It is perplexing and irritating beyond words at one and the same time, and that represents a gross misunderstatement. Why it is that people who initiate contracts, verbal or otherwise, who maintain old contacts for the purpose of keeping a service business going, all too often fail to meet the objectives of the most basic nature when they themselves make the appointments.

When I answered the telephone early this week the male voice on the other end recalled his name and his company to my memory, asking whether I might be interested in having our exterior windows cleaned, as usual, for fall. I would indeed, I responded. And mentioned how puzzling it had been when he hadn't shown up as scheduled in the spring to clean the windows.

He apologized profusely, said his secretary had been a problem and he had, as a result, fired her for keeping sloppy, inaccurate and undependable records. As a result of which, he went on further, he had lost almost half of his traditional clients. I commiserated. Said how glad I would be to see him so our windows would get the attention required.

The appointment was set for Thursday, at ten in the morning. Thursday dawned, ten o'clock passed, then eleven, and the succeeding hours as well with no sign of his van and equipment. Nor were we contacted with any kind of explanation. Another day has passed with no sign of the errant service-provider.

Twenty years earlier we had first been contacted by the company and they had regularly cleaned our exterior windows. If we weren't home when they happened by, they left an invoice in the mailbox.

We always paid a bonus to them, exceeding their price for the job. The business owner was very pleasant, always had a helper with him and the two speedily and efficiently did the job in no time at all. They carried with them the requisite ladders, cleaning equipment and professionalism.

The current business owner is someone who had worked with the original owner. I make no claims to having any deep understanding of human nature but the laissez-faire manner in which many people in the service industry seem to pursue their interests is confusing, to say the very least.

I had imagined a large truck arriving with an installation crew, hauling along our two new garage doors. Nothing of the kind. When the service truck eventually arrived it was a company cube-like truck. It contained neatly wrapped sections of each door, along with all the metal parts and all other items required to install them. The outward journey, on completion of the installation would contain the dismantled old garage doors, for disposal.

The old doors, which had performed very well for two decades were manufactured of inferior materials, as might be expected for components used in mass production of tract-style housing. Each spring the bottom portions of the doors would be rusty from road salt carried into the garage and splashed over the bottoms of the doors. That would require that the rust be carefully removed, but in the process each time that occurred, the metal on the doors became less robust as they were prepared for re-painting.

It became time to replace the doors not only because of their deteriorating condition but also because their fit was not tight, they were not insulated, and as a result the two bedrooms partially positioned over them on the second floor were colder than they should be during the winter months. The new doors were meant to solve those problems. They are more efficient, their installation would provide greater energy efficiency.

And an added bonus is light! These doors have windows and they emit an extraordinary amount of light into the garage, where previously opening the door to the garage would mean having to put on lights because the interior was so dark. Overall, a welcome change.

That installation crew I anticipated? Turned out to be one technician. He worked from ten in the morning to two in the afternoon, dismantling the old doors and installing the new. And a fine job he did of it.

The most critical piece of information, the query that led off our conversation was, did I pass on his greeting? Yes, I did. And I also, I informed him, handed his business card over. Had he written a personal message on it, he prompted me, as though he didn't know what he had himself done. Yes, I responded dutifully, it was a brief greeting and an invitation to get in touch. He is a medical practitioner, someone who likes to be noticed.

He is flamboyant, and certainly more than a little eccentric. His suite, large, spacious, with many smaller examining and equipment rooms leading off the main corridor from the reception area, bulges with antique knock-offs of clocks wagging on the wall, ornate mirrors and paintings, none of them original works of art, skilfully printed and framed looking like what they are not, presenting an overall most fetching atmosphere drawing the eye around and then up to the ceiling from which is suspended all manner of hobby airplane models and blimps.

What he is interested in is the reaction that was elicited by that personal greeting I conveyed, from this city's famed opthalmalgic surgeon who is also tasked with looking after the welfare of my aging eyes and who had performed a vitrectomy on my left eye back in December.

"He smiled", I said.

"That's all?" he asked, obviously disappointed. "And what did he do with the card?"

"The card? Well, he accepted it, looked at the back."

"Did he say anything?"

"Well, no. He placed the card on the desk, set it aside."

"Oh", ruefully.

Fact is he wasn't interested in this communication from an optometrist who suffered from some kind of insecurity complex and was anxious to have the notice of someone higher up in the field of expertise than himself. He wanted to be noticed as someone who stands out, someone unique, and that he most certainly is. He is a poseur, and that is unfortunate. But I think he's also competent as a technician, capable of using the equipment he has to evaluate the formula I require to acquire new eyeglasses.

The surgeon relates to me, when I see him, his busy schedule, his travels abroad to exotic places in the world where medical assistance is rare. He has for many decades of his professional life, dedicated time to aiding people in Third-World countries.

The optometrist, well he is mercenary and self-absorbed and intent on displaying himself as exceptional. He is that.

Now that he has his very own ice-cream maker, he occasionally feels the urge to experiment. When we had serial episodes of house guests, apportioning everyone their share of freshly-made ice cream it represented as a most nicely-complementing end to a meal. Now that we're just the two of us again, it means that at least half of the new ice-cream produced goes into a container to be kept in the freezer for later use.

The occasions to make a fresh batch consequently are fewer and far between. Which, although I truly do appreciate the taste of the product that he comes out with, is fine with me. Truth is, having ice-cream is less of a treat when it's so readily and too-frequently available. With the ice-cream maker right at hand and the needed ingredients for basic vanilla ice cream (whole milk, sugar, heavy cream, vanilla) at his disposal, we could end up eating too much of the delicacy, far too often.

Yesterday, he decided he would like to try making butter-pecan ice-cream. All we had in the baking pantry was a quarter of the amount of half-pecans he needed, and a lot of crushed pecan, which wouldn't serve the purpose. He decided to improvise and use cashew nuts instead; we had plenty of those, as well as lots of walnuts. The idea was to brown the nuts in butter until they were dark and crispy, to be thrown into the emerging ice-cream during the last few minutes of mixing.

