded him grants for both his masters and doctorate studies three decades ago. When we mentioned the news report to him he found it difficult to digest that this kind of politics had entered academic science. He hires on merit himself, but if two candidates equal one another in aptitude and experience, he gives preferential treatment to the one that represents a minority group. Not all that different from the McGill professor who said it's merit that moves him, though he has taught, mentored and hired members of visible minority groups like himself, LGBTQ, and others.

We went off to the ravine a little earlier in the afternoon than is our norm. Once again hoping to catch some sun. But the presence of sun today was rare and as the day wore on, completely absent. There was a slight wind, but any kind of wind on an overcast day when the thermometer won't budge above -2C, is an impediment to comfort since those blasts are icy.

If I had to describe what it was like in the forest today, 'bracing' is as good a descriptive as any. Comfortable enough if one is dressed for it, as is only sensible. Jackie and Jillie were certainly glad to be out and about. They've got so much to attend to along the forest trails, after all. Aromatic essences that cannot escape their keen noses and notice. Smells that they associate with other dogs of their acquaintance.

We're not seeing very many birds around lately; chickadees and nuthatches on occasion, and the sound of crows nearby. Mostly squirrels rushing about in food-gathering panic for winter. Makes us wonder how many of them we see in the forest we also see on our porch gobbling up peanuts. There's always such a squabble of red, black and grey squirrels, trying to edge one another out. claiming the porch as their personal territory, though eventually all of them get a turn at it, and then return for more.

Dusk falls so early, even before two in the afternoon it seems to have arrived. We ran a few errands afterward before ending up at the supermarket, so we were late returning home from shopping and as a result it was already dark. The only consolation is that because it was so dark, people's Christmas-decorated front lawns and house exteriors were lit up and blazing with colour; a bit of visual entertainment.

 

On the weekend we both read a lengthy article focusing on the unusual ability of some people to recall faces and to identify them even after many years have passed. Sometimes even a partial glimpse of a face was enough for people with these extraordinary facial-recognition memories to identify other people. It is not a practised skill, but an inherent one, and could be inheritable in the genes. It's also quite rare. 

It may not seem so special to many people -- but those with the capacity to recognize faces after a long period of time has passed, and can do it even if they've just had a side view of a face, or have seen a photograph of a child, and can then recognize that child grown into adulthood -- but the skill has its practical side. Police in Europe, for example, have sought out tests for their recruits to determine who among them might be gifted in this way.

 

It's estimated that a vanishing low percentage of people fall into the category of expertise in facial recognition. I've always been impressed with Irving's sharp memory. He automatically notes small details and tucks them away in his memory. His recall for faces has always been superior to mine. I tend not to notice what he just turns a keen eye on. So I depend on him to remind me often of people who I don't recognize or don't remember. Including their names. It can be quite embarrassing.

Aside from his many and various skills and competencies, Irving is not one of those amazing face-recognition types, however. The camera of his eyes and their neural connection to his brain is busy, busier than mine, but this is not one of his skills. His are far more diffuse and include just about anything; no particular focus on faces. He simply has a fine memory.

 

We had an experience today that surprised us both. And after having read that article and discussed it between us, we encountered an odd coincidence. We'd gone out earlier than usual with the puppies for a ravine hike in the forest, hoping to take advantage of an off-again, on-again sun on a quite cold day. Unfortunately, for the length of time we were out the sun was mostly in. Fortunately, there was no wind.

All the  accumulated rain ponds on the forest floor above the ravine itself have now frozen solid. They've become miniature skating rinks. We can see where some enterprising souls perhaps recalling the allures of childhood have attempted to stamp through the ice, but it's too thick to give, though there were some ice-cube-sized shards at one of the ponds that refused to be entirely smashed through.

 

We're certainly not complaining about the hard-frozen forest trails. Jackie and Jillie come away from these hikes the past few days with the temperature below freezing, with nice clean paws. One swipe with a wet soapy sponge is all they need before we wipe them dry with a towel. A far cry from the impossible-to-wipe-away India-ink quality mud that just stuck stubbornly to their little paws. 

