He is not too tall, nor is his presence imposing. Until you notice something strange about him, a self-containment, a quiet confidence. Then, after some exposure to his presence you realize how tightly coiled he is, alert, a conscious spring prepared to uncoil and respond to some unknown threat, an episode of demonic presence, perhaps, some untoward event that might be violent. Or a situation requiring a calming firm hand. He never smiles. When something akin to a smile does eventuate, it is a grim one.

But there is nothing threatening about him. He is calm through that tense persona, a reassuring presence. He is one of those people perpetually geared to action and swift reaction. And he is devoted to physical exercise. Apart from seeing him often during our ravine hikes with his three dogs, one of whom was maladjusted and indeed rescued by his wife and himself from living with one of their daughters unable to respond to the needs of a highly-active working dog, we know he's a solid member of the larger community in which we live.

For someone so tightly sprung, he takes us into his confidence, and we have long conversations as we often walk alongside one another. This has been a particularly bad year for him. He's experienced a number of accidents that have put him out of commission, as it were, while he's been recovering. A broken clavicle in a bicycling accident. A relapse when he fell while running in one of the many running events he takes part in as a serious runner.

And then the eye-opening diagnosis that explained his frequent black-outs, periods of faintness. He needs an operation to remove water on his brain. His condition which may have been present for many years, is gradually deteriorating. When he's out walking through the woods with his dogs it's entirely conceivable that he may black out. His wife is seldom with him, herself a large robust woman whose own smile tends on the pensive side, but little wonder.

She's been busy rendering day-care to one of their grandchildren, a handful of a little boy who gets into everything and excels at temper tantrums. Her husband has been awaiting notice from the neurologist looking after him that the brain surgeon who has agreed to take charge of his operation is prepared to proceed. This week he'll be busy with all the pre-operative proceedings; today an MIR. On Tuesday a procedure that he knows can be very uncomfortable, a spinal tap.

He's uncertain what the outcome of his operation will be. Unsure whether he'll be in any condition to return to his job with a SWAT team. He's on sick leave and fully paid. The RCMP personnel department has advised him that he isn't expected to retire yet, if he's not prepared to. They're willing to wait out his recuperation, and then decide between them what the best course of action would be for him, afterward, depending on how his recovery proceeds.

As August grows to a close, the end of summer is drawing ever nearer. At no time during this summer season did the gardens ever come close to drying out. It's been an extremely wet summer this year, not unusual, since it does happen from time to time. No reason to complain either, since the ongoing rains meant that very little hand-watering was required at any time during the summer.

On the other hand, all that rain meant that there was no opportunity for the soil to completely dry out in between rain events. And while in some instances it could be a positive, it could also have a negative impact as well. Garden slugs certainly thrive in these conditions and this year they've made huge strides on our beloved hostas, many of which show signs of having been the focus of evening feasts.

The giant Dahlias I had planted in early spring and had such anticipation for their blooms, took their time, and not all of them placed their energy in the production of flowers. Instead it was the stalks and the foliage that seemed to take benefit from all the water. True, there was no real dearth of sun either, but not as much as had the rain been less in evidence. Several of those dahlias though large and robust, haven't yet flowered; one has no sign yet of setting buds. One has grown to ten feet in height and is only now beginning to flower, while two others have been hard at work flowering for well over a month.

On the positive side, this year both our magnolia trees flowered a second time around; after the first spring flush, summer brought another surprise flush of lovely blooms. The first flush of roses this spring didn't appear as bounteous as years past, but no complaints. And now we see that one of our Japanese quinces has put out a second flush of flowers; surprising since they're in the business of producing fruit. The two tomato vines produced firm and sweet tomatoes a few weeks back, and are now in the process of ripening another batch.

Because it's late in the season, late-season blooms have made their appearance, among them Japanese anemones, asters, ligularia and turtleheads. Even some of the hostas of our many varieties have waited this long in the season to send up their flower heads. Of course, ligularia and hostas are enjoyed for their interesting foliage, much less so for their flowers.

The annuals in the garden pots are looking somewhat peaked. They've been so hard at work for so many months, they're beginning to flag and some are languishing, as is the Phlox. We lost all the lobelia but for one pot a month ago. The petunias are exhausted. The lilies have completed their flowering cycle, but for a few of the Stella d'Oro. Nasturtiums keep flowering everywhere they are busy crowding out other annuals. And the begonias just keep soldiering on.

We're approaching what is invariably for us a somewhat sad time of year, a wistfully nostalgic time, a time of regret that summer which seems so fleeting in this northern land of long winters and hurried summers is swiftly approaching its decline. Oh of course there's still September with its moderate weather, and then October isn't all that awful, made spectacular by the show of foliage turning splendid colours in the landscape, but the following month will bring us cold and snow. Already the mornings are cool and overcast, too many days rife with rain events.

Already, some of the low-growing plants on the forest floor in our neighbourhood forested ravine are beginning to turn yellow, and it won't be long before they shrivel into the ground. The appearance of fungi at this time of year also heralds change. Sensitive ferns will wither and die. And before the end of September, on into October, wind will create a confetti of falling foliage.

