Last week was extremely cold here in Ottawa - the kind of cold where it's hard to scrape the car windows because there's so little moisture in the frost. I actually plugged in the car for 3 or 4 nights in a row - and there are years where I don't plug in the car at all.

It started warming up on Friday, and the weekend was much nicer. I even went cross-country skiing this morning.

(I tried to talk myself out of it on the grounds that we haven't had any fresh snow in a while, but ... this is Ottawa. It's either too cold or so warm it's melting or there has been no snow since we last got freezing rain. You have to take your opportunities where you find them.)

While I was on my way to the park, I ran into one of my neighbours walking their two dogs.

Now, I know these dogs. I see them all the time, and when I go over to their house, the dogs are thrilled to see me.  In fact, Oliver immediately goes to get his tennis ball so I can throw it for him.

But for some reason, when I see them outside of their house, Oliver barks like crazy at me. He's even been known to run from his house to my house when I'm outside just so he can bark at me.

It's ... well, it's pretty funny, actually.

So when the dogs saw me, naturally they had to come over to bark at me. As always, I offered to pet them, but they were far too excited for that, so I continued on my way while they got distracted by a piece of garbage.

I got my skis on and started on my way.  The snow was pretty dry, and it actually made for quite an easy ski.  I skied to the end of the park and back and then walked home.

Next week I might even venture out on an actual ski trail.