We enjoyed an extremely pleasant -- but still dark interior forest, even at 1:00 pm. And when the sun did peek out now and again it was high in the sky and slightly muted, but the brilliance that did escape served to cloak the forest trees in dark, stark silhouette. Just as we began climbing the last long hill back up to street level we came abreast of a middle-aged couple moving in a direction opposite to ours.

 

Admittedly at that juncture the sun happened to be out and our exposure to it somewhat dazzled our eyes. We could hardly make out the faces of the two people, but the man greeted us both by name. Shading our eyes and turned around to clear our vision from the sun we looked directly at two unfamiliar faces. Who then asked how old Jackie and Jillie now were, and made small talk, the kind that people engage in who are comfortably familiar with one another.

The conversation went on and on, touching on many different aspects of life. Irving is happy enough to respond and to expound on his experiences of various topics being mounted. How could we say to these people who are you? How is it you know our names? One hesitates to say anything that would leave the impression you're a stark idiot for not recalling people who are familiar but unfamiliar. Embarrassing to you, yes, but embarrassing to the others as well. But there was nothing familiar to either of us about these two.

 

We eventually parted, wishing one another a good day and an enjoyable hike through the frozen forest. And as they walked on down a trail we had just ascended, and we turned to climb up that last hill to home, we turned to one another and chorused "Who the HELL were they?!" and laughed. Irving thought a bit and then said he dimly recalled the man as someone we would see occasionally years ago. He hadn't a dog back then and doesn't now. But the woman with him, obviously his wife, had never accompanied him on those earlier hikes. At least he remembered something about the fellow. 

That's another thing about our daily hikes through the ravine with the puppies. You never know what you may see in the natural world. And  you never know who you may come across, including people with truly extraordinary face-recognition memories...

There was thick white hoarfrost on all the roofs this morning. A symptom of just how cold it has been the last few nights, last night nudging -9C. The snow that fell several days back still lingers in streaks in the backyard and in the forest. It doesn't yet quite look like winter, but it's beginning to feel like winter. Frosty cold is very convincing. The presence of any kind of wind, even light breezes, makes the cold seem all that more acute since wind has a habit of driving frigid air icily into unprotected areas. Convincingly enough that I zip my outerwear up right to my chin before embarking into the out-of-doors.

I've taken lately to snapping small carrots into pieces and tossing them at a central point in the back garden lately. When I look later on in the day they're usually gone. If not within several hours then by the following morning. I leave them where I last saw the rabbit, frozen to that very spot, unmoving, in the certainty that if there was no movement, there would be no discovery.

 

This morning Jackie and Jillie sniffed about that area avid to work out why it casts an odour that may or may not perplex them. Invariably, when I head out with them to the backyard, the moment I slide the glass door aside they whip through the threshold, down the deck stairs and scatter -- one heading left the other right -- behind the garden sheds.

I can hardly recognize the soil in the garden beds now. It's tinged with frost and crumbly, as though someone has taken a rake to the frozen soil, hacking and turning it over. The clear demarcation between the beds and the grass beyond no longer looks as defined. Oncoming winter has created a sense of unity as though the disparate areas of the backyard are girding themselves simultaneously for all that winter will throw at them.

 

Jackie and Jillie have no intention of lingering longer than it takes to scout out all the nooks and crannies of the backyard, do their urgent business, then zip back up the stairs to the deck, to stand expectantly at the doors that refuse to obey them until I climb the stairs and oblige. 

Later in the afternoon when the temperature pumped itself up to -3C, we parted with the warmth and comfort of the house when Irving returned from his shopping expedition. He had gone out for a newspaper since the two we subscribe to don't publish on Sunday, and dropped by Pet Smart to return the two halters and winter coats we had bought there, but which turned out to be hopelessly ill designed; difficult to put on, and poor fitting.

