It's fairly obvious I've contracted an incurable condition. Oh, I'm not alone. My husband too has been gripped with the powerful urge to give nature a helping hand here and there. He isn't averse to extending his courtesy to nature to me, either.

We've finally entered summer-by-way-of-spring. We had our doubts. No one can remember a spring as tardy as this one has been. Following hard on the heels of an unprecedented winter. Well, in a sense; we had monumental snowpacks and unrelenting cold. The cold simply refused to budge. And since the cold remained for so long, by the time spring came knocking at that door winter had slammed firmly shut, very little of the snowpack had melted.

So spring took all her little surprises with her in a big suitcase and went off in a huff. It took nature quite a while to convince spring that she really shouldn't take old man winter's grumpy unhelpfulness so seriously. She shouldn't, nature cautioned spring, take it upon herself to cancel her entry entirely this year. Finally, spring was convinced, said she'd return if nature kicked winter out of the scene.

Eventually nature obliged. She really prefers that her seasons sort matters out politely between themselves. It isn't her habit to order them about; she has taught them good manners and expects them to abide by the unspoken rules of civility. Winter is her problem-child, so to speak.

In any event, we're now convinced that spring has finally decided to grace us with her presence. Yesterday was a totally gracious day of clear blue skies, warming sun, little wind and an utterly comfortable atmosphere altogether at a balmy 22C. We made the most of it. We always try to, and if we forget, then Jackie and Jillie remind us, urging us to put on their collars and harnesses and get out with them into the ravine.

We did just that. And had a lovely romp about the forest trails. Oh, of course they romped, we tromped. But a good time was had by all. That condition I've become a victim of? Well, gardening, of course. I'm obsessed, totally taken by the garden beds, because the blooms that rest there gladden our eyes and our psyches.

We love our garden. And it loves us right back. Oh, all right, the garden is insensate. But not totally, it is a living, throbbing, growing, thriving thing, all that vegetation that so pleases us with its infinite array of colours, textures, fragrances. It is Jackie and Jillie who reciprocate the love we shower on them. Of course, of course.