The Hawthorn trees are boasting their bright red haws, the Staghorn sumacs their candelabra of bright red berries. The wild cherry trees have dropped their fruit, beloved of little Jillie who enjoys lapping them up on our daily walks; found edible treasures. And the wild apple trees are dropping their ripe fruit, the underbrush peppered with bright red apples, many of which slugs are quick to invade.

There is one tree, though, whose apples are a dull green, not a speck of red anywhere in them, though they're ripe, and they are the sweetest of the apples we've come across. My husband has taken lately to pausing under that tree, led by Jillie, who waits, face upturned, for him to take the expected action. Which is to pluck one of those green apples from a low-hanging branch, and shine it on his shirt, then begin the process of biting small pieces from the apple to offer Jack and Jill bits. Bits of bites; large ones with skin intact for Jillie and smaller pieces with skin removed for Jackie; their preference.

There are always surprises in the ravine. At a part of the creek banks which had never before hosted jewelweed, this year that flowering plant is rife. As an antidote to poison ivy, which is also present here and there in the forest, it's nature's way of balancing threats, one supposes. And close by, we've now seen for the very first time, turtleheads flowering in the ravine. Likely a bird dropped seed from someone's cultivated garden, and a sudden influx of the plants is the result. Once, we saw a few mountain bluet flowering under a tree in the ravine; same likely source, but they didn't return the following year.

The turtleheads in our garden are a bright pink while those in the ravine are white; perhaps not from our garden, but someone's. Nature, after all, is one gigantic garden.

So it's now a week since I fell down the stairs. And, at the bottom clanked my head on the marble tiles in the foyer. Then picked myself up and continued with our little puppies toward the back of the house and the sliding glass doors to let them (and me) out to the backyard. It was last Saturday morning, at the cusp of the day.

Since then -- because I had, without recalling any bit of the tumble and where Jackie had been on the stairs behind or beside me (not before me), somehow involved him in my mad tumble -- he has recovered, we believe, from the hurt he sustained. Perhaps it was when I was flailing out, sliding on the stair treads, trying to stop myself from heading down the full length of the stairs that I made contact with his little body.

Although he continued along with Jillie through the house and down the steps of the deck with me after the fall, it soon became apparent to him and to me that he had been traumatized by what happened. I'd initially thought the trauma was only psychological; reaction to an adverse, puzzling event, then realized he was favouring his left leg and became increasingly unwilling to move at all.

That no more impeded his appetite than the fall did mine, and we both resumed our normal behaviour, though he was clearly in some discomfort and wasn't inclined to do anything much physical. As for me, after I'd frozen my forehead where it had come in sharp and brutal contact with the marble for an hour or so, tending to the huge lump that had swiftly formed, I went about my normal business as well.

Gruesome me!

In the days that followed, the swelling and the bruising became more pronounced, then began to subside. My eyesight wasn't impacted other than for the irritation of having my left eyelid droop partially over my eye because of the interior blood accumulation as a result of the hard impact. The bruising slowly moved down the left side my face, until almost a week later, it reached my chin.

As for the rest of me, my back hurt a bit, as did my right side and hip, my ankles/shins were slightly skinned and hurt and the middle fingers of both hands felt well exercised with a perpetual ache. Nothing that I couldn't tolerate, so there was no need for painkillers or anything like that. It was exceedingly annoying to see people's eyes linger on my face, after popping with astonishment, and my having to explain what had occurred.

Some people whom we appreciate as ravine acquaintances couldn't resist jocular remarks about abused women, though it's nothing, as a social phenomenon to joke about. I've reached the point that when we're out, I forget about how my face appears to an onlooker, and am brought back to reality when people ask what happened to me, or as one man asked: 'Are you all right?' I am tired of assuring people I'm fine, I just had a fall and was fortunate I hadn't broken a limb, at my age.

But I decided I wouldn't do the shopping as I ordinarily do for our weekly groceries, today. My husband was more than willing to go ahead, and made up a list to take with him. He enjoys food shopping, so he doesn't mind, although it's not in his nature to 'mind', or to resent or resist doing anything that I ask of him. I've gone about my usual routine other than that.

Decided to bake a plum pie this morning, for this evening's dessert. I'd bought a basket of plums last week and thought they weren't as delicious as the ones we used to grow ourselves in the backyard before our plum tree gave up its will to live; a storm had shattered it years ago.

I've always found August to be an unsettled month. When I was young I used to think that the month of August represented the real in-depth month of summer weather; sunny and warm and dependably useful for planning vacations. Then I realized that, in my growing experience, August was the least weather-dependable month of the summer season. Whenever we'd embark with our children on our annual summer vacation we'd experience miserable weather; cool and rainy.

That's when we began planning our summer holiday getaways for June. And although we still could never rely on perfect weather conditions for recreational activities in the great out-of-doors, for the most part rain events were kept to a minimum.

This August has been no different than most, although year-over-year we tend to conveniently forget our dissatisfaction with the year before. We've had just about everything thrown at us but hurricanes. For people who love hot and humid weather we had a prolonged spell of just that. For people who appreciate constant rain events throughout the course of a day, day after day, with moderate temperatures, we had that too.

