It takes a while to adjust to reality, even if it is the norm for us, for our little intimate family unit to be reduced down to four again. Driving home from the airport yesterday afternoon we were quietly contemplating how quickly a week goes by. The house seems too still. It is remembering that when our son was with us there was more activity, more voices, more gaiety and more serious conversations.

We keep expecting -- through a reflex of so-recent memory -- him to appear suddenly. Coming downstairs from the library where he set up his computer and his papers and was busy constantly editing other authors' papers for publication, and finishing up one of his own. Mealtimes have reverted from two people turning their heads in attention to a third party's considered opinions -- not necessarily synchronized with ours -- and discussions that followed, to the more usual combination of casual, light conversation.

Our attention has swerved once again from its focus on two little dogs and one another, to a concern not to miss anything about the presence of our son, with us again. Always at the back of my mind, a ticking clock whiling away the hours until his all-too-soon departure. A little wormhole of a nagging repetitive reminder to live with the moment, not in fear of the imminent future. 

When we returned from the airport we felt relieved that we had gone out much earlier in the day for our usual ravine hike. We had him with us, then. Neither of us felt much like embarking on a hike at that point. I always find it helpful though to be busy, doing things. So I turned my attention to preparing dinner; a cheese quiche for a change. Light enough, flavourful enough and satisfying enough for both of us. 

An email awaited us this morning. And although it needed no response, a simple reassurance that all went well, one was sent. Then we went back upstairs to shower before breakfast. It had rained all night, heavily, interspersed with some freezing rain. According to the forecast we were supposed to have up to 5cm of new snow. Instead, we had a sodden landscape, the rain carving away a little more of the snowpack.

After changing bed linen, doing the weekly laundry, we all went out for a jaunt through the ravine. We were, in fact, a trifle less jaunty than usual. Once again, the ravine's hillsides presented with more snow shaved away, and larger patches of the forest floor visible. The creek down below could be heard from the hilltop we descended to enter the ravine and the forest. Fed anew by both rain and snowmelt, since the temperature had risen to 4.6C, the creek roared down its winding course through the forest.

The trails were more icy, more slippery, the ambient atmosphere decidedly springlike. No one would sensibly enter the ravine to course through the trails without cleats on these early spring days. We saw a few acquaintances out as we were, appreciative of the changing landscape and the opportunity to stretch our limbs. Because of the heavy overcast threatening rain we were all geared in rainjackets, but none fell. In days to come we may yet have a snowfall or two, but Nature cast her de for spring, and spring it is....