He dropped by Farm Boy briefly to pick up some hot smoked salmon. He'll have it with the whole-wheat cheese flatbread I'm baking, after we have a first course of hot, flavourful tomato-lentil soup, now bubbling on the stove. He also happened to drop by another shop to see if they had any men's lined jeans, but no luck. He did get himself several undershirts. And because he's a shopaholic and just cannot resist buying things, he bought a cardigan and three sweaters for me. Makes no difference how often I urge him not to buy things for me, he loves bringing things home, and slowly one after the other, revealing them to me. I can't complain about his taste. It's just that I don't really need anything.

 

Once in the ravine, we felt the forest floor frozen hard and crisp under our boots. As long as the trails are dry, Jackie and Jillie can take the cold until it gets below -6C and there's snow on the ground. That won't be for another little while yet before we have to start fitting little booties on their paws for protection from the cold. 

 

We're continually surprised by the dim, dusky look of the forest interior, though after all this time we should be used to it. It's different now, though, true dusk falls earlier and it's a looming, heavier shade of dusk, a slow creeping toward the dark of night before night even realizes it's time to disrupt day. We're moving steadily toward the shortest day of the year, just a month away, with the calendar entrance of winter. 

 

Worrying rumblings from health authorities tasked by governments to oversee and advise with respect to the way forward out of this virus nightmare we've been stuck under for almost two years. As though Delta, that avid hunter of humanity hasn't been a severe enough 'variant of concern' racking up huge numbers of victims leading to yet another wave of COVID, news of one more mutation that has emerged and identified by scientists as even more infectious, and potentially capable of evading the protective effects of current vaccines is being bruited about.

Who could possibly forget the eerie silence that fell when the SARS-CoV-2 virus began running amok after escaping China, devastating Europe before heading to North America and the first tentative, chaotic reactions. When total lockdown was imposed and just about everything commercial was shuttered and doctors' offices, health clinics and even hospitals couldn't be approached. Fear was as viral and communicable as the pathogen itself.

 

Driving local streets meant encountering no traffic, seeing no pedestrians, seeing signs reading 'closed' everywhere but supermarkets and pharmacies. Schools closed along with all 'non-essential' institutions and private enterprises. People frantically tried to avoid touching surfaces of any kind. Masks were -- and remain -- de rigueur everywhere; no entry to interiors without masks. People were advised to distance, isolate themselves, take rigorous care to not be in close proximity to others -- any others at all.

 

And now that we're aware of a new, more threatening variant are we to return to that time, when we thought with gratitude and great relief, it was all behind us? If need be. There seems to be no escaping this nightmare. And we're people who had the good fortune to be less impacted by the universal presence of this threat to what we've always considered normalcy than most. Time -- and not too much of it -- will tell how this new confrontation with biology works out.

As for us, it was routine as normal. Yesterday's light flirtation of winter snow has left little mark of its presence today. But it is cold, the temperature barely nudging above -3C, with a cutting wind, blustering up to 40 kmh as we walked up the street toward the ravine entrance. The new winter coats and harnesses that we bought for Jackie and Jillie two days back will have to be returned. And we hate returning merchandise. They're too tight-fitting for both, though we had chosen sizes we thought were reflective of the two little imps' physical characteristics.

 

Not only do they not fit, they don't fill the other requirements of easy usage and practicality. So back they go. Rummaging about in the cupboard where their 'clothes' are kept we hauled out other little winter jackets that are lined with a fur-like material and we tried them for our hike through the trails today. They're outgrown and tend to open up, and they're too short, not adequately covering the puppies' backs. Fine in a pinch, but they need replacing.

It's icily cold today, and though it's sunny, once gaining the interior of the forest the dusklike atmosphere prevails, other than where exposure to the sun brightens the landscape, and that's not everywhere. On some of the  trails, well sheltered from the wind by the surrounding forest, the wind is scarcely to be noticed, but on others where the trails are wider and the forest density diminished, both wind and sun gain entrance with greater exposure to that now-early-afternoon-sinking golden orb.