Nature seldom seems to compromise, giving us perfect weather for any period of time that we could select with confidence to spend our vacation in. But then, there is nothing in this world that is perfect, since it's a moving target; different things to different people. And nature is notoriously fickle, full of surprises.

Truth be told, I'm not personally all that dependent on the weather to enjoy outdoor opportunities; I like the sun, I like warmth, though I would willingly do away with excessive humidity if I could. I also like summer rain, since I'm an avid gardener and it's one of the pillars, alongside sun and warmth of a sturdily growing garden.

This time of year also presents little surprises when we're out in the ravine for our daily hikes. Fungi begin to appear, as they do also in the spring after a succession of rain events, popping up overnight, sprung to life by dead wood buried under the forest floor, and the coaxing of the rain.

I baked a chocolate cake (her favourite) for our daughter-in-law's birthday a few days ago. Not that she is not herself more than capable of baking chocolate cakes, since she's the most accomplished woman I know, able to do many things that most would never dream of attempting, her mind crowded with diverse esoteric facts as well as items of common knowledge. They took what was left of the cake back with them to Toronto.

It was pleasant to see how she and our older son take excellent care of themselves. Neither of them look anywhere like most people of their age do. I can remember how astonished I was myself when I turned fifty years of age; a half-century, I said to myself, shaking my head in wonderment. We enjoyed having them with us, sharing conversations, observations, precious time and enjoyable meals together.

There is little that is as soul-satisfying as seeing your children grow to maturity and find their place in the world. They have both distinguished themselves by their scholarship and their capability of producing usefully memorable functions in their chosen fields; she as an Anglican priest, and he as both a Medieval scholar and Astronomical researcher. And they both share a love of music, skilled musicians themselves.

They went along on Sunday morning to a downtown church to perform a Corelli concerto, which they often do, when they're visiting with us. Having left us this morning to return to Toronto our daughter-in-law is determined to take up her official duties as from tomorrow despite fighting a miserable head cold although the university year doesn't begin until mid-September. Her pastoral duties have gone beyond her position with the university, however.

They brought back local specialty cheeses for us from a small local artisanal cheese-maker just outside Halifax. Their visit with her family outside Truro included a few day-trips with her 84-year-old widowed mother, and the opportunity to construct a groundhog-proof fence around her mother's vegetable garden on the farm property.

It can be very hard for people who aren't botanists or seasoned gardeners to imagine the slender little saplings they're planting in a garden will assume impressive proportions as they mature in decades to come. We tend to regard these stalwarts of an emerging garden as representative when we plant them of what they will become, merely a little larger. And then we're amazed when we're faced with a garden too crowded and compromised by lack of space, each tree, shrub or perennial trying to elbow the other out of the way, competing for soil nutrition and sun exposure and sometimes languishing in the effort.

Just like planting otherwise-attractive garden plants we're not aware have a reputation of space-gobbling, like Ladies Mantle or Chameleon plant both of which have a habit of  insinuating themselves through runners wherever they can, crowding out other, perhaps more desirable plants.

When we planted our then-new garden ornament, a copy of the classical Discobolus in our backyard, placing it where there was a toss-up whether we would prefer a small pond or a statue of distinction once we took down the playground equipment, swings, slides and little 'house' we'd placed there when we were caregivers for our granddaughter, we decided to place attractive ornamental trees beside it.

So Discobolus was wrestled by us on to his pedestal (we were younger then and I was able to provide the additional grappling strength required to supplement my husband's far more considerable physicality), we planted alongside him a pair of small upright cedars and in front of them, a pair of globe cedars. A rose was planted in front of Discobolus, between the trees and in front of it a perennial pink poppy, and we thought the end result represented a pleasant little garden bed.

There was a time when, year after year, in preparation for winter, I would tie up the cedars to ensure that the weight of snow and ice wouldn't distort them the following spring. I had to reach higher and higher over the successive years. At this point there's no purpose trying since they've attained a superior height and are capable of fending for themselves. Now, those upright cedars have attained such a spread that Discobolus is half-hidden, his splendid form naked but for a fig leaf, peeking out discreetly from the green screen book-ending him.

The first of the Magnolia trees wasn't meant for our climate zone, so faithfully every fall, I would wrap it in a gardening winter blanket to help it through our severe winters. Eventually, I needed layers of blankets and with difficulty covered what I could. That tree now reaches above our roofline and no longer needs any attention from us, it has acclimatized and fends for itself through the winter. The rhododendrons that I also used to blanket similarly got too large and awkward to cover. When we have excessively cold winter days the foliage folds into itself with misery, and since this past winter was particularly severe, this year the rhododendrons continue to look defeated, but they did produce the usual splendid flowers.

There are many other trees in our garden, front and back, that distinguish themselves in their maturity, like the weeping cypress, the corkscrew hazel, the blue spruces and the purple smoke tree. All of them add texture, colour and architecture to the garden, important considerations for those who love a well-rounded and -presented garden view, helped along by surprise sightings of classical sculpture discreetly planted here and there, complementing the living garden.

