We don't share many cheerful conversations, my sister and I. Not that there aren't occasions when one or the other of us cracks some wry humour as fuel for laughter. But her health has really degraded over the past ten years. She mentions frequently that her physical condition is eroding swiftly. Today she admitted she hasn't been out-of-doors more than five times in the past year, and I'm aghast. She increasingly has trouble walking, her sciatica nerve has intervened to cause her discomfort and pain with movement. Her lungs were compromised when she cooked over hot oil in their family business, a fish-and-chip store ages ago. She suffers from brain fog, can't remember things and words continually elude her. Other than that, she's just fine.

Actually yes, in a sense she is. Her sense of humour hasn't abandoned her, nor has her curiosity about the world and her awareness of all that is happening. She's four years younger than me. She reads 'talking books' because she is legally blind, though she does have some vision. She's exhausted, she told me, as a result of Long COVID symptoms, acquired through one of the vaccine inoculations she had.

 

All this brings into sharp focus how fortunate we are to be able to do all that we manage with relative ease. And to enjoy a good quality of life, something that of circumstances beyond her control  eludes her. My brother-in-law, a Holocaust survivor, now does all the house cleaning and the cooking, something that evolved over the years. He's capable and competent and they manage to get by.

 

I have a habit of reviewing the bill that tallies our weekly grocery purchases. A habit I've acquired. It also helps me to see how much we've spent buying non-perishable food for deposit in the Food Bank collection every week. This week I was surprised to find a number of errors. The cashier, one of several we're friendly with and fond of, had explained to us how fatigued he was, having worked longer hours than usual. What I saw on the bill was obviously a result of his fatigue in a number of items we were charged twice for. There was a time I would have saved the bill, circled the errors and brought it back a week later for reimbursement. I don't do that anymore, and certainly will not this time, to spare him embarrassment.

 

Yesterday was such a superbly beautiful day, nothing could have tarnished it for us. It just serves to bring home to us our great good fortune in life. Today wasn't quite as beautiful, but pleasant regardless. A little colder than yesterday, with overcast skies with an icy wind. But nothing detains us from agreeing with Jackie and Jillie that it's time to venture out for our usual hike through the forest trails.

 

And that's what we did today. Despite night-time freeze-ups, the snowpack is gradually, but appreciably shrinking. The creek in the ravine is running full and rapidly, swollen with snowmelt, as modest as it yet is. The temperature had risen to -1.1C, so the trails were in turn solid, icy and partially slushy. Where did slush prevail? On the hillsides, of course, yielding slippery conditions and a challenge to make headway.

There were crows cawing in the distance, and we wondered whether they were harassing an owl. We passed an old fallen tree trunk that had been down for over a year, and were surprised to see that a Pileated woodpecker had been at it. We'd have thought it would have been abandoned of any larvae, but evidently that majestic bird knew otherwise. The snow under the trunk was heavily littered with the long, thick shards of wood typified by that woodpecker's handiwork.