The ice-cream was excellent, quite delicious, but what a whack of (scrumptious) calories!

One thing she does seem to have retained an vestigial memory of; before her slow decline she had always, no matter how deeply asleep she might be, reacted when the clock turned to five in the late afternoon. She would awake, alert, and signal to us that she wanted to go out. The purpose of going out to the backyard purportedly to urinate, but really to let us know that she was expecting her evening meal.

While she no longer goes outside on her own because she is almost completely blind, and requires accompaniment, it has become clear that she no longer remembers why she reacts as she does. She wakes up and begins to restlessly wander the house, or the backyard, stumbling into everything, knocking her head against immovable objects, and we wince, and try to guide her to safe passages.

She no longer seems to recognize her own body telling her of a need to become hydrated. We now bring water to her, or lead her to her water bowl. Sometimes she drinks deeply, sometimes she just is not interested in drinking, but if we leave her to her own devices she can go a complete day without herself approaching her water bowl.

She no longer waits, expectantly, to be fed, hovering around the kitchen while her food is prepared. She simply wanders interminably, clumsily, through the house, the only interior she has ever known but whose parameters of space and objects within that space she seems to have forgotten. Most often we have to bring her into the kitchen and deposit her beside her food bowl. She will pick away, wander about, come back to pick at her food again, and eventually manage to eat it all, particularly if it has been spiked with something extra that appeals to her taste buds.

If we manage to time her evacuations just so, there will be no deposits in the house that day. We are not always successful; she has lost the recognition of what is appropriate, simply naturally responding to her urges. During our daily hour to an hour-and-a-half walk in the nearby woods she often will neither urinate nor evacuate.

She wears a halter during our walks, and we're able to guide her with it, otherwise she ambles awkwardly off the trail, gets turned about, doesn't realize which direction we're walking in, unlike previously when she knew all the trails so intimately and naturally. When she comes to a complete standstill and remains there, we understand she no longer wishes to continue on her own, and she is picked up for a distance until the terrain is flat and wide again, and she can be placed back on her own four feet to continue the walk.

She always had a standoffish personality, never was one to take to cuddling, a very independent streak that we respected, unlike her younger male companion dog. Latterly, however, we feel it is important for her to receive physical attention from us, and we stroke her and speak to her even though it's doubtful she can any longer hear us.

She reciprocates in her own way, informing us that she values that physical touch.

Yet another unalterable fact of life. Another sorrow surfacing. There is no avoidance of the inevitability of the approach, the presence, and the final days of life. This incident would not even begin to mark a fraction of a nano-event in the course of life. Yet another of Nature's creatures inexorably departing life.

But of course, for her, the steward of a beloved creature, it is an event heavily weighted with sorrow. An event that no human intervention can in fact delay. Not for that little creature, not for any of nature's organisms. He had simply outlived his natural days. Six years is not bad for a very small rabbit that was born with a myriad of health problems. But six years is a very short time to have enjoyed his presence, she mourned disconsolately during a sleepless night.

She knew, from early that morning that he was in distress. Interested in nothing; certainly not his food. She had on previous occasions fed him through a tube. It was evident that this would only cause him more distress, this time. He was barely breathing, simply sitting there, his companion Hanna, to whom he mostly snuggled closely when they slept, giving him the room he needed to be by himself at this critical time.

By evening his breathing shallower, then still, he was gone. If our spirits rise from out bodies on death, why not a small rabbit's? River's spirit lifted and exited his body. He was at peace, would no longer require those interventions, ministrations, concerns he was so glad to be shed of, so he could return to his pen and be himself.

Hanna has lost her companion.

Canada Post and its union CUPE, are entirely too precious. The presumed entitlements of its employees under a series of union contracts make a mockery of that old rhyme about mail delivery: "Rain or shine, snow or sleet, we deliver your mail".

Oh, really?

Actually, not quite. Not unless, for example, the homeowner is prepared to obey the fine print in the contract that Canada Post heartily accepts on behalf of its coddled postal delivery workers, matter of fact.

There are codes and expectations to be met, some reasonable, many more reflecting just how entitled workers believe they must be in their work environment, not actually reflecting exposure to dangerous situations, but expectations nonetheless. Take, for example, the situation of a single mother, age 50, who in this depressed job environment has been unable to find full-time employment in her field of structural interior design and property management, despite years of experience and many past, highly-responsible contracts delivered on time and in excellent order.

She has been putting food on the table by taking ill-paid part-time employment and reluctantly accepting financial assistance from her family. She is stretching her resources to make ends meet, to pay all her bills, to ensure her young daughter has the environment any child requires to feel secure and well cared for.

When she bought her property six years ago she felt fairly assured of ongoing employment in her field. The last several years have proven extraordinarily difficult; she has been without a contract for a year and a half, struggling now to get along. The mailbox that had sufficed, and is in excellent shape despite that road ploughs do their best during the winter snow-plough months to knock it down entirely, no longer fits the model that Canada Post insists upon.

Its height is somewhat lacking, evidently, contravening 'rules'. The rural mail delivery person may not have complained, but inspections take place from time to time in accord with the union contract and obviously the placement of her mailbox has been singled out as inadequate. She has no idea how many others in the neighbourhood, let alone in rural areas to begin with, are being hit with a similar notice, that mail delivery will be stopped unless she complies with the rules as set out in the communication.

She has no idea how to set about pounding a new post into the ground to affix her mailbox to. Nor does she have the financial wherewithal to employ someone to perform that task for her. This niggling, nagging threat to her peace of mind with respect to paying her bills on time, on top of having the economic resources to do so, threatens to break the camel's back.

Doubtless there are countless others who can recount bitterly the insulting assaults on their tax-payer rights to count on regular mail delivery. Canada Post Corporation, while on the brink of redundancy in light of other, alternative means of communication, seems to have little sense of public responsibility, nor conscience.