Last Friday when I was doing our weekly grocery shopping at the supermarket, I heard a loud, excited voice calling my name. I looked about and saw no one I knew, no familiar face, but there approaching me was a large woman smiling beatifically and repeating my name. What else could flash through one's mind than a desperate attempt to fit an unknown face into memory, and the thought that someone recognizes you and you're incapable of returning the compliment. I felt like an absolute dud, having to acknowledge her query that yes indeed, I couldn't place her. She laughed and said cheerily that it wasn't any wonder since she was 20 years older and 30 pounds heavier. Kind of her but years and weight wouldn't mask memory of someone's facial features, and I kept drawing a blank.

Then she mentioned a few other names and the place where I'd last worked and at least a few things clicked into place, even if I still couldn't place her personally into the puzzle that was swiftly making sense. I looked just the same as I'd done two decades ago since I had retired, she said, burbling with pleasure. And kindness too, I must say, in her willingness to overlook the fact that someone she could recall had no memory of her. Yes, she was now retired too, she said, living with her 27-year-old daughter and enjoying life, and it was clear, she said, that I was, too. An observation I was pleased to second, eager to agree with just about anything she said, feeling so abashed about the misery of facing a stranger who shouldn't have been a stranger to me.

She reminded me of the going-away party that the unit had thrown in my honour. Did I remember the song that was written for me? she asked and immediately began singing the chorus. Yes, now that she was amazingly recalling even the words to the chorus and singing in perfect pitch, I remembered. I was the only one she had ever met, she said, who could be counted on to state things as I saw them. Do you remember the time you told ... and she named someone whose name I don't recall, but who was obviously an important elite ... that he was a liar to his face? I can recall, she said, that encounter, and when I heard what you said, I just kind of said, uh-uh!

Did I remember that? I smiled, as though to acknowledge that I did, and then honesty got the better of me and once again I had to admit, no, I don't recall that incident either. I told someone to their face that they're a liar? Rather bald-faced, to be sure, and to be sure, I do believe that if I ever had the inclination to call someone out like that I would be more diplomatic about it. But who knows? Perhaps she was confusing me with someone else? Nope, she laughed, that was me, to a tee.

Leading me to think: do I even know myself? I  apologized for my lack of acuity in dredging up a memory that shouldn't have been that far distant that it was hidden forever from recall. I said to her, likely it's the combination of age and failing memory, not that I believed what I was saying, just trying to make it seem plausible to her that there was no wish to forget someone as pleasant as she certainly was; if there was fault to be apportioned it was all mine; time, age; befuddlement.

She didn't care, she really didn't. She was just sweet-natured and pleasantly accepting, and pleased to have come across me. Now, she said, when she sees someone we both knew back then, she could tell them she'd seen me, and I'm just the same as I always was. I thanked her for recognizing me, for not walking on when it became obvious that the recognition was a one-way street, and told her I truly appreciated seeing her, speaking with her, returning to old memories thanks to her graciousness.

She laughed and said that was just her nature; her daughter and her grandchildren always had a tendency to tell her she shouldn't acknowledge this person or that, and she would tell them she'd rather speak to people and if they weren't interested, no big deal. Which is exactly how I too feel. It's in my nature as well to speak a cheery hello to people I pass, some of whom respond, some don't; their choice.

But I was curious. After the party was over and I said my final goodbyes to my former co-workers, every one of whom I liked, I had bundled up all my possessions, and included with them all the gifts I'd been given at the party. I received a final gift days later. It was a small photograph album with pictures taken at the party. With it was a recording of the song they all sang, written for my departure, a comic, wistful happy song that almost made me cry. Inserted into the last pocket of the album was the written transcript of the song. And among the photographs and people assembled within them, there was her picture. She didn't look all that different from 20 years ago herself.

But I had forgotten.

There's quite a few retirees on the street we live on. Actually, in the entire neighbourhood. Which, I suppose, is consistent with demographic statistics from Statistics Canada highlighting the growing 'elderliness' of Canada's population as a whole. We've noticed, my husband and I, how common it has become for the silver-haired crowd to go on regular supermarket prowls hunting for treasures. Treasures for them have become the food bargains to be had through coupon-clipping and avid perusals of weekly supermarket advertisements.

I'd seen some of our neighbours in the supermarket where I regularly shop and have done for decades because it has the lowest prices and a good choice selection along with fresh produce in abundance. Invariably, their shopping carts have been mostly bare; just a few choice selections. "Choice" because what they select happen to be the sale items of note in any given week. They frankly tell me that they go from store to store picking up an item here, another there, until they've exhausted the red-circled supermarket-flyers they set out with on their weekly expeditions.

These are not impecunious people; they are people with a heightened sense of cupidity as I see it. Our neighbours, and others we see flocking to markets for sale-of-the-week loss-leaders are well-off property owners. And their enthusiasm for this focus they have conceived on 'value' for their grocery dollar amazes me. For one thing, food, good wholesome whole foods, are not expensive in this country. We are fortunate to be able to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables flown in from far-off places of the world that export their prized produce, and where it is on scant display in the countries of origin.

