Although we had Environment Canada assurances that yesterday's snowfall would surrender to calm and cessation by noon, that didn't, after all, materialize. It had snowed throughout the night before, with high winds prevailing, making it fairly nasty for anyone having to suffer outside low temperatures of minus-24-degrees Centigrade and blowing snow, snarling any late-night traffic and making it generally miserable with what might be thought of as mid-winter conditions. Yet winter has not officially arrived, not until the 21st.

Right after breakfast my husband went out to shovel out the driveway and walkways, even while the snow was still coming down, sometimes desultorily, sometimes fiercely, driven by the prevailing winds. He had already, before breakfast, gone out to hand-shovel the deck, and the walkways below in the backyard to enable our little dog to get about to perform his usual morning functions.

Mid-day saw him out again, cleaning up with the snowthrower. And he left it afterward sitting in the garage, knowing that when the snowplough eventually came through it would fill the bottom of the driveway with hard chunks of snow and ice, necessitating removal before overnight icy conditions leave it almost impermeable and resistant to movement the following morning.

As we anticipated, the municipal snowplough came through just before dinner, necessitating yet another struggle with snow removal. And enough snow had fallen in the interval between the morning clearances and that juncture to require the snowthrower to be employed for the entire driveway and front walkways to clear a way through for morning newspaper delivery and our own use later in the day.

From the news, it appears that Montreal got hit with snow levels over our own. It's a wide swath this storm is covering, first hitting Toronto then moving off to eastern Ontario and finally lingering over Quebec and the Maritimes; Halifax has its share of problems. But then, at the same time, due to another weather system that winter is so famous for, many U.S. States have been stricken by an unusual snowfall.

And then, of course, there's the Middle East, struggling to release itself from the unexpected effects of a cold and snow system that has blanketed much of that region, with severe consequences, the worst in 60 years.