Well, today we had bright blue skies and sunshine, as the squalls moved further south, to bother places like Barrie and Toronto. Have fun with that, City People.

The tradeoff was of course an arctic blast of air, and temperatures of minus 24 Celsius. The yin and yang of winter: snow and grey skies or sun and freeze-your-face-off temperatures.

You can judge how brutally cold it is by the sound the snow makes when you walk on it. The higher-pitched the squeak, the colder it is.

I've done some shovelling; I go outside for 30-minute sessions to chip away at a bit of the snowplow's leavings. It's too cold to stay out longer than that; I wear a sweatshirt, a running jacket, a winter jacket and then another winter shell over that. On the bottom, sweatpants over jeans, and boots up to my knees. I look like the Michelin Man but I'm beyond giving a damn.

The dogs are out there with bare paws; I know that their paws are genetically engineered to handle the elements, unlike human feet, but even they have their limits, and today we reached them a couple of times. They don't even want to stop to ''go'' because standing still is brutally painful, and if they do muster the courage, they hop and limp for several strides afterwards. Arwen actually aborted a mission this morning; she couldn't bear standing still.

Fortunately, the cold's only staying for a day. We're trading it for some more snow tomorrow. Naturally.