We fortified ourselves against the cold yesterday at dinnertime with a light meal that was still in the realm of 'comfort' food. I decided we'd forego a soup with pulses and vegetables. We had a head of broccoli and I haven't made cream of broccoli soup in a while. Actually because we were both nursing 'tender' stomachs, we felt it best to bypass beans. So broccoli it was. Simple enough, starting with chopped garlic clove, sliced leeks and chopped jalapeno pepper in olive oil. I use a mixture of non-salt \dried herbs at this stage of soup production and it works well for taste and fragrance.

Then came the cut-up broccoli florets, a bouillon cube and hot water. When it was all cooked, an immersion blender went into action and smoothed out the vegetables in a slurry. And that's when the sour cream was added. There didn't seem any need for salt or pepper, and the soup was served piping hot alongside buns I'd just taken out of the oven, replete with cheese and sesame seed to complement the soup.  Irving had smoked trout from Norway. It resembles smoked salmon, but it's lighter in flavour and less salty tasting.

When we went up to bed the second floor of the house felt pretty cold. On sunny days heat streams in through the windows warming the second floor. No such thing on heavily overcast days. So we were glad there was a set of fleecy linen on the bed, soft, warm and comfortable under the duvet. I'll wait a few weeks yet to replace the intermediate duvet with the winter one. The temperature dipped to -2 overnight and that's what it was when we awoke.

Regional and federal health authorities are informing the public that as crowded and dysfunctional as hospitals everywhere in Canada are at this juncture, things are destined to become a whole lot worse with entry to winter and the flu season. The Omicron variants are once again re-asserting themselves and new cases are rising, while for children the situation seems even more dire. Children's hospitals are asking other hospitals to accept those over 14 because they're unable to cope with the number of infants and older children being admitted with respiratory illnesses.

To complicate issues even more there's a serious absence of children's pain relievers like ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Desperate parents have taken to driving to the U.S. border to visit pharmacies there where shelves are well stocked with children's formula pharmaceuticals. One of the problems leading to the acute shortage in Canada evidently is the issue of bilingual labelling.  Health Canada is loathe to allow importation of  unilingually-labelled over-the-counter drugs.

I thought it would be a good idea and rather timely since we're getting low on masks to order another several boxes. They're manufactured right in Canada, by an aboriginal entrepreneurial group. Excellent quality; nice to know that items like this can be manufactured in Canada since we should be self-sufficient in the production of basic yet prime-need goods. Rather than be dependent on China, the world's largest producer of just about everything.

We were late finishing up cleaning the house today, so it wasn't until four that we were able to get out to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie. When we entered the forest there was a slight hint of dusk falling. By the time we were halfway through our circuit the hint had turned to an early evening atmosphere where we could see in the distance through the tree canopy the narrow glittering orange band signifying the setting of the sun on the horizon.

We had a pleasant hike. Jackie and Jillie met up with some of their friends in the Cookie Club and Irving was easily persuaded to dole them out on a cold 2C evening, absent the bullying wind of yesterday. Despite the cold and despite the darkening atmosphere, we passed a number of others out on the trails with their dogs and no one looked as though they were suffering. Cold it may have been, but the air was sharp and clean, the forest floor firm, the trees intriguing as always and all the dogs we met up with happy as a lark to be out.