There was a cheerful fellow we used to see fairly often on our hikes, with an elderly pit bull mix that was as gentle as a lamb, preferring to mind its own business after acknowledging the presence of others in near proximity. Bill used to tell us his companion wasn't his dog, but his son's. And although they didn't share a house, mornings would see the dog dropped off at Bill's house where he spent the rest of the day. Bill certainly looked after the dog as though he were his own, and in a sense he was.

We had heard back in March that the dog had suddenly died. And from that time forward Bill no longer took daily hikes through the ravine. Today, however, he was there, and we could barely recognize him. He looks about a decade older than when we saw him last. Now he has a white beard to match the hair on  his skull, deep lines about his face. But his wide, crooked smile is the same, and the mischief in his eyes is the same, and his great booming voice is the same. And so we did, after all, recognize him.

 

Jackie and Jillie were incredulous. Another full day of non-stop rain? The house is in danger of becoming an ark, all of us floating away to some never-ever land...? Please say we'll get out for a ravine hike today!

Well, how to respond, to explain to two little dogs that it is nature that plans and executes the order of our weather days; we, her creatures can only accept what she orders her elements to provide for us. 

 

They said, those two little impish dogs, that if little kids can write to Santa why can't they write to Nature and tell her what they'd prefer. Because, after all, they're such good little dogs. That last sentence really got to us; absolutely eye-rolling. Good little dogs? Seriously?!

We'll wait and see, we told them. Nature isn't all that capricious that she would turn a stony heart to two little dogs' pleas. Hour after hour, rain and more rain. Unpleasant going out to the backyard. The thermometer read 1C. The upper atmosphere was likely warmer than it was at ground level. They weren't interested in explanations, demanding action!

 

Sorry fellas, we can't change the rain. So Irving and I busied ourselves around the house. The usual routine. Minor clean-ups, fussing about here and there. Oops, an online auction of Canadiana...that got one of us -- the antique aficionado --  excited and online after he'd first done some vacuuming. I kneaded up a whole-wheat bread dough, and baked a small pan of date squares for tonight's dessert.

 

Well, would you look at that...white droplets among the rain; sleet! Patience, now, wait for it. Another degree drop in the temperature and it was 0C, and snow began tumbling down in nice white clusters. Time to get outdoors, Jackie and Jillie. On with your wetproof coats and on with ours as well, and off we go...

 

A welcome change. Of course what is falling is pretty piddling stuff. It'll take a whole lot more snow, days upon days, months of it, to build up a snowpack. But it's a start. So off we went into the forest and it was dark. But the dismal aspect was lightened considerably by the wet snow clinging to branches of deciduous trees and the needles of the conifers. 

 

It was cold, with a penetrating wind that tossed the snow about, but it began gathering on the forest floor, whatever filtered down from the forest canopy. No sight of squirrels bustling about, other than those visiting our porch earlier through the morning hours. There was a happy bounce in Jackie's and Jillie's little pumping legs, their tiny feet making dark imprints on the gathered snow of the forest trails.

Some of my earliest memories when Irving and I first began meeting up with one another and going places 70 years ago; doing simple things together, involved with walking about, and accompanying one another to the library.  The things that were important to us, visiting local parks for the sheer bliss of the greenery and towering trees, and reading books to be transported to other times, other places; links in the golden chain that bound us together. 

We had an early introduction to books and the pleasure, wonder and excitement that could be found between the bound pages of a sometimes-fancifully-coloured cover that attracted our attention. We remember the anthropomorphized-animal books like those of Beatrix Potter that first introduced us to the joys of reading, the cartooned and often very beautiful imaginary depictions of animals busy doing what humans do in the environment they construct around themselves. 

As we grew older, the topics that attracted us were meant for an older audience and we were introduced one way or another to the real world outside our own. The powerful draw of the written word has never abandoned us, and reading books of all kinds sustains our inherent sense of curiosity about geography, culture, history and other human beings through the allure of literature. Reading consumes our interests and our minds like nothing else does.