On Friday mornings I usually bake a fruit pie or some kind of cake or cupcakes for dessert to close off Friday-night dinner. I often ask what my husband would prefer to have and just as often as I ask he doesn't really know. Favourites are occasionally suggested like raisin-cinnamon rolls or apple pie. This time, though, he had seen a recipe published in the Lifestyle section of our local paper for honeycake, and that brought back memories of childhood and he said, why not bake one, it's been such a long time?

So I agreed. And altered the recipe slightly to include a little bit of coffee left over from breakfast, cinnamon, slivered almonds, raisins, and hot-candied ginger that I cut into tiny slivers with a very small pair of scissors (those folding scissors that were available on the market from China, years ago).

When the cake batter was finished it went into the prepared pan, and then into our pre-heated counter-top convection oven, which gets a lot more of a workout than our conventional stove-oven, particularly during the summer months. Though today officially marks the onset of fall, it is a warm, humid day, perfect for the convection oven.

It's a far more efficient way to bake things since less time is required to produce a very good final product. Except that, on this occasion, the efficiency it is noted for ended up browning the top of the cake before the interior was sufficiently baked. Necessitating that the oven temperature be reduced and the top of the cake loosely shielded with a sheet of aluminum foil so the cake could bake through thoroughly.

Excellent end product.

The youngest and the oldest of our children, although only three years separates them in age and so does geographic distance, one living in Toronto the other in Vancouver, decided to spend some time together, camping out. One is interested in astronomy the other in biology, not all that different, one might suppose.

So off they went, on a trip before summer entirely faded into fall. Each took turns cooking, and while one wasn't too enthralled with the prospect of canoeing on the lake, the other was, and hied himself off for hours, doing just that. While the other contemplated the universe and set up one of his telescopes to view the sun's life-affirming activities.

Viewing the sun during the day and the other stars in the firmament through the night-time hours when dark silently enveloped them. Not entirely silent, since owls roosted and called; a lulling and fully satisfying atmosphere for a biologist and an astronomer. Milky Way? check. Shooting Stars? check. Venus, the Big Dipper, the North Star? check. Bats flying about? check. Nocturnal sounds of animals snuffling through the night, outside their tent? check.

And during the day they did other things too, aside from exploring forested trails. They scrambled up a cliff face and saw there what they had meant to view; pictographs. Nothing like those at the caves of Altamira, but impressive enough as a human expression of what confronted people who lived there a century-and-a-half earlier in a more primitive culture.

A week later, there he was, with me, at the table in the breakfast room, and it was evening and we were playing Pictionary, a challenge for the inventive mind to construct images that would convey an idea, an object, a phrase, an action.

There was one other car sitting there, a silver-grey late-model muscle car. When we made our way down over the cement curb, onto the rocky surface interspersed with all manner of weeds and wildflowers most of which I'd never before seen elsewhere, we saw that, standing on the lip of the curbed cement wall, there was someone silhouetted in the late-afternoon sun, with a fishing line. We stumbled down (I stumbled, he sure-footedly made his way down) to the same level; we approached and spoke briefly. We could see a small school of tiny minnows in the slate-grey water below. He was fishing for bait.

We made our way further downhill, downstream from where the young man was fishing. Hopeful that we would see a myriad of aquatic life forms but the waters, although vegetatively productive, and hosting grasses aplenty where the rocky shore met the stream, were devoid of fish. A small, bright-green frog's huge eyes seemed to be fastened curiously on us.

I stayed at the shore balanced on the rocky surface, trying to identify the wildflowers, while he, with his waterproof boots, leaped from rock to rock that jutted out of the water either just above or below the surface. He bent down from time to time to lift rocks so he could examine what lay under, net in hand. He brought an interesting colony of caddisfly larvae on a black, slate-like rock over to me. It had been colonized by both caddisfly and aquatic slugs, tiny things. He showed me the minuscule hair-fragile netting the caddisfly spin to catch and filter edible organic objects.

There were a few desperately energetic crayfish, quite beautiful works of nature, actually. We studied their form and function closely for a few seconds, then released them back to the water, where they quickly disappeared. But fish there were none.

Above us, on the highway, cars were whizzing by, disinterested in and obviously oblivious to what lay beneath them. What lay beneath them was a large viaduct, a bridge and a tunnel that the creek rushed through. And on the large concrete surfaces of that constructed presence was a hugely colourful display of street art. Fanciful lettering, precise and somewhat interesting; it was the competing colours, form and obvious expertise with the medium that caught the eye. Graffiti-city.

We made our way across the highway when the lights turned in our favour, and dipped down the opposite side toward the creek. Accessibility was somewhat more difficult, and evidently less tried. The grasses here were in bloom, and taller than me, but there was an almost-track demonstrating that many others had come here to assuage their curiosity.

The sun had disappeared under a heavy curtain of clouds, and the wind had picked up considerably. Suddenly we heard loud high-pitched shouting, looked over the expanse across to the other side of the creek and watched as a group of four boys made their tentative way along the tunnel edge, shouting between them and generally having what appeared to be a good time, released from school and homework. We wondered where they had come from; a nearby subdivision from where they had biked over, likely.

On this side, there was a plenitude of mature trees; ash, oak, poplar, maple. Some were bending over perpendicularly, toward the creek. A few had begun to turn, displaying autumn colours. It was not particularly picturesque, rather raw looking, and vast.

Here too, there was little in the way of robust aquatic life. A biologist, particularly one familiar with fresh-stream ecology such as the one I was with, knows that such urban waterways are impacted by fertilizer and pesticide run-off from the nearby farms and domestic lawns.

A reasonable explanation, but the search that resulted in the conclusion does not speak well for the health of the environment, nor in the final analysis, the community that hosts it.

We likely should have left a little earlier. To get there on time. But it's a relatively short drive from where we live, so we apportioned twenty minutes, and because it was a Sunday and we didn't have to battle rush hour traffic, we made fairly good time. In fact, as we were about to make the turn into the road leading to the station, we watched as the Montreal train pulled up.

