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.