The east-facing corner of the house was flooded with light this morning, as sunbeams poured through the kitty-cornered sets of windows, illuminating not only that room but the hallway behind it. Our bedroom would only light up in the afternoon and nor would the bedrooms at the front of the house host the full brightness of the risen sun. That corner room that Irving transformed into a library by building shelving from floor to ceiling, always catches the early morning sun, always makes me think we'd left the light on, overnight.

Irving listens to the news early morning in bed with one of his little transistor radios and earbuds. As much to hear the weather as to pick up what's new in the news. So he can whisper it all in my ear as I begin to stir and refuse to wake. The sun, he told me, would last until just after noon, and then clouds would close in and rain would begin sometime later and as the temperature began to drop, it would turn to snow.

That meant to make the most of the day and the prevailing early-day sun, we would best head off to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie soon after breakfast. Breakfast, needless to say, is late on a Sunday morning. It takes some time to prepare and we luxuriate over it, taking our time reading the newspapers. The melon we had wasn't as sweet as the summer varieties, and I peeled three bananas just beginning to ripen and discovered all three were rotted through the middle. Frost got to them, Irving thought. They looked fine before I took the peel off. 

We had French toast, and so did Jackie and Jillie as a special treat after their own breakfast. I went back upstairs to make up our bed, assemble all the towels from the bathroom, from the powder room, along with tea towels that comprise the laundry on a Sunday. I disassembled the top of the stove burners and stuck the pieces into the dishwasher along with breakfast dishes and pans. And then off we went to the ravine.

Milder even than yesterday, since there was not even a whisper of wind. The snow on the hillsides that could be seen yesterday was now melted. Only some ice remained on some parts of the trail network. But the sun was out full blast, lighting up the atmosphere, the footing was good and we followed Jackie and Jillie along the trails stopping when they did, continuing on when they did. A glorious weather day, but not quite as picturesque as when successive snowfalls have created a snowpack on the forest floor, and newfallen snow embroiders tree branches. 

On our return home, I continued my housework, and Irving went out on a few errands. He felt like having hot smoked salmon with the soup and croissants I'd be preparing for dinner this evening. And he planned to get a copy of a different newspaper because I had cancelled our subscription to a local newspaper we'd been receiving for about 40 years, just fed up with its journalists and the paper's focus neither of us cared for, any longer.

While he was out, Irving dropped by the library again. He had acquired some detective novels for himself along with a James Herriot book I'm sure we'd read before. When we were just kids 70 years ago we belonged to a 'book-of-the-month club and used to get the Herriot books, along with Elliot Mason novels and so many others we enjoyed reading. 

Today he brought back a book for me by one of my favourite writers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And a book about one of Shackleton's voyages in the Endurance, a subject we're both fascinated by and have often read about. And the third was by Simon Winchester, titled 'The Professor and the Madman', about the word-compilation in the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. When it was discovered that the man from whom the most erudite and prolific words and meanings had been received was a lunatic asylum inmate.

Irving headed right back outside, this time to the backyard. To cover the Three Graces sculpture; it's been in place there for almost 30 years and extreme weather exposure is beginning to ravage it. He also meant to fill the tires of the snow thrower, but first had to remove the chains, and he ran into some complications, so he was out there quite some time. He plans to be prepared for the inevitable.