We'd never seen it so busy there, before. And we've been there often enough. Just not, obviously, on a Sunday, a September Sunday, midway through the month. Actually it was pandemonium, cars veering off in every direction, it seemed. And the line-up of taxis was incredibly lengthy, going all the way down the road from the intersection. Who knew there were so many taxis in the city? Was this the likeliest venue from which to gain a fare? It's a fairly large city, after all.

Ah yes, they lost the airport contract. That's why they're gathered here. Waiting. Drivers getting out of their cabs, gathering in little cliques, drinking coffee, discussing the trade. Likely exchanging opinions on their union's recent decision not to ask the municipality to proceed with a fare hike. In recognition of the fact that these are tight times.

I exited the car, went into the building, tried to make sense of the arrivals/departures bulletin boards. The line-ups for train boarding snaked from one end of the cavernous building - stretching from left to right - to the next, as people waited in orderly procession for their opportunity. Which gate should I be standing before, I wondered? Usually only one gate was in use, now all three were. How could I make certain I wouldn't miss him?

A tall young man in a light jacket, his facial features pleasant as he gave attention to the dog beside him took my notice. I watched as the dog, a large, well-proportioned, light-haired animal that I knew was part Poodle and soon learned was also Golden Retriever, was alert to every movement the man made. The conversation between the two, inclusive of body language was touching.

I asked if he was awaiting the arrival of the 644 from Toronto, and he said yes, he was, and wasn't certain that the incoming passengers beginning to flood the station were from Toronto. Two older, portly men hugged as they met close beside us and I asked whether one of them had just disembarked from the Toronto train. No, he was coming from Montreal, the Toronto train was just behind him.

In the end, I did miss him. My new acquaintance with the Poodle/Golden Retriever had decided to go off and look around, in case his mother had decided, on not seeing him, to wait closer to the entrance. I stood my ground. And before long, I was nudged from behind, turned to see my son's grinning face.

Women appreciate a little tenderness in their men. Which is to say, thoughts of themselves that inspire men to demonstrate not only in a tactile, emotional way that they fully appreciate how much the woman in their life complements their needs, but in other, tangible ways.

Some women appreciate receiving floral bouquets to augment the verbal bouquets.

Most women look forward to receiving trinkets of some value on special occasions through which the men in their lives can demonstrate what they perceive as the value to them of their shared and reciprocal emotional ties.

There are gifts of lesser value, but almost equally appreciated, like boxes of chocolates, tickets to concerts, and on a more costly scale, getaway vacations.

Perhaps because of my age, though I truly do enjoy receiving gifts of jewellery from my thoughtful husband who doesn't need a 'special occasion' to surprise me with something out of the ordinary, I also am truly touched by his thoughtfulness in surprising me in other ways.

He headed out yesterday afternoon for the purpose of purchasing furnace filters. He planned to clean the furnace to prepare it for another winter of use. He did bring back two new filters. He also picked up a set of wrenches that were on sale, to augment his fix-it workbench tools.

Among a few other items, he selected fresh corn on sale at a nearby supermarket, and thoughtfully shucked them of their extraneous natural wrappings, presenting to me fresh, ready-to-go corn on the cob for that evening's meal.

And, to my delight, he had dropped in at the local bulk food store. Offering me a large bag of fresh walnut halves, another of mixed nuts and yet another of large, crisp Brazil nuts, all of them roasted, unsalted.

A gift to melt my heart.

With the sudden arrival of colder weather, cold-weather-comfort-style cooking is now back in vogue in our house. The proliferation of mealtime summer salads for hot days is now once again behind us. Avoidance of putting on the stove oven, lest the house become too warm as well, in favour of using the small, counter-top convection oven, although it will continue to be used for small things to be baked.

Such as the cheesecake I baked in the morning for the evening's meal dessert. For which I take advantage of the pouches of berries I have tucked away in the freezer, to top the cheesecake off with. So our raspberry-topped cheesecake was very welcome to close off our Friday-night meal of chicken soup and rice, baked chicken breasts with mushrooms, steamed cauliflower, and potato pudding.

Colder days heralding the eventual onset of winter, the need to turn on the house furnace for warmth, and threats of night-time garden frosts demand the comfort of foods geared to warm us up.

It is a quiet street, the one we live on. Almost a cul-de-sac. Very little traffic to disturb the day. Most traffic representing people who live on the street. The street is rarely used as a short-cut to another street. An excellent street for people who appreciate peace and quiet. A very appropriate street for people with young children, although there are now more retired people living on the street than families with young children.

A regular intervals when school is set to begin for the day and when it is dismissed, several school buses trundle down the street, mornings taking children to their classes, and then returning them safely to home in the afternoon. We hardly notice their presence. It is reassuring in a way to know that the needs of children are well taken care of.

Recently a new family moved to the street. Most new residents who purchase houses for re-sale on the street, a very much prized location, are families with young children. This new family bought the house from another family with young children who placed their house on the market and moved because the parents were separating and they were down-sizing.

We have met the father of the three young children recently moved to the street, four houses up from ours. He's a genial-enough person, quite cognizant of all the amenities to family life the street offers, including easy access to a wild green space up the street, leading to a wooded ravine which has been left to its own devices, fully appreciated and municipally protected.

Although we have not met the mother of the three very young children, only one of whom has begun to attend primary school, we did meet the children's caregiver. She is a young, extremely pleasant, outgoing Filipina. She takes full charge of the children throughout the week, from seven in the morning to four in the afternoon. I know how arduous that must be, having looked after just one young child a decade ago, for nine years from seven in the morning to six in the evening, our own grandchild.

She speaks wistfully of her home in the Philippines, but makes it obvious in our conversation that she is grateful for the opportunity to live in Canada, as a nanny, sending home a good portion of her earnings to her family. She has made what appears to me to be a supreme sacrifice; leaving her own three children behind, at home, with her husband.