Our own local harvests are being sold in supermarkets; the abundance and selection is mind-boggling. The weekly food bill for most people is relatively modest. But this game of stalking supermarket shelves to come home with weekly bargains appears to be a favourite with people who obviously have little better to waste their time with.

On Friday, an elderly couple was in the check-out cashier before me. And there was a hold-up. The cashier, a patient, obliging and cheerful woman I've become familiar with, one of the few who never complains when I place a bagful of items meant for the food bank that she has to run through the cash and then re-bag (something that young, school-age cashiers resent), was dealing with their demands. They had bought a total of four items, two of which were advertised, they said, as "two-for-one".

It wasn't in the flyer which the cashier had on hand as they tend to do when there are special sales. The tall, righteous looking husband went off to retrieve the sign he said hung where the items were shelved. The cashier called for a young man who stocks shelves to validate their contention that they were being cheated out of $4.98. He did due diligence, and came back to report to the cashier and the two petulantly-demanding elders that the sign had been placed by someone where it didn't belong, and it didn't refer to the items they'd bought; bottled name-brand Cranberry juice.

Their faces looked like thunder; the woman had sidled up to me while the clerk was checking things to ask me in a confidential tone of voice if this store returned the full price of what customers pay if their computerized pricing isn't up to date. I didn't know, said they did at one time. When it became clear that they had picked up items not on sale their consternation and anger was palpable. A head cashier was called, and she placated them by informing the pair that for them, this very day, the items would be available at two-for-one, and the storm clouds cleared, as they beamed with satisfaction.

Ugh!

We'd thought about driving out to a nearby picturesque town on the Rideau River today for a few hours. To have a look around at their annual antiques and collectible show. It's been, actually, quite a long time since it could fairly be titled an antique show; for the most part it's collectibles. At one time, years ago, there were some discriminating dealers who had articles of interest for sale, but that hasn't been the case for years. Still, it's a pleasant drive and we thought we'd go along.

However, this story is a minute speck in the annals of whatever can go wrong with plans sometimes will; as in man proposes god disposes, or the best laid plans of mice and men... I'd planned to bake some chocolate chip cookies, and do a few household things before leaving after breakfast, so the reasoning went, and would need to snap things up. We'd want to take Jackie and Jillie out for a ravine walk beforehand so they wouldn't miss their daily exercise. And we would want to return home at a reasonable time, since we're expecting our oldest son and our daughter-in-law to arrive in the early evening, from their stop-over in New Brunswick, having left Halifax yesterday.

So, first thing in the morning after getting dressed I skipped merrily and far too quickly down the stairs, Jack and Jill after me, to take them to the backyard; a morning routine. Except for the fact that my husband and I usually begin this morning ritual together; he was somewhat disposed, and I decided to carry on singly. Singly, I sloppily slipped on one of the stair treads, about three down from the top and from then on, I tumbled all the way to the bottom. Which wouldn't have been so bad, since I'm nimble enough and sufficiently physically resilient to the point where my body could take that contact without undue harm.

Trouble was, after the last step of that uncontrolled fling to the first level of the house, my head made an unavoidable cracking contact with the marble tile of the foyer. I picked myself up just as my husband had run frantically to the top of the stairs and continued on with our two puppies out the sliding doors to the backyard. Which was when I noticed how peculiarly they were behaving; neither inclined, once outdoors to fulfill their end of the ritual requiring their ends to be firmly planted toward the ground. Jackie was trembling and Jillie stood stolidly beside him.

I could feel my forehead swelling fairly quickly, knew I needed to get something cold and wet against it, but felt impelled to see them through their morning routine. I picked Jackie up to reassure him, thinking what had happened was so out of the ordinary they had been momentarily traumatized, and perhaps they were. By this time my husband had joined us outside and I went back in to get that cold wet, limp washcloth against my forehead (which my husband soon exchanged for a small plastic zipbag full of frozen peas and carrots wrapped in a washcloth).

I'm all in black, including one eye; how stylish!

Jackie appeared disinclined to move. We checked his legs and his body to see if anything seemed wrong, and nothing did. But he was favouring his left front leg and didn't want to exert himself, let alone perform bodily functions. We sat with both of them for awhile in the cool fresh morning air as the swelling on my forehead gradually reduced. We applied some Medicam for pain and swelling to Jackie's breakfast, and he went to sleep. Clearly, though I have no memory of it in the chaos that described my catapult down the stairs, I must have fallen partly onto little Jackie as I plunged downward.

None of the veterinarian offices nearby could give us an appointment since our description didn't appear an emergency to them; no broken bones, it's Saturday and their slots were full; our own vet did, but for Sunday at half-past twelve, at which time we expect him to have fully recovered. Hours later, tail wagging, he looked more himself, though he still favoured his leg, and wasn't prepared to leap about as is normal for him, to say the very least. As for that trip to the picturesque small town; forget it. No ravine walk today either, since he's in no shape to exercise himself.

Damn.

