Whenever we see him, and that is often enough, he is, other than in the summer months, wearing a bright red shell. The lightest of water-proof jackets, no lining, with the zipper always one-quarter down, revealing his exposed, tender white neck. I have to resist an impulse to yank that zipper up, and wonder whether his wife remonstrates with him about exposing his bare flesh like that in inclement weather.

Even in the winter, he wears that red shell. I've asked him whether he doesn't feel the cold, and he laughs, assures me that when it's cold and miserable he wears layers under that red shell. Still, I wonder about him. He's elderly, looks older than he actually is, which is about six years younger than us. We seem more robust, although that's not necessarily so. He's out there daily, with his two ski poles, briskly marching up all the trails, taking his quotidian exercise. A creature of routine, like us.

He ventures out at such times when he knows his wife will be all right on her own for an hour. He is her sole caregiver. When he fell ill last fall, was rushed to hospital and problems discovered with his heart, post-surgery they both were admitted to an recovery-care home; he to actually recover his health and she because there was no one but him to look after her. They were very anxious to return to their own comfortable little house nearby the ravine.

Up until a short while ago she was capable of standing on her own in the kitchen, and she was still preparing their meals. She can no longer comfortably stand on her own; he has devised a low counter arrangement she can readily access in her wheelchair and when she feels well enough she insists on continuing to prepare their meals. Everything else devolves to him.

His name, Max, is not short for Maximilian as I thought it might be. He's always cheerful, always happy to stand about and talk. Unlike many others with whom over the years we've assumed a friendly acquaintance Max does not have a companion animal. He walks for the exercise it represents in any kind of weather, robustly concentrating on covering the trails in as short a time-frame as he can.

He's a sweet man, Canadian by way of Switzerland. Now that's different; we've no idea why he might have thought to leave Switzerland for Canada. Originally, I'd thought his accent, faint though it seemed, was middle-European. Czech, or Hungarian, for example, but no, Swiss. He keeps himself informed of world events, and he is faintly opinionated.

And from him we learned that little tidbit about black and grey squirrels coming out of the same litter; which explains why black squirrels are considered to be of the grey squirrel family.