She is eager to sponsor her family, to join her here in Canada. The paperwork has started, but it is a long-drawn-out and anxious procedure requiring great patience. She has, obviously, great patience. As do the many young women from the Philippines who come here as nurses, aides, and companions for the aged.

Life is pleasant for so many people, contingent on where they live, what social stratum they represent, the opportunities available to them. Conversely, even those with all the advantages so often find themselves at odds with good fortune.

We're always caught off guard. Already, it's mid-month, September. Hard to believe the summer of 2011 has been and is now slipping away. It's gradual enough perhaps, but it always takes us unaware. And unhappy about the change in season. But Nature's seasonal changes are immutable and they occur with the kind of regularity we must expect, though we rarely do.

The last of the late-summer perennials are in bloom, and they will be around for a little while yet, adding colour to the gardens. Cooler nights have arrived, and with them the sounds of birds winging south. The sound of tiny warblers calling out to one another as they flee south, leaving the coming cold to us non-winged creatures rings on through the night-time hours. Geese in their unerring formations call down to us, sad farewells.

And we are sad. Sad that yet another season of languorous beauty and outdoor recreation, along with relief from sheltering from cold-weather conditions are now passed for yet another year. I imagine we should be thankful that we have these quite defined four atmospheric,environmental seasons to appreciate and contend with. Life is never boring in that regard.

Yet murmuring a regretful farewell to another summer makes us wistful, no doubt about that.

Yesterday we went along to our local Sally Ann thrift shop with bags of soft-back novels, videos, dishes, replaced light fixtures, clothing and other items that were ready to shed, perfectly usable and recyclable. We always look around while we're there, for other items that other people have brought in, that might be of interest to us. It's where we acquire most of our reading material. And I, my wardrobe, truth to tell. And have, for many years.

Almost immediately upon entering I came face to face with an old friend. Smiling, as usual, declaring how glad she was to see me. She had asked after me, she said, a week earlier, when my husband had dropped by to look around at the videos. I knew, I told her, and I was glad to see her, too. As usual she looked as though she were pregnant, just as she did when we first met so long ago. She isn't, and she is a slight woman, delicately built, so I cannot imagine why her stomach protrudes as it does.

She told me years ago that she was from, I believe, Sudan. That was back when our granddaughter was very young and we were her day-care providers while her mother worked. We used, to, on occasion, take her there to look about for toys to supplement the ones she had. She has always been a friendly, open person, and I was always glad to see her. I felt fortunate, in fact, that she was so open and friendly, glad to be greeted familiarly by her. And I returned that familiarity and open greeting, to a good extent.

She is always dressed well, has an air of being confidently comfortable within herself. She is a devout Christian, speaking always of her faith, and I know she is a regular church-goer, since she has mentioned that to me. I know also that to arrive at her place of work, the closest Salvation Army thrift shop to where we live, she has to travel by public transit quite a distance. She is married, but seldom speaks of her husband. She has told me that she spends roughly three hours each day, going to the store from her home and then back again.

She never, ever complains. She enjoys her work, and is grateful to have this job. I don't believe she has ever looked elsewhere for another place to work because she is comfortable where she is. She believes in being grateful for what one has, not being resentful for what one has not got. And she tells me this. She tells me other things, her concern for her extended family members because of unrest and violence in her home country. She is glad to be in Canada, sad that her family is elsewhere.

She asks continually about our daughter, since I once told her, at her querying, that our daughter's occupation is one of instability, looking for work contracts, with occasional stints of troubling unemployment. She asks also about our granddaughter, having last seen her when she was young; when children reach their teens it is with great annoyance on their part that they be taken to second-hand shops; when they reach mid-teens they will not be moved to enter such places.

Our relationship is not quite that of equals. I admire her tenacity of spirit and hopefulness, her resolute comfort in her faith, her unfailing good spirits, although I have seen her pensive and almost sad. She feels free to ask anything of me. I would like to ask things about her personal life as she does with me, but I feel constrained. It's the Canadian in me, I think, that makes me hesitate to seem to be prying.

Several slight, relatively speaking, events yesterday, both life-affirming and a reminder that death is part of life, at least the conclusion of it; that all living organisms make their gradual way toward that final repose. Early morning, when we take our two little dogs out to the back garden, there was a bluejay on the fence, with a peanut. Helping himself to the few that I put out nightly for the squirrels to discover the following day.

Later in the day my husband brought my notice to an unusual sight; from the dining room windows we saw a tiny green frog, the size of a Spring Peeper, sitting on the outside windowsill. We wondered where it had come from. We do have a woodland creek running through an urban forest in a ravine up the street from our house. An awfully long way for a creature so tiny to venture from. And why a windowsill when he could have the cover, comfort and moisture of the garden that sits below it?

Out went my husband to gently pluck the miniature frog off the windowsill, with the intention of walking down to the creek and depositing it there, a far more congenial and life-supporting, natural environment for a wee amphibian. Too late, it was dead, its miniature green body in quiet repose, not merely taking a quiet break, as we initially thought. And it became evident to us how it had met its final moments; we hadn't noticed its presence in the dark of night as we routinely cranked the window shut the night before, trapping our tiny visitor between window panes, to asphyxiate.

Later in the afternoon when we were out in the ravine for our daily ramble with our two little dogs, we fed squirrels, those bold enough to approach and others who waited patiently for us to deposit peanuts in the usual cache-places. Among the boldest are the tiny chipmunks who are generally more aloof and shy during the summer months, who seem to appear in the fall to diligently gather their winter store.

The maturing garden, both in the sense of its longevity and its seasonal maturation, requires continual cut-back to ensure tidiness. Ornamental trees and shrubs, like any other growing organism, take all the advantage they can out of the growing season. Once they've been firmly and comfortably established they begin to put on height and width and simply grow into the space permitted them by presumably judicious planting.

And of course the gardener, before even planting, must try to take into account the space that any single tree or shrub will require to fit comfortably into the entire garden picture envisioned in the head of that very same gardener. It's difficult when faced with a tabula rasa, a blank slate, to imagine how trees will eventually begin to fill in the landscape. Coupled with that difficulty is the desire to fill in the landscape as swiftly as possible to attain that mature garden look.

