The day before Canadian Thanksgiving we are enjoying fabulous late-summer weather, much above normal warmth for this time of year. Fall always means plenty of exterior work to be done around our house.

This year is no exception, in fact, my husband worked throughout the spring on the windows at the back of the house, bringing them up to good condition. Canada's extremes of cold and moisture, heat and torrential rain events, frosts and ice pellets do their damage to vulnerable areas around the house.

This is the year scheduled for the exterior painting to be done, around the house windows. And it's also the year when my husband discovered quite a lot of rot around the window frames, particularly on the sills. So he was, and is continuing to be busy replacing all of that rotted wood. When he's completed the task, along with removing old, scaled paint, he will proceed with the painting itself.

Nudging age 75 he has found it enormously useful to have begun a regimen of weight training which he initiated last winter. It has enabled him to build his skeletal musculature after the inevitable decline due to age, making it far easier for him to lift and manoeuvre, for example, heavy, tall ladders.

For my part, I would far prefer him to hire professionals to do the work my husband has taken for himself. Not that he isn't capable of performing the work every bit as well as a professional would, but because of the element of both fatigue and danger to someone of his age.

He's an amazing individual.