In the spring you can walk through our neighbourhood and enjoy the sight of spring bulbs with their bright and cheeky flowers welcoming admiring glances. In the summer it's the gardens come to full bloom that invite one to glance over and assess their coy invitation to gawk. And then, comes fall, when trees on front lawns reflect the colours that nature bestows in autumn drawing your admiration. And there's something else that begins to sprout in autumn; stout wands at either side of driveways alongside the road advertising the services of various local driveway-clearing services.

My husband has always been adamant that he would never require such a service. His sturdy workaholic snowblower always more than capable of clearing any amount of snow our property would attract during episodic winter snowstorms. Last year I told him that I would vastly prefer us to sign a contract with a snow-removal company once he turns 80 years of age. That time is upon us. True, my husband is a vigorous, energetic man but he is also a man who less than three months ago underwent open-heart surgery and is still in recovery mode.

Several weeks ago after a ten-centimetre snowfall he was not yet in any condition to exert himself to clear the driveway and walkways to our house. Nonetheless he had steadily set aside my constant urging that we obtain the services of a snow-removal contractor, insisting he would soon be prepared to continue what he had always done.

But something happened between that previous snowstorm and the one we're currently experiencing, this morning. My husband did not quite enjoy the sight several weeks ago of his wife shovelling their double driveway of the ten centimetres that had fallen. I didn't mind doing the shovelling, in fact, I found it rather enjoyable. At the same time recognizing that this was a light snowfall, of feather-light snow, and it isn't always like that. Even so, lifting shovelfuls of snow to heave them off the driveway is no light task for someone like me whose own 80th birthday is two weeks' distant.

So that convinced him that we were indeed in need of the services of a professional snow-removal company. And it took little time to contact a company whose wands have sprouted on neighbourhood driveways to represent the majority of those in our neighbourhood and whose work one of our closest neighbours praised mightily. We registered on line, paid on line.

Last night snow fell in respectable quantities, and has continued throughout this morning. When the snow has finished falling this day the accumulation will be between ten and fifteen centimetres. It felt pretty good, looking out the front upstairs windows this morning to see a large plow making quick work of the accumulated snow on our lengthy double drive. When the snowfall is over, that plow will return and clear out the driveway for a second time.

As it was, my husband had arisen from bed at 7:00 this morning, while I was still fast in sleep, to take himself out to the backyard and clear the pathways for our two little dogs when they would be taken out an hour or so later. The snow, he told me later, was light and fluffy, no problem with weight at all. This time around.