We often wonder to one another how it is even remotely possible that there are people who never read, have no interest in reading books, and whose lives are bare of the excitement we feel when picking up a book, balancing it, studying its cover, reading the blurbs imprinted on its dustcover, fingering the pages, opening them at random, allowing our eyes to devour the glimpse we take in of stylish writing elegantly expressed.

When we take ourselves down to breakfast in the morning the ritual of retrieving the newspapers awaiting our attention on the porch begins the process...as we sit leisurely over breakfast and well past that repast, we read the papers, point items out to one another, discuss things and digest both breakfast and the news. When we take ourselves up to bed at night, lie snug in bed, our bedside lamps illuminate books we reserve for bedtime reading. Our sleepy eyes graze the meadow of letters in preparation for sleep until the sentences no longer make sense, and down go the books, out goes the lights.

 

 

Last night , before we went up to bed, we peeked out the front door, and there was little Pepe, out on a frigid Wednesday night with the temperature falling steadily to hit -7C. He's certainly hardier than we are. We shooed Jackie and Jillie up the stairs to bed, and watched  the little skunk for a few minutes before heading upstairs ourselves.

 

 

 

 Yesterday afternoon Irving hung the framework of the new light fixture he bought to give us brighter reading light in the family room off the kitchen (actually called a 'great room' and it is in fact a very large room, its two-story height absorbing both sound and light). There were so many shapes of crystal to piece together in a precise order the process took the kind of patience that Irving has in abundance. Like most 'helpful' instructions those that came with the chandelier were somewhat less than entirely legible. Now it has to be electrified, an easier job than assembling it.

 

We've had non-stop rain today. A dark, moody day with the temperature stuck at 0C, but instead of snow tumbling gently over the atmosphere, there is cold, wet rain. So, sensibly, no ramble through the woodland trails today because the weather is fit for neither man nor beast. And truth to tell, neither man nor beast have much to complain about, since the alternative is a comfortable, dry and warm house. Jackie and Jillie assured us that this reflects their sentiments precisely.

 

 

Mind, we did go out briefly. Pet Smart had advertised doggy winter gear on sale.  We found nothing useful on sale, but did end up getting each of them a thicker, warmer winter coat than they have, and a firmer, larger harness than the ones they've been wearing, inherited from their predecessors. Jillie in particular needed roomier garments, she  long ago outgrew the size of the jacket and harness and Irving had expanded them with strips of velcro which sometimes come undone when she's being particularly energetic.

There, I admit it, I'm mad for cheese. So's Irving, but I think I'm a tad more fanatic about it. There are some cheeses we both enjoy, and some I leave to him. Brie and Camembert are not especially attractive to me, nor any of the other more exotic types of cheeses highly celebrated in Europe. When it comes to the spreadable type I'll stick with plain old cream cheese. Cheddar -- the 'older', more ripened the better. And I try to sneak it into anything.

I knew when I was making a quiche yesterday that I was grating too much cheese onto the pastry crust. That didn't stop me. I layered green peas over the cheese (another food addition that I plop into many casserole-type comfort dishes), sprinkled them over with   chopped green onion, then whipped up the eggs, included pepper and Worcestershire sauce (as long as the taste isn't too pronounced) and scattered in dehydrated chives, and finally 10% cream.  Beat all together to a froth,  I poured it into the shell and stuck it into  my little toaster oven. Why bother putting on the stove oven for a little quiche that could bake as well using less energy?

Oh yes, when Irving, to my astonishment, suggested a quiche for dinner I could hardly believe it. Although he's an inveterate egg-aficionado, quiche has never been a go-to dish for him. When we were speaking with our younger son a few days back he happened to mention he was making a quiche for dinner, and that inspired Irving to make that suggestion. One little 'recommendation'; that he would appreciate my including bits of bacon in it. So be it. He ate it. Huzzah!