Most of us are impatient to achieve the look of a well-balanced, mature garden, so we tend to leave less space between growing trees and shrubs and perennials that will grow to their eventually mature size, than we should. It's always difficult to imagine how well growing things will occupy their space and nudge their neighbours.

We're facing that problem now, when our trees and shrubs have achieved their mature size, and are still reaching out in all directions. On our front walk leading to the porch, trees are over-reaching themselves, in the sense that the lovely bower effect that has been achieved also presents as a challenge to clear and easy movement.

The garden as impediment to flow. Well, that requires well-intentioned and clear foresight, but failing that, a good, sharp pair of clippers.

One's children are precious beyond description, they never cease to inhabit their parents' thoughts and concerns. Grandchildren, on the other hand, occupy quite another, very particular place in their grandparents' inner sanctorum. What they represent has been described time and again by psychologists, social scientists, parents and grandparents themselves although the relationship, enduring and deep-seated is again, beyond mere descriptive words.

That very special bond between grandparents and grandchildren, where it exists, helps shape the most intimate recesses of a child's mind. As for the grandparents, the deepest satisfaction, for want of a better word, resides in the interaction between grandparent and grandchild. All the more so when the grandchild initiates that ongoing contact.

From the pedestrian to the most uplifting experiences shared, time exchanged between the two has a depth of meaning that reaches the deepest emotional and spiritual level, for it represents on a biological level the meaning of life itself. Time will erase the grandparents' existence but a minuscule portion of it is carried forward by the grandchild.

The timeless, endless cycle of mind and energy transference from one living organism to another, the cycle of life and nature's still-ambiguous purpose is illuminated by our puny human existence. Love transcendental.

Those who have not experienced that most elementally primal of attachments and continuum will have missed the deep meaning of life.

About five years ago my family doctor referred me to an optometrist when I remarked that I felt there might be something wrong with my eyes because of having experienced odd symptoms like brief blinding light after having gotten up during the night. And a few recurring episodes of shooting stars. That optometrist had all her patients routinely fill out a questionnaire which appeared to me to be all about product advertising and consent, through providing your name, address, telephone number and email address to receiving public relations advertising from all manner of optometrist-allied manufacturers and suppliers of goods and services.

I was decidedly unimpressed and refused to complete the survey/questionnaire/authorization, which annoyed her office manager no end, who insisted that all patients are 'required' to comply. My equal insistence that this was unprofessional, intrusive and unethical brought the optometrist, a young woman, out from the back offices, demanding to know 'what was going on'. When informed by her irate office manager 'what was going on', the optometrist glared at me, turned to her employee and said the procedure could be suspended on this occasion.

I should have left that office either then, or when I understood what the double-faced data-collection sheet I was instructed to complete represented, but I did not. During the course of the examination, a stone-faced, civilly-unresponsive professional led me through the requisite series of tests, and eventually produced a prescription for lenses. I had particularly emphasized my concern that something 'organic' might have been going awry with my eyes, and she had said, firmly, that there was nothing wrong.

She was not present to fit me with the resulting eyeglasses, ordered from her stock of available frames. But the ill fit of the frames was only one thing; the more important one was that I found the prescription lenses far too strong, so I simply resorted to returning to the eyeglasses that I had formerly worn, non-prescription, over-the-counter glasses that seemed far more suited to my needs.

Five years later, after a surgical procedure to close a gap in the vitreous of my left eye, which had been the very eye that had presented with symptoms, I visited another optometrist, one who had recommended me to the city's top ophthalmologist who had performed the vitrectomy.

The resulting eyeglasses, with the new formula for 'progressive' lenses, which would aid both my short- and long-range vision, seem not quite what I had envisioned when I anticipated a great improvement in my vision, particularly my short-range vision. The prescription that resulted from this latest round of vision tests appears to be far less capable of magnifying sufficiently to reflect my new needs than the old ones I'd formerly felt to be too strong for my needs.

It seems I've progressively grown into the old prescription, while the new one now fails to meet my needs. Some story this is.

Although we had never been privileged to experience the sight of the two adult great barred owls closely monitoring the experimental nest-leaving of their fledgling, we knew two ravine acquaintances who had, and they had regaled us with their appreciative sightings of the events. We did have the good fortune of seeing one of the adults and the more fully-grown juvenile being accosted by outraged robins - of all birds - on one occasion.

The two owls, as seems their custom, simply were unperturbed at all the racket caused by the outraged and hysterical pair of robins. It was long past nesting time so we hardly knew what caused the outrage; simply territorial, one might assume. But the ravine was as much the territory of the owls and the hawks who came around continually and nested there, as it was robins and crows, the two species we'd thus far seen reacting so territorially to the presence of (hungry, omnivorous) owls.

We hear the presence of the owls far more frequently than those rarer occasions when we actually see them, ensconced on branches, and invariably there are hysterical crows (once the hawks) circling furiously and vociferously around them. Yesterday we heard the unmistakable long, drawn-out hooting of an owl, repeating and repeating itself. We were convinced, by the quality of the last note of the call that it was a human trying out their owl-hooting skill, to attract a response.

We did, soon after, hear a response, a single caw. And we laughed, assuming that the person had attracted the attention of a crow, not an owl. Soon afterward, as we continued our trail hike, and approaching the conclusion of our hour-and-a-half round trip, there was a growing racket of an assemblage of furious crows nearby, circling above and within the canopy, and we realized, belatedly, that it had been no human we'd heard, but an owl.

He is a dapper, dark-haired, mustachioed and exceedingly genial man. And so meticulous in performing the services of his profession that my husband was very impressed, and recommended him to me. As did the optometrist whom my husband had also recommended to me. And with whose own services my ophthalmologist was aware and congenial with, all the more so when digital pictures of the back of my eyes were present in my files at his office the day following having been taken.

