Spoke with my sister yesterday. Seems there's not much to discuss lately but gloomy events. The grimmest is that though she's four years younger than me, she isn't in the best of health. Something is always going awry with her. She needs to check in with her general practitioner for one thing or another, be referred to specialists, given prescriptions that don't really make any difference. Her husband prepares most of their meals, he does the cleaning in the condo they moved into a few years ago. Before that, he did most of the cleaning in their house.

She has been 'reading' via talking books for years since she's also legally blind. She used to be an enthusiastic walker, and a dedicated social dancer; any kind of dancing, she loved it. Now she rarely leaves the house. It's too painful for her to get about, so she seldom accompanies her husband to do the grocery shopping. Our conversations aren't gloomy, though, they're always lively and full of laughs. Tomorrow is her 81st birthday. Last year she told me she was astonished that she'd made it to 80.

I received a birthday card in the mail from her yesterday. Our birthdays are only two days apart, but four years' distanced. We each had three children, me two boys and a girl. Her the reverse. So there's always the children to talk about, even though mine are quite a bit older, in their 60s. Two of her children live in Toronto so she sees them often. 

Had it not been for the new Omicron COVID variant we would be enjoying the company of our younger son who had planned on arriving here Christmas Day. When Omicron entered the picture our plans changed, and now we look forward to spring when we can be together again; he's a long way off, in Vancouver. 

So Irving and I have to make do with our little canine family to be together with. And together we went out this afternoon on a heavily overcast and windy Boxing Day. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day saw relatively few people enjoying the winter woods, but today it was quite different; we came across scads of people, mostly with dogs, enjoying a beautiful winter day in the woods.

The wind was present, swaying tree tops of the forest canopy, but not making its presence known at ground level and since it was relatively mild at -3C, and the trails were in excellent condition, it all made for a pleasant few hours dawdling through the forest. Jackie and Jillie had plenty of company now and again as we passed or met up with any number of various breeds of dogs from Labs, to Bernese Mountain, to terriers and Australian Shepherds.

No better way to relax the mind than in a serene winter landscape, while simultaneously exercising one's limbs. At the very same time it's often a social occasion when people who know one another, know their backgrounds, know the troubling aspects of their day-to-day lives, meet and are drawn deep into sympathetic conversations.