Strange,but perhaps not so strange. The more inclement the weather the more disposed I feel to spend time in the kitchen, puttering about, thinking up food combinations to hit all the right notes; comfort, taste, warmth. Actually, the weather isn't, strictly speaking, inclement that we're experiencing now. It's simply winter weather. Just like every winter, days on end of (your choice), sun, wind, damp, icy, snow -- day after day.

 

With, on occasion, lapses into a spate of days so benign we're certain we can smell and visualize spring lingering expectantly in the wings while winter is centre-stage. Illusory. But we're not the only ones; on such days we see and hear the forest crows over the forest canopy cawing their impression that spring is nigh. When it's only Mother Nature playing her mischievous seasonal games with us.

 

Nothing to really complain about given the fact that there were so few -20C days this winter. Which meant that days of -10C highs interspersed with quite a few days hovering on the cusp of freezing translated as no freeze-up of the forest creek. Highly unusual. There were several half-hearted attempts with a thin sheet of ice extending from bank to bank, that soon melted in following milder temperature-days.

Yesterday the temperature high was -12C and we felt the icy fingers of cold probing through our winter jackets. If it got any colder today, we lectured one another, what's the point of going out and freezing? Jackie and Jillie, well insulated in their boots and jackets seemed able to sustain the cold, while we felt uncomfortably exposed,

 

 

So today, no ravine walk. In the kitchen yesterday I was busy doing what would result in a hearty dinnertime repast to warm our quaking innards. There was chicken soup, and there was a steaming hot and flavourful potatonik (potato pudding) and baked, breaded chicken breast. Oh well, of course also the 'dreaded vegetable', as Irving calls it; broccoli, to give our dinner plates a bit of colour and our bodies needed vitamins and minerals.

 

And to top it off, Chelsea buns for dessert,  prepared earlier in the day in the required stages but not baked until the afternoon; still slightly warm when it was served at dinnertime, the heavenly aroma of brown sugar, cinnamon and raisins permeating the kitchen.

So today I caught up on a number of things; a pedicure and manicure were in order. So was catching up on my correspondence. And a few online charitable donations that I kept putting off, and now no longer have to. Jackie and Jillie were restlessly expectant of their usual walk. Their daily afternoon salad distracted them. And then they settled down for another snooze, since the vegetable salad usually follows a ravine hike...