Yesterday afternoon after we had returned from our ravine walk with our little fellows and I'd finished putting the finishing touches to dinner preparations, I sat down to read the newspapers when Jackie and Jillie went into overdrive, yapping and barking, hysterics which they invariably indulge in whenever the doorbell rings. It was a special delivery for our renewed passports.

My husband was out, he'd gone to pick up one of the tires and rims of the car that was deflating. A week ago he'd had the mechanics at Canadian Tire change the car's tires from all-weather to ice tires, a twice-yearly necessity that he used to do himself until I finally convinced him that at age 81 he should leave that physical exertion to professionals. He'd taken the truck in to get its tires changed weeks earlier, but last year he had done them both himself, as usual.

Last week, when the work was done and he picked up the car, he was surprised to find work that he hadn't authorized done; it was a complete vehicle check to which all the indices checked no problem, but it was a surprise to my husband that it had been done since he had never indicated he wanted it. He's well known there as a long-time customer. He also used to change the oil himself in all of our succession of vehicles over the decades, and in the past few years that changed too.

He spoke to the supervisor, a man he knows fairly well, expressing his surprise that something he had no reason to ask to be done had been, and he was assured that the charge related to it would be withdrawn. What my husband did next is typical of him, he went to the nearby Great Canadian Superstore, bought one of their huge Black Forest cakes, and took it over to the Canadian Tire garage.

Yesterday, when he returned with the deflating tire asking that it be checked, it was with the knowledge that evidently because the garage is so busy, they had overlooked due diligence to determine that all the ice tires they were fitting back on the car were in good shape. On its return the tire in question was tested for leaks, but there were none. What kept the tire from holding air was a rim of rust, duly then, sanded down.

Back my husband went for yet another Black Forest cake.