Overcast mornings seem to deliver an irresistible message in the winter months when we're lying comfortably in bed, semi-aware as alertness begins to return that there's a world outside the world of sleep and dreaming, waiting to resume. Not hard to figure out why the warmth and comfort of our beds dressed in light and fluffy comforter-clouds have such a hold on us.

Jackie never stirs from his chosen place at one corner of the foot of the bed, covered snugly with his own little blanket, but Jillie's another story. She tends to curl up against the small of my back toward early morning and the moment I move toward awakening, however unwillingly, she is instantly prepared to greet the day, though we're not. Down she leaps to trot over to the opposite side of the bed and begin tugging on Irving's side of the comforter.

When that fails to elicit his notice as it invariably does, she resorts to short, sharp yet muted barks that deliver her opinion of our lack of enthusiasm. After all, when morning arrives so does breakfast. And that's what she craves. She will leap on her breakfast, but it's the add-ons that she eagerly awaits. And today, it's a scrambled egg she shares half-and-half with her brother.

 

It wasn't yet snowing when we went out to the backyard with our two little black imps this morning. The forecast had been for 2 cm of snow, with another 10 cm to fall overnight. By late morning the snow started and the atmosphere was soon opaque with thickly falling snow. It took no time at all before Jackie and Jillie were snow-dotted, just in the time it takes to do a turn around the backyard, sniffing the odours of our night-time visitors.

I decided to bake something I haven't baked in many years, a small sheet of brownies. While I was about it I was busy with a myriad of other Friday morning food preparations. I needed to melt six ounces of mixed baking chocolate; two each of bitter, semi-sweet and unsweetened dark. In the microwave. I meant to closely monitor the melt progress, but even so because two of the squares were thinner than the other four, I wasn't sufficient alert, and those two squares burnt. On the burnt perimeter, however, the other chocolate was at the almost-melt stage, just perfect to scoop into the brownie dough. And so it goes.

 

When we went out a few hours later to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie, the snow was still tumbling through the atmosphere and the fresh air made me realize that my hair smelled of burnt chocolate. Which Irving enjoyed inhaling. Fresh snow had begun frosting everything to transport us into that kind of wonderworld you can't escape when a newly snowed-in-world presents itself visually.

Footing couldn't be better. Although J&J may hesitate to go out to the backyard during snowstorms, once dressed for the weather and unleashed within the ravine to follow the forest trails, their enthusiasm provoking them to frolicking about for the sheer joy of life, is infectious. We begin to feel the same way minus the frolicking.

And the same seems to be true of everyone we came across this afternoon in the ravine. People prepared to grin widely at the pleasure of a newly white-washed world. The antics their companion dogs perform affecting everyone with a renewed appreciation of life. In the process relieving minds of irritations and grievances of everything that must be coped with in anyone's life.