On my second visit to his shop, to have the two frames containing my new progressive lenses fitted, I learned much about the man, as he effusively spoke to someone he must have felt was a sympathetic listener. It would not be the first time by any means that people whose acquaintance I had just made and whose personal lives were unknown and of no interest to me revealed their innermost feelings and emotional needs.

What I learned as I made an especial effort to heed what he was saying and to support him in his obvious distress was:

• He belongs to the B'hai religion and is of Persian extraction
• He has been twice married, once divorced
• He is desperately searching for a new companion, convinced this second marriage is over
• He is experiencing much difficulty finding a woman who might wish to share his life
• He is inordinately disappointed that there are so few women wishing to commit themselves
• He is amazed at the modern woman who is interested in engaging in sexual union before becoming familiar with the character of her partner
• He is disappointed at the mendacious interest by women in his financial status

I listened as he explained his second wife, a former widow with two somewhat mature sons, was too much under the influence of her brother. And that her family was a deterrence to their tight communion as husband and wife. He got along well with the older of his wife's two sons, but not the younger who, like her extended family, chose to find fault with him, her husband.

He wanted a divorce from this current wife. She wanted to remain in wedlock, but not in the kind of traditional marriage that appealed to him. She visualized their continued living together as man and wife, but not quite as man and wife; more for convenience and occasionally, hands-off companionship. He found this unsuited to his needs, though he was a patient man, he said.

He had tried Internet dating, and had indeed gone out on several occasions with women, one of whom insisted she had to find out directly through having sex initially whether he represented good marital potential for her, before committing to follow-up dates. How he was put off by this, explaining to her that while sex was important in a marriage, emotional and intellectual compatibility were more important to him.

Other women seemed more interested in his material assets, eager to know whether he had a house of his own, and whether he still paid a mortgage on it. He was put off when a woman he met on line agreed to going out for dinner, and then chose the most expensive restaurant in town.

I suggested some success might be found in mutual acquaintances recommending their friends to one another, and he said he'd been that route, telling me in some detail about several women who had been recommended to him by friends and how they had turned out to be dead ends because again, they were more concerned with material assets than emotional compatibility.

I recommended he be patient with his current wife, that the alteration in their relationship that she wished for might work to his advantage after all, because he is consumed with the wish not to live alone, having done so for five years between wives and having found it not at all to his liking. He listened, but his lip curled in derision when he responded that he could not 'trust' his current wife.

On several occasions he briefly excused himself when he had to tend to other clients, and I sat there, wishing I could escape, feeling I could not gracefully make my exit, as he had not completed the fitting process. The anguished reportage continued and my cautious recommendations did as well, until finally another client appeared and I was able to hastily gather my newly-acquired eyeglasses, wish him the best of luck, and depart.

On my way out, he called after me not to forget him and to please contact him if I had anyone of the gentle sex to recommend to him.

Live on a street long enough and not only do you become familiar with most of your street neighbours but you also become acquainted with neighbours living on the street behind you.

We had decided last night, to have a light, simple dinner. We have non-meat-based meals frequently, and this would be one of them. We had just finished our garden salad, and I was preparing to cook our cheese-herb omelletes when the doorbell rang.

Turned out to be one of our neighbours who lives behind us, whom we see once a year when he circulates on the nearby streets to garner support for his annual Terry Fox run. He's a soon-to-be-retired military man who has reached the apex of his career. He is friendly and outgoing, manifestly physical; stalwart, tall, energetic and muscular. And he's a runner.

He has connected his passion for running (for which he has garnered his own share of winning medals) to his concern for raising funds for cancer research. And we always support his efforts.

At the door, my husband exercised his usual effusive welcome and the two men spoke for a lengthy period of time. Since I had already begun the omelette process this was rather concerning, but I had no intention of interrupting a lively conversation.

There were no complaints issued by my husband, nor me, when he finally sat down across from me at the dinner table, to partake of a meal that was not presented at the top of its form.

It's been some while since we last saw Max in the ravine. And there he was, yesterday, forging his way along the trails, in his crisp, white long-sleeved shirt that he wears constantly, plying his ski poles to propel him along, winter and summer.

Oddly, as often happens, I was thinking of him that very morning. And there he was. Before engaging in our usual greeting, I blurted out the information I'd seen in the morning's newspaper about a new provincial government initiative to encourage the infirm and the elderly to remain living in their own homes rather than become a burden on the already-overtaxed hospital and elder-care infrastructure. Government would kick in up to $1600, I believe it was, for a total $10,000 personal expenditure to help make a home more wheelchair accessible, to transforming bathrooms and other areas in the house as assists to the severely health-compromised whose mobility has been affected.

Which gave him the opportunity to launch into a description of the routine of his life, assisting his wife in the mundane daily routines of eating, washing, going to the bathroom. He had to wait, he explained, before he was free for an hour to embark on his daily ravine-rambling routine, until his wife had properly gone to the bathroom, he had assisted her in the shower, helped her feed herself, and was prepared to rest for a few hours on her own.

He recounted his recent perplexedly-disappointing attempts at accessing - even discovering what was available - through the provincial assistance programs. He had been assured he was on a 'high-priority' list, although he had been waiting a long, long time to have a program-sponsored evaluator visit and explain to him and his wife what might be available to them in home assistance.

He would hate, he said, solemnly, to view the length of a low-priority list.

Many years ago our son and daughter-in-law discovered a small, hand-cranked ice-cream maker, bought one for themselves and one for us, and proceeded to make their own ice creams from fresh fruit, yogurt and a number of ingredient combinations. The one they bought for us languished in our cupboard, brought out for use only when they visited and used it themselves to treat us to their brand of home-made ice-cream.

Recently we had another good look at the ingredients on commercial ice cream, after having read a kind of expose on what many of the chemicals included are also used for and decided we'd be better off foregoing that stuff. We looked around for that little hand-cranked thing, and it was nowhere to be found.

