We are always taken by surprise by the evidence of the onset of winter. Yesterday morning, sitting at the breakfast table, we were astonished, looking up, to see a delicate curtain of snow descending in a light flurry reminding us that winter is close at hand. As though we need reminding. It has become very cold, at times the cold biting, with the prevailing autumn winds. And it is now as likely to snow as it is rain to come pelting down over a landscape sere, grey-brown with the lack of colour that now prevails.

But everything is ship-shape here in our little household. We've performed all the winter-ready tasks to be done, from having the undercoat oil spray done on the car to prevent against rusting from the effects of roadsalt, to removing all the outdoor lawn furniture for storage in the garden shed, and cutting back all the perennials to give them tidy rest over the winter months. Two days ago I ventured into the garden for the last time to complete the cleaning up process. And yesterday afternoon I snipped the last of the plentiful supply of parsley from the back garden, to use some that evening and store the greater portion of it for later use in the week to come.

We've changed the clothing we daily wear from warm-weather gear to cold, and now go about with long-sleeved garments, double-layered against the cold, because we keep the interior temperature of the house under 70-degrees F. and at night far lower than that. The feather duvet is now on our bed, and we can sleep warm and snug through the night.

There is no comparison to living in a war-blighted country like Syria where the brutal regime battles onslaughts from a murderous Islamist jihadist movement, or in Iran, where human rights are so brutishly and casually dispensed with, targeting dissenters, gays, religious sects and women's rights, let alone China where ubiquitous urban coal-fired furnaces belch out carbon-particle effluent through the frenzy of manufacturing the world's goods, and their industries poison their rivers.

We are comfortable, complacent, and permitted to be as critical of our government as our disgruntled mindsets spur us to, living in a thriving economy where the fortunate majority has the opportunity to compassionately aid the growing numbers of area food banks established for the relief of those whose personal fortunes have not been so forgivingly generous as our own.