About an hour's drive west of where we live there was an Italian artisan whose business was poured cement statuary, and we loved going over to have a look at what he had scattered about his large rural yard. There was classical statuary of all sizes, urns and vases, gargoyles and fountains and garden seats, concrete animalia, all manner of wonderful garden ornaments that we enjoyed looking at. And had aspirations to acquire.

Demeter

When we were fairly new in the house we've now lived in for the past 24 years, we asked if he would produce a balustrade for us to the specifications of our porch. We wouldn't have asked if we hadn't seen that he'd done something very similar on his own porch, as a demonstration of what he could produce. He agreed, made what we wanted to the dimensions matching our requirements, and my husband installed it all. We were more than happy with the results.

And then we began gradually to acquire classical pieces from him, some statuary, some large 'stone' urns to place around the gardens. By the time, over the passing years, that we had acquired all the pieces that we felt a small property like ours could or should contain, he was very ill, his wife who helped him in the yard with queries from potential clients had died, and his son was prepared to take over the business.

Discobolus

He began going to those places in Italy where like his father he would buy the moulds they used in the business. He was a large and strong man like his father, and it was clear the business would survive. But their home and the business it contained had been slowly encroached upon by the growing need to build new homes within the city and what was once rural became urban, and they sold their property. If they were still there, we'd drop by to say hello and roam about the property looking at their new productions.

Things change, people move on, and we build memories of what once was. They were very amenable, sweet-natured people, wholly engrossed in the art and antiquity of what they produced, pleased to see that others were as fascinated with what they found of value, as they were.

The Three Graces

We came across a long-time neighbour just as we were concluding our ravine walk yesterday. Her house is directly adjacent the ravine entrance. Not the original owners, but they've lived there long enough to qualify as 'long-time'. With her was her tiny part-Yorkie, Newton, a delightful and shy little dog, acquainted with our own two, Jack and Jill.

As we were talking neighbourly things, exiting the ravine, a tiny squirrel appeared in the underbrush and ventured forward tentatively, toward us. Our presence obviously didn't quite frighten the lovely little animal, somehow serving, confoundingly to draw it nearer to us, despite the presence of three dogs, small as they were, infinitely larger than the squirrel not long out of the nest. Not to speak of three gigantic creatures, human beings that we are.

It did withdraw, but not before I urged it to be more cautious and to be aware that there is safety in the discretion of distance. Its mother appears to have neglected its obligation to her young to school them in safety measures, among which should be the cardinal rule: approach all creatures larger than itself with suspicion and extra caution. Earlier, in the spring, a tiny new squirrel had come directly toward us on a ravine trail, stopping only when it had reached Jack and Jill, and the three little animals; the squirrel minuscule, our small dogs towering over it, sniffing one another.

On that occasion my husband had reached down and lifted the tiny animal, to take it further into the denseness of the forest, and deposit it on a high crook of a tree trunk, in the hope that it would survive. This is not the kind of encounter with animals in the wild as it were, that we appreciate. These encounters are extremely distressing for what they portend to the fate of these trusting creatures. Most dogs walked in the ravine take great pleasure in meeting their instinctual challenge to chase after squirrels. Our biologist son reminds us that this is partly what survival of the fittest is about.

Yesterday, just as twilight began to fall, we ambled from the backyard with Jack and Jill into the front garden. My husband saw a movement on the walkway brickwork before the frontmost gardens and realized it was a tiny grey mouse. The sweet-looking creature, obviously not long on its own, appeared to have been injured. It made repeated attempts to run off, but its body was canted to one side, and it had difficulty obtaining purchase adequate to its intention. Jack and Jill were curious, and I was stricken at the plight of the adorable creature.

My husband put on a pair of soft cotton gloves, cradled the frightened little thing in his hand, and went off to the ravine with it, to deposit it deep in a pile of soft leaf detritus, hoping that by some miracle of nature beyond our knowing, the little mouse might survive whatever it was that threatened its existence.

When we first met some fifteen years ago, I was shopping at the local thrift shop operated by the Salvation Army and she was working there. I guess there was something about each of us that drew the other. I thought I could see deep-seated sorrow in her eyes and perhaps she saw something in mine that reminded her of a heritage and history she had left to migrate to Canada from her country of origin. One of the first questions she put to me was -- where was I from?

Canada, I responded, born here. My father, picked up at age 13, an orphan on the streets of Warsaw in the 1920s by a philanthropic society, had been put to work as a labourer on a farm near Toronto where some of his schtatel peers also worked until they paid off their passage and were free to move on. My mother migrated with her two sisters from the Pale of Russia, their passage a loan from wealthy relatives who lived in the States; when I was around ten my mother was still slowly paying off her share of that loan; that must have been around 1946.

As for her, she told me in low tones about the difficulties she had suffered, in broad strokes of description, and the miseries and danger her extended family still live in. She mentioned back then where she had come from, but memory doesn't serve me well; perhaps Ethiopia. Each time we'd see one another she would tell me about her husband's failing health; he had a serious heart condition. They both needed to work to keep body and soul together and he had recently lost a full-time job and hadn't much luck looking for another.

