It rarely fails, here in the Ottawa Valley that winter will not agree to leave in due time, but prefers to grudgingly make its exit with another, quite unneeded display of its ill grace, leaving us yet again the obligation to dig ourselves out from under its ill humour.

Yesterday's inclement weather that arrived in the guise of a farewell tour, clogged highways, shrouded landscapes, screened the atmosphere with heavy blowing gales of snow. As fast as one could shovel, the snow piled up again. Accidents on roadways abounded. Municipal authorities pleaded with motorists to stay off the road if they could manage to, but this was an otherwise-ordinary working day and people were driving of necessity.

City buses broke down and the flow of traffic was further impaired. Children being bused to and from school on rural roads were constrained in their anxiety to return to homes - where power line interruptions due to trees falling on them meant they would have few daylight hours left to do their homework - sat for lengthy periods when the buses got mired in snow, awaiting rescue of tractor pulls.

Homeowners, already weary of shovelling out their walkways, driveways and porches over the long winter months, were put to it again. On the upside, the expectation that spring really is not far off on the atmospheric horizon.