As anyone knows both from experience and from witnessing others going about the business of being a householder, there is never any end of work to be done in a home that is well-ordered and comfortable but owing to wear and tear and our need to live day-by-day, requires attention to details.

Yesterday's details included the need to get out while the sun was still gathering strength, and cut the front and back lawns before the grass grew any longer. Thanks to ample sun and an excess of recent rain everything is growing extraordinarily swiftly. And when my husband finished mowing the lawns, he turned his attention to the larger of the two garden sheds in the backyard.

It's the large one that he has organized to hold the snowthrower, the mower, and the out-of-season tires; ice tires in the summer months, and all-season tires in the winter months, when they're not being used. Easy to access, not cluttering up the garage (too bulky/cumbersome/heavy) to store in the basement and trundle back and forth when changes are required.

He cleaned out and tidied up the all-purpose shed -- which is also used to store over-winter garden furniture taken up for the inclement months -- taking the opportunity to discard items no longer useful and generally tidy up the interior. Now the little garden shed which stores all of my garden tools and other decorative items stored in winter needs the same treatment but it will have to wait for another day.

When he was finished with that he turned his attention to restoring one of the hood handles of the direct-gas barbecue that has been such a faithful cooking assist for the past 22 years. While he was busy doing those things I busied myself in the kitchen, to bake a plum pie. The most time-consuming part of that enterprise was slicing and stoning the plums, but they're in abundance at this time of year and what better use can be made for them than sitting colourfully within a lattice-top pie?

Then I too went outdoors to tidy up and cut back the garden a bit, acquiring in the process a full compost bagful of garden detritus. At that point our puppies informed us it was time for a ravine walk and off we went....