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.