I am often defending the Ottawa winters, extolling the virtues of the endless days of cold, crisp sunshine reflecting off a blanket of cotton white snow, the sharp crunch of ice skates on the endless ribbon of frozen canal and the pristine dusted pines that hug the fairytale trails and snug, fire-warmed wooden huts of of the park. Not yesterday. Yesterday it was bloody awful. The temperature fluctuated between -1 and +1 and the precipitation changed its mood as often as a two-year old child (I'm just guessing on that one, ours is as stable as you like). Freezing rain overnight turned to drizzle in the morning, ice pellets by noon, then wet sleet and finally snow-hail. It was cold, windy, damp and grey, deeply, darkly grey. Grey above, grey below and grey in your very soul's own heart. All of which may make it seem a curious decision to head out on foot to the shopping mall, churning as it is at this time of year with unhappy and unrelenting shoppers. But that's