Away back then when we first met, although we were both fairly age-advanced, she not so much as I, I politely asked her due date. She was visibly pregnant and looked about ready to give birth. She turned her gaze on me and quietly said she wasn't pregnant. Neither of us said anything after that relating to my query. Through all the years following, this woman, far from robust, but of clear robust character, still looks as though she is in her ninth month of pregnancy.

Now, I know why. A little-known disease obviously afflicts her, one that many doctors don't even know how to diagnose with certainty. It is known as PKD, Polycystic kidney disease, a progressive, potentially life-threatening genetic disorder where fluid-filled non-cancerous cysts develop and grow within and on the surface of the kidney. They start out small but invariably grow in number and size. The kidney becomes enlarged and eventually its ability to function will be destroyed.

Some people afflicted by PKD are fortunate enough to have mild symptoms, experience no pain, and just endure while others have far more serious variants of the disease and eventually require organ transplants. It is a disease that affects a surprisingly high number of people; the most serious types are typically children, diagnosed at an early age. Yet another of those orphan diseases that puzzle medical science, which has only lately been able to treat it effectively with a new, disease-specific protocol.

With a humidity level at 40 and heat at 33-degrees some drastic action was required. All right, nothing drastic about snipping parsley and chives, plucking ripe cherry tomatoes from the garden, but pleasurable. They were meant for a potato salad for dinner tonight. And the closing argument coping with the heat will be a small seedless watermelon.

Didn't take long for the heat to gather this morning, given that this will be the fourth straight day of such debilitating heat so far this week. And Environment Canada warns the heat front won't break until after Thursday. As good a time as any to divest Jack and Jill of some of their haircoat. Looks as though they'll require trimming every two weeks. That's how fast their hair grows. They weren't thrilled, but behaved fairly well as the grooming proceeded. At this time of year hair-snipping takes place outside.

So with my husband sitting on the glider and me on a recliner the process took place under the shelter of the deck gazebo, using an assortment of scissor-sizes. The canopy overhead didn't eliminate the prevailing heat, just cut out the sun. First Jillie, then Jackie. He was enormously interested in what I was doing with his sister, but when it came to his turn his enthusiasm waned somewhat. It took just over an hour of patience on their part and mine to finish the job.

My husband had, despite my protests, taken a floor fan out to the deck, and it's surprising how useful it was, helping to cool me and the puppies throughout their grooming. And then we made off for a ravine walk. Cooler in the forest, and since there has been a windy atmosphere along with the heat, that too helped. It helped also to keep the mosquito population down; in fact we were hardly aware of any. Which helped to make the woodland hike more tolerable

When we arrived back home an hour later it was time to really cool off the puppies. Bath time. Neither of them have expressed any fondness for water, unlike Button, our little waterdog. First Jillie, then Jackie was bathed, each of them alarmed at the indignity of being popped into a tub of water, when they're accustomed to lifting their dainty little paws high to keep dry on the morning grass which an overnight inversion has left infused with dew.

When Jillie was being bathed, Jackie expressed concern over what might be happening with his sister. When my husband was drying each off from their bath the other was busy leaping, yelping, attempting to console one another. Once they were both bathed and dried, they began a mad chase through the house after one another, obviously feeling reinvigorated and refreshed from their baths.

In this heat they'll follow us out of doors, but have no wish to be outside without us. While we're out with them, they'll romp about madly dashing after one another, wrestling, boxing, challenging each other. But stay out there and have their fun without us as an audience? Forget it.

"Move" is the urgent mantra of health authorities to the public at large in Canada. This has its almost-counterpart in the "MOVE" advice of medical scientists whose salaries and research is now being paid for by Coca-Cola, Pepsi, MacDonald's, Heinz and likely all the major food processors. The difference is that health scientists who work for universities and governments warn the public that their love affair with highly processed foods is inimical for their health and future health prospects, while those working for Coke and MacDonald's claim it doesn't matter what passes your gullet, what matters is exercise; so stuff yourself with quasi-food high in calories and low in nutritional value all you want, just work it all off by vigorous exercise.

A new study published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health is the work of a health economist with the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. Hans Krueger contends from his study that if people all over Canada emulated Vancouverites' lifestyle (excluding the lower EastSide), the Canadian population would be a whole lot healthier. Peoples' life-expectancy could be extended another ten years. British Columbia residents, and particularly those living in Vancouver, have a low rate of obesity, inactivity and smoking. From his study he concludes that the health-care system could gain in excess of $5-billion from a healthier population.

"The food industry, in some ways, is behaving a little bit like the tobacco industry did. It's saying, 'Hey it's not our fault. You need to exercise more and you wouldn't have excess weight'. It's just not true", he states unequivocally.

Our younger son is a Vancouverite, and like many other city dwellers he regularly bicycles to his office from his home. He uses his 15-year-old Nissan truck on those occasions when he leaves the city, and for the most part, he does that when he embarks on one of his weekly alpine hiking, kayaking, canoeing, skiing or camping expeditions somewhere in a day's driving distance of the city.

