It's been several years, since the lockdowns and isolations began, that we've been at the airport. We're now 'living with COVID. People are  travelling once again. The parking facilities were crammed with cars. Once in the airport terminal it was striking how different it looks now. Drab, colourless, like a miserable, tired old warehouse. The visual appearance so changed. Nothing welcoming about it.

Gone the wall 'waterfalls', gone the sculptures, including the life-size+ sculpture of McDonald-Cartier seated in a bench, another victim of 'cancel-culture', a cancer on our public consciousness. There was some colour, however, as it happened. Courtesy of a welcome-back committee waiting for the arrival of a Vancouver-to-Ottawa flight returning from the Beijing Handicapped Olympics.

There was a sizeable group in the otherwise-yawningly empty atrium that included young families with their children. There were red and white balloons. And they were rehearsing their welcome-back champions! calls and huzzahs. The flight was late in arriving, but when it eventually did, each time a wheel-chair-bound or otherwise unidentified but recognizable face made its way down the escalator, great lusty shouts of approval, appreciation and cheeriness rent the air by the dedicated delegation.

 

I'd forgotten it was Spring Break, traditionally the busiest travel time for people with children, once school discharges for that interim week between the last of winter and the arrival of spring. And just two days before we had turned the clocks forward an hour, grudgingly welcoming the return of standard time. Which accounted for the number of people arriving with children in tow, to visit with family and friends in Ottawa.

 

 

Yesterday's hike through the ravine was the start of a week forecasted to be far more moderately temperatured than we've become accustomed to, and it was beyond pleasant at a high of 2C, light wind and occasional sun. It suddenly occurred to Irving to look closely at some hazelnnut shrubs in the forest understudy that were were passing at the side of the main trial.

 

Huzzah!, new life hovering on the brink of spring recovery! Sure enough, here and there on the slender branches of the hazelnut shrubs were just-emerging catkins. Validation that nature hasn't forgotten long-appreciated routines announcing the transition from winter to spring. Cheering us up immensely. Not that we didn't appreciate winter; we always do. It's just that at this time of year we're looking for a change, and spring's arrival is that change.

 

And with spring on the cusp of formally presenting its entrance on March 21st, it looks entirely justified in the decision Jackie and Jillie took to put away their winter jackets until next winter arrives. Now, woolly sweaters will do the trick to keep them comfortable in milder temperatures, even if radiating from ground level there is ample icy temperature from the thick layers of ice and snow forming the winter snowpack.

 

The creek is now freely running, wide and deep, carrying along all manner of detritus, as the snow begins to melt and run down the hills. We all decided we'd venture out to the ravine a few hours earlier than usual. And despite that this has turned out to be a superb weather day with a high temperature of 5C, occasional sun and light breeze, surprisingly enough we had the forest trails almost to ourselves.

And then, just before we concluded our extra-long tramp through the trails, we came across a sign that had b een helpfully hung on a tree branch. Reminding all who enter the ravine of the returned presence of the coyotes that had last year at this time departed the ravine. A reversal; they've been absent from the ravine all last summer into fall and through most of the winter. Now, people whose backyards face the ravine report seeing them even in their backyards. And not just between dusk and dawn, but mid-day.