 Ever since his open-heart surgery years ago his appetite has been in the doldrums. He was once a robust eater, but following that operation he would typically eat less than me at a meal, and I'm  considerably smaller and weigh correspondingly less than he does. Now, he is after all that time, regaining his appetite. I'm delighted to carry a plate away from the dinner table that isn't full of leftovers.

I was planning to make a Shepherd's Pie for dinner tonight, another wintry-cold day. He noticed the defrosting lean ground beef and thought...spaghetti!, one of his cold-weather favourites. Then he saw me scrubbing a few potatoes and realized it wasn't spaghetti I was preparing. And when we were out in the ravine he casually brought up the topic. He would have preferred, he said, spaghetti. Since I hadn't yet started on dinner, I reverted to making little meatballs and preparing spaghetti sauce.

Another night of -6C, but the day warmed up fairly quickly to 2C, whereas yesterday the high for the day was -2C. Both days were windless, and both days had their share of sun, but by the time we set out for the ravine at half-past two this afternoon, the sun had exhausted itself and allowed clouds to crowd the sky. Still, though it was cold, it felt that much less cold than yesterday.

When we'd arrived back home after yesterday's ravine hike we were pleasantly presented with clean little paws. Only two passes with a wet, soapy sponge all that was required to clean Jackie's and Jillie's feet yesterday. Today, a different story. Although the forest floor felt firm underfoot and there were no real muddy areas to traverse, the deeper penetration of frost that yesterday gave us had been substituted for a thawing process. Our two puppies patiently endured about a dozen swipes, each time the sponge coming away with dark, clear imprints of their little paws.

The weather will continue on like this -- freeze-and-thaw -- until the snow begins seriously covering the landscape. And that isn't too far into the future. 

The sanitary technicians couldn't figure out how to haul the compost bag out of the compost bin this morning when the sanitation trucks came around this morning to pick up the kitchen waste. It was -6C overnight, and evidently the bottom of the compost bag got soggy and froze to the compost bin. At the same time the garden waste, the last of the leaves and cut-backs in the garden were still standing in their compost bags awaiting pick-up. So Irving gave a good hard few tugs at the frozen kitchen compost bag and up it came. The sanitary engineer had emptied most of the kitchen waste, but decided to leave the bag with whatever was left. 

It's now plumped down inside the garden waste compost bags awaiting pick-up. Didn't take that much effort, but then Irving isn't a professional sanitary technician, just a practical minded fellow who saw a solution to the impossible task of emptying garbage into a garbage truck. Irving is the quintessential Jack-of-all-Trades, though he made his professional livelihood as a government bureaucrat.

Not to denigrate garbage collectors; it's a tough job, out in all seasons, going house-to-house, street-to-street, hauling up and emptying heavy, awkward containers of discards and waste. One has to be fit and able to countenance the stench that invariably accompanies the job, along with handling slops and other unmentionables, coveralled, gloved and ready every day.

It took us awhile last year to get accustomed to the fact that school buses no longer took their usual routes picking up children for school, during the first, frightening wave of the coronavirus. We had been the day-care givers for our granddaughter until she was nine years old and the daily routine of driving her to a preschool, then picking her up, volunteering to help look after the children because it was a co-op, is familiar to us. As is walking her down the street once she was a little older to wait for the school bus pick-up to a school about a fifteen-minute walk from our house, then doing the reverse in the afternoon.

         

At our age then and having gone through the routine with our own three children, until she was old enough to attend a pre-school, we used to haul her with us into the ravine in a carrier before she began walking on her own, reverting to hauling her in a sled in the winter months. When she was old enough to get around on her own then she did just that on the woodland trails. And no day could be complete without a visit to a local park and playground, both within handy walking distance of the house. So when she finally was old enough to attend school full-time it spelled real relief for us.

Now children are back at school once again. As we drove out to do our food shopping this afternoon, we stopped for school buses unloading children at the end of the school day, a parent or a care-giver there to take stewardrship of young children, the older ones making it home on their own.

