Last time we did our weekly grocery shopping I thought I'd try a different type of fish for a change. We tend to have mostly haddock or salmon. This time I bought a fish I'd never heard of before, redfish, frozen, from Portugal. They're fairly small, whole fish. And last night we tried them out; one a bit larger for Irving and a smaller one for me. I baked potato chips alongside the fish in the oven and we had a fresh vegetable salad to accompany the meal.

 

 

I'd squeezed lemon over the fish along with a mixture of herbs and olive oil before baking it. Irving liked the fish, favouring it over salmon. My impression was the reverse. I think next time around, though Irving thought the fish had a good taste, we'll get small whole mackerel fish. When we lived in Tokyo fish was available fresh in abundance and we often had mackerel; I'd use soy sauce liberally on them alongside seasoning.

 

 

Before going up to bed last night snow was falling, lightly. We thought that finally we might begin to recoup what we had lost in the snowpack as a result of these milder temperatures and precipitation falling as rain, not snow, unusual for this time of year. By the time we woke this morning, snow was still falling, but the total accumulation couldn't have been more than a skimpy four cm.

 

 

Since the weather forecast warned of the temperature rising again and rain to follow, we thought we'd better get out before the rain started. We had a good, leisurely breakfast of melon and banana, oatmeal and tea and coffee, and after the kitchen was cleaned up we set off for the ravine with a willing Jackie and Jillie. It was relatively mild, no wind to speak of and the footing was much improved now that snow covered the ice on the trails.

 

 

Climbing up the hill with the steepest gradient that I had slipped and fallen on two days before, was a breeze today. Conditions were such that the landscape was cleaner, brighter, beautiful again, along with a vastly improved footing with the ice well covered with snow that crunched underfoot. That early in the day we had the ravine as it were, to ourselves. No one else seemed to be out on the trails, we made the most of it, admiring the renewed winter scene.

 

At one point we saw a Pileated woodpecker rise from low down on a tree trunk when Jackie and Jillie approached, then it flew above, and we watched for a while as it appeared to assess its prospects. We haven't seen a Pileated for months. They're the king of the woodpeckers that we come across in the forest. There are no avian challengers to their primacy. Owls, by contrast, because they're predators, are continually harassed by crows and even cardinals.

 

When we returned home I turned my attention to baking. Prepared a bread dough for later in the week. And then baked light and airy coconut cupcakes. Topped with raspberry jam and coconut, they make a good-tasting dessert for a Friday. Then I put on a chicken soup to simmer for a few hours, infusing the house with the fragrance of freshly baked cupcakes, to be followed by the mellow promise of chicken soup; a typical Friday in this household.