So my husband proceeded to do what he usually does when he's fixated on something, went out and procured an ice-cream maker. They're not easy to come by, sold for the most part only at household and kitchen specialist shops. The one he bought was many times larger, infinitely more simple to use because it was electrically mechanical.

This time when our son and daughter-in-law visited it was my husband who made ice-cream: vanilla on one occasion and chocolate on another, and since I'd baked a chocolate cake in honour of my daughter-in-law's birthday, the combination was irresistible.

There was a time, years past, when we enjoyed the company of so many other ravine walkers with their dogs. They're all gone now. We're the only ones left, with our 19- and 12-year-old little dogs. The other dogs, gradually gone. Their owners no longer finding a reason to venture into the ravine for long, leisurely nature walks. And they're older too, perhaps less inclined to challenge their physical resources.

So we were pleasantly surprised to come across an old friend walking with one of his two thirty-year-old sons who had recently adopted a rescue dog, which just happened to be a Great Dane, a superb creature.

Sydney, he told us, was long gone. At sixteen he had more than lived his life span, a beloved canine companion. He explained that when they'd taken him to the groomer's for his usual tidying up, she had noted he was bleeding from his mouth.

Sydney was a fairly small dog, perhaps small-to-medium, a mixed spaniel-terrier, it seemed, off-white, with hair that tended to grow quite unruly. He had his quiet enthusiasms, and was an extremely good-tempered animal. His owners devoted to his care and a deep appreciation for his company.

A visit to the veterinarian revealed he had a malignant cancerous mass in his mouth. Soon afterward, he said, surgery was done to remove the mass. It gave him an additional three months of life, before they understood they could no longer hold him to life because he was suffering too greatly. And they were forced to make that final decision.

They won't, he told us, attempt to replace him. They're too old to start all over again. And truth to tell, for them Sydney was irreplaceable.

Back to shopping once again - and have been for quite some time - at the good old supermarket that is far too small, too crammed, narrow aisles, but the selection just suits me fine, along with the prices, lower by far than all of its competitors. It's what it has made its reputation on, after all. And its title, Food Basics, adequately describes - or described - the type of products it made available to its customers.

That has changed over the years, as it has stocked up increasingly on more selections that emphasize what the consumer wants - or at least a goodly proportion of the consuming public - namely, more highly processed foods, like frozen dinners and pre-packed, pre-prepared meats and salad vegetables. Still, compared to other supermarkets, with their emphasis on selling electronics, clothing, housewares and all manner of other goods to complement the food they sell - sometimes it seems the reverse - this one represents a more comfortable fit for me.

It isn't to last, I know, since the franchisee is in the process of building a far larger structure nearby to which, in a few months' time, the store is scheduled to move. Enabling them to accommodate and introduce into their aisles and shelves, all the irritating items apart from comestibles that all the other supermarkets sell; bedding, housewares, clothing, etcetera.

The supermarket has latterly plastered its windows with signage reading "300 food items price-reduced!", which reads very nicely, but as I commented rather sourly to the store manager yesterday, those signs should be removed and replaced with others reading "600 food items price raised!", to more accurately reflect reality.

Thank heavens for mature gardens whose backbones of trees, shrubs and perennials are so dependable to offer seasonal texture, fragrance and colour to the garden. Necessitating that the care-giver of that garden invest relatively few hours of maintenance. Some weeding time, some tidying, and a little more time spent in shaping and cutting back rampant growth.

Fact is, there has been so much happening during these summer months that it's just as well the focus of the garden occurs in the spring, and that's when most of the labour is undertaken to ensure the garden looks its best throughout the months that are destined to succeed.

Most of our garden clean-up is done in preparation for the winter months, so we tend to that heavy-lifting in the fall. There's enough work in the garden come spring, without the massive work of garden clean-up, cutting back perennials, lifting the annuals out of their pots, emptying the pots of soil in preparation for next year's planting.

So it's a relief not to have to spend an inordinate amount of time doing garden maintenance during the hot months of summer, to be able to enjoy the various splendid flowering plants that present in succession for our enjoyment. And, of course, the lovely annuals which labour on imprssively to give us those exciting punches of colour and form, separate and above from the perennials.

All they require from us is a little tenderness and a lot of moisture, and we're amply rewarded.

It leaves me confused. Wondering what exactly it is that causes me to have such a lack of confidence in my faculties. Leaving me feeling inadequate, as though I am no longer in control of myself, my ability to negotiate myself around in the small part of the world that I inhabit. I know that I've been isolating myself to a degree. I've been unwilling to go out and about normal types of activities that would take me away from home.

I find comfort in the predictable, in routine, in being at home. There I am able to exercise authority over my responses. I can negotiate everything. Outside, when I'm exposed to the outer world, however narrow the framework, my lifetime of self-assurance becomes thinner. This is just, I know, an emphasis due to age, common in youth and the impaired, to the normal human condition. Not that other animal forms don't seek comfort in the familiar.

I suppose it might have a great deal to do with the episode, now a year in the past, of having to be admitted to the emergency department of our local hospital when I realized something was organically and by all the manifestations being demonstrated, quite wrong with me, internally. A month later however, I was restored to my full physical capacities, and more. Yet my confidence in myself appears to have been quite disturbed.

This, despite having the good fortune of a life-companion who knows me as intimately as I know myself. Who insisted that we retreat this summer from our home for our usual week away in the wilderness area of another country. And where I discovered that I was indeed still capable of meeting physical challenges.

Yesterday, when I exited the hospital after seeing the opthalmalgic eye surgeon who had given me the regrettable information that the retinal tear in my left eye, a 'fourth stage' event, had returned, I was of course, disappointed. Admittedly, my eyes had been copiously and irritatingly eye-dropped previous to examination, and this created an unclear vision for me, apart from the distortion that the tear had created.

Yet I felt inadequate and confused, and incapable as I sought to identify our car with my husband awaiting my presence so we could return home. I felt like a child, helpless, or close to that, in the face of a world I wasn't quite familiar with.