It was a pleasant change when we were out in the ravine earlier in the day with Jackie and Jillie. A cold day of -2C when we were out in the forest, fairly heavily overcast but no wind, mitigating the cold. And from time to time the sun squeaked through the clouds, illuminating the landscape, no longer contending with foliage of the forest canopy shielding it from penetrating down through the forest.

Jackie and Jillie are good and snug in their little winter jackets, for now. It won't be until it gets much colder and snow begins to pile up that they'll need little boots to protect their tiny tender paws from cold. Without the boots they're in real pain when exposure is any longer than ten minutes without protection.  Already, today, we could feel the difference underfoot, the forest floor icy-firm as frost set in as a result of a succession of -6C nights.

 

We decided it  might be a good idea to break off housecleaning and go out with Jackie and Jillie for an early walk today. On our return the housecleaning could be resumed. Not normally the preferential order, but now with early dusk onset it is. Besides, there was some sun and the forecast was for afternoon snow flurries and we thought to take advantage of the sun's presence since it was fairly cold, with a blustery wind.

 

The sun played tricks on us today. By the time we organized ourselves and stepped out the door the sun had become a recluse. We could see some blue sky but it was on the way out and the clouds were busy occupying the sky. At least, we figured, we'd have full daylight for our hike through the woods, even if the forest interior modifies light to sometimes eerie early twilight conditions well before dusk settles in.

 

 

As we walked up the street and approached Mohindar's driveway, there was Rajiner setting out for a walk of her own.  She's been experiencing a bit of psychological dislocation since her retirement. Hard for her to become accustomed to her new routine. She misses the workplace environment although she had been working remotely for the past two years, since the pandemic onset. Logic would have it that working from home would have gently prepared her for her decision to retire and all that accompanies it.

 

But the structure in her life has gone amiss. The collegiality, the responsibility, the problem-solving of vexatious issues and the satisfaction-reward of things well done and acknowledged are now missing from her life. She supervised a government department and really enjoyed the challenges of her working life. And she always found time to do the other things that were of importance to her. 

 

Her daughter, a beautiful and talented woman like her mother, now has two children of her own, and she's following in her mother's footsteps with a high-pressure challenging, non-governmental position as a professional. The women in the family are high-powered, energetic and ambitious. Rajinder's son takes after his father, Mohindar. He's a sweet young man; after living on his own for a few years in Toronto he decided to return back home and conduct his business from there, living with his parents.

 

We used to come across Rajiner on her own in the ravine, but hadn't lately. We'd stop and talk for a bit and then each go their separate ways. She outpaced us by a wide margin; we in our turn take our time of necessity. She explained she'd had an encounter with an aggressively bad-tempered Husky and she had been frightened by its threatening manner, so  since then she has given the ravine wide berth.  She was setting out for a walk around the streets. And then she decided she'd go with us into the ravine since she wouldn't be alone. We cautioned her that it was extremely muddy and that our pace was no match for hers; several decades' age differential makes an impact. 

 

The upshot was that we hiked together for our usual circuit through the forest trails. In these circumstances there's a loss of contemplative intimacy, of total relaxation; at least for us. We felt compelled to walk at a pace that was uncomfortable for  us and as a result had to stop and rest on occasion more than we normally would.

When we returned home, out came the sun. And while the sun cast its brilliance over the landscape, snow pellets speckled the air. Beautiful to look at, an odd weather phenomenon, just like showers falling in full sun. 

I decided to prepare poached pears for tonight's dessert. While I was at it though it was very early for Jackie's and Jillie's salads, I decided to cut up small piece of pear as a substitute for a change for their vegetable salad. They're right at my feet whenever I'm at the kitchen sink, expecting to be noticed and to be treated. When I set their little bowls down for them, Jackie enthusiastically dug right in. Jillie sat there a moment, then looked quizzically up at me. Wot/s this?

 

Like the strange weather...Jackie is usually the fussy eater. Jillie on the other hand, will voraciously eat anything. After I laughed, she resigned herself and dipped her little snout back into her bowl.