When he was young we would spend our week-ends hiking, canoeing, berry-picking and swimming in the nearby Gatineau Hills. On summer holidays we'd pack up and head to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, selecting a different mountain climb every day. That experience likely aided in his future career, deciding to attend university to attain a doctorate in biological science. A Vancouver lifestyle suits him perfectly; the city's occupants hugely appreciate their near proximity to an indisputably magnificent landscape.

The more clement weather experienced there, unlike much of the rest of Canada, with excessive heat in the summer and wind, snow and icy conditions in the winter, are largely absent in British Columbia. Moderation in atmosphere and close exposure to the grandeur of nature's geology lends itself to a moderate lifestyle beneficial to its followers.

As for us, we'll remain content with our own outdoor recreational opportunities close at hand. We've accustomed ourselves to the extremes of weather conditions and we endure them while managing to enjoy the more positive aspects of living in a beautiful country with plentiful opportunities to enjoy its lakes and forests and mountains. Mind, the current spate of 30-degree high-humidity days we're undergoing does present a challenge all its own. By the time we've concluded our daily hour's ramble through the forested ravine accessed across the street from our house we're drenched with perspiration and well exercised.

But that's the point, isn't it? Moving, and enjoying our natural surroundings. Choosing not to eat junk food is yet another choice, not a difficult one to make at all.

Predictably, the parking lot was fairly full, though we had no problem finding a parking spot. It was Saturday, after all, and some people, particularly the young, find more value in being out in nature than crowding shopping malls. And, in fact, it was young people that we saw there in Gatineau Park, bicycling, hiking, walking in pairs or singly, making the most of an exhaustingly humid, hot day. Those familiar with woodland hikes, however, know that forests tend to be cooler places than urban streets; they know the leafy canopy above shields hikers from direct rays of the sun.

The main trail leading from the parking lot is mostly, and tiringly, uphill, to reach the various trailheads. Approaching the divisions marking various trailheads requires an effort in itself a short, yet prolonged hike from the parking lot, one that I'd never appreciated even in the days away back decades ago when this was one of our favourite trails. It's a relatively short drive from home to reach this point in Gatineau Park, so perhaps that's one of the reasons we favoured it.

Apart from its varied aspect and the challenges it presents, because it does present a physical challenge with countless loops, hills to be ascended throughout the circuit, and tricky footing thanks to the dominance in many places of old tree roots interlacing the trail, and rocky outcroppings underfoot. A slight breeze helped to keep mosquitoes and black flies to a minimum though as usual we attracted some. Black flies in particular seem to like flying directly into eyes and since we were in shade and it was fairly overcast for the most part I eschewed wearing sunglasses.

For the first half-hour it was in fact sunny. Soon afterward a twilight dimness descended and with it, rain. But the rain was very light. We had brought raingear with us, but it was too hot to put on rainjackets in any event. And the canopy did its job keeping us dry. The rain didn't last long, and soon enough petered out. When we did reach the opposite side of the loop eventually, we had the impression that there a heavier rain fell because the trail was newly soaked. Could very well have been a micro-event, descending heavily there, and that the edge of the rain was all that dampened our half of the loop.

We weren't long into our ramble before we came across a young couple perched on a rocky ledge, and of course Jack and Jill were immediately alerted to the irresistible fragrance of food. The couple was amenable to their approach; the young man asking if he could treat them, obligingly sliced small bits of cheese from a block he was holding, offering a tidbit to each of them, making of them lifelong friends though it's highly unlikely they'd ever see one another again. They'd gone as far as they meant to go and were soon to turn back while we forged on, meaning to complete the circuit.

It's a 5.7 kilometre loop and years back it would take us about an hour and a half to complete. Yesterday it took us two hours from parking lot to trail' switchback; trail back to parking lot. We're a lot older, needless to say. And on the return circuit of the loop we were pretty bushed. Well exercised, at the very least, although the return half is far less physically demanding than the initial half. At the lookouts viewing out over to the city, what remained of the morning fog seemed evident.

The forest is mostly comprised of maple, oak, beech and pine, an understory of striped maple and dogwood, and at this point in the season, asters, goldenrod, yarrow and Queen Anne's lace predominate. Ah, and the largest specimens of colonizing pussy-toes that I've seen, so far. Some cowslips, as well. And in certain places, a generous area of tiny, white-flowered plants resembling the flowers of bedding grasses.

From the plentiful rain we've been experiencing it was fairly wet underfoot, particularly on the second half where boggy areas were plentiful. We did recall many of the landmarks from our previous experiences with the trail, but were still somewhat surprised at the physical challenges the terrain presented for us. At our age, guess we can't complain. Jack and Jill certainly didn't.

As we were exiting, a young man on a bike courteously stopped and began to walk beside his bicycle. Jilly barked at him and I remarked to the young man that she's alerting him to the fact that he shouldn't be bicycling on that trail. He was taken aback and asked why not? I referred  him to the quite prominent signage introducing the trail which distinctly warn that bicycles are prohibited on that trail, mindful of the fact that many bicyclists just ignore the signs. He looked surprised, said he hadn't seen the signs, and walked back with his bicycle alongside us as we chatted, before he headed off for another trail that does permit mountain bikes.