The day began with a nice cool morning and ample wind to keep us refreshed after the past two days of 30C-degree heat and humidity. I decided to bake a lemon cheesecake for Friday's dinner dessert and by the time I had finished that and a light clean-up in the kitchen, powder room and bedroom, my husband had completed filling up the pots and urns at the front gardens and began on the backyard pots.

We took a break to go out for our daily ravine walk and it was beyond pleasant, perfectly idyllic, the mosquito population nowhere to be seen, where in the past two days they were voraciously present. Where the days before we were bare-armed, yesterday we wore light jackets against the chill. And our two puppies had no need of supplemental watering with a take-along water bottle; given the lowered temperature their body heat failed to reach the panting crescendo they experienced on Wednesday and Thursday.

And what a treat! we spotted a male Mallard swimming along nonchalantly in the clay-muddied creek as though his presence was an everyday occurrence. For the past six years or so a pair of Mallards on their reverse-migration flight has stopped over at Bilberry Creek Ravine forest on their way to their ultimate summer location. A similar thing happens with a Great Blue Heron, briefly seen in the ravine down at the creek on its way elsewhere.

After our woodland ramble I had on my mind the need to satisfy my gardener's itch, so I set about to begin the hugely pleasurable task of deciding which of the annuals we've bought will go where. I've done this for so many years, and it never fails to fill me with excitement and anticipation of the pleasure it gives me.

It takes a while, but never too long, to decide which of the pots and urns will host which of the flowering plants and which colours and textures will complement one another sharing any of the pots. A more agreeable task I would find hard to imagine. I barely managed to begin with the number of pots semi-completed in their staged planting, most of them requiring additional filler-plants, but eventually it will all get done.

The plants are nowhere near mature at this stage. They will grow and they will thrive and they will strive to put out an endless array of beautiful blooms throughout the following months offering us the satisfaction of having our very own never-ending (but for winter) display of exquisite little natural theatrical moments.