The waiting room is large and it was anything but crowded. Several young women were there with their children. Waiting, just as we were, to get vaccinated. It's a large health service unit, a community clinic with about twenty general practitioners and all manner of ancillary health services available in the complex. Our family doctor is among those practising there. We had made an appointment to get our annual flu shot.

We never have to wait very long. It hardly matters that it's a short wait for mothers with young children; they become restless and bored and their mothers do their best to keep their children entertained so they don't become too restive and complaining. At one juncture a nurse called one mother with two young children in and it took no time at all before plaintive wails emanated from the room where they were sequestered.

I informed the nurse when it came our turn that I'd experienced a pretty dreadful reaction last year when I was given a tetanus and a pneumonia shot last year, one in each arm. They no longer do that, she told us. Too many people had reported reactions when flu and pneumonia shots were given on the same day. Her own technique was flawless, neither of us felt much of a sting when she administered the shot, and we were speedily dispensed with.

In the brief time when we were with the nurse receiving our shots, the waiting room suddenly picked up, with people entering for appointments for their own various reasons. Medical offices, waiting rooms in hospitals and clinics are never the most pleasant places to find yourself in. Invariably people settle in to wait with glum faces. So it's a special treat when your reason for being there has been settled and you're free to leave.

We had earlier in the day taken Jackie and Jillie out for a ravine ramble in the woods, a shorter-than-normal circuit so we wouldn't miss our 2:30 p.m. appointment. It had rained heavily the entire night before, and when we arose in the morning, the temperature had soared to 5C, but with a really heavy wind. By the time we got out around 1:00 in the afternoon with our puppies the temperature had begun to drop again, to 2C, but seemed much colder, thanks to the gusting wind bursts.

After going through weeks of early November cold more reminiscent of winter than fall, with a buildup of snow, the more recent higher temperature allied with rain has done a fine job of melting the nascent snowpack. So the forest floor has become littered with detritus continually dropping from the canopy, and melting snow has revealed all kinds of 'interesting' odours of great attraction to Jackie and Jillie.

Before we left the house for the ravine, I'd gone about the usual Friday housekeeping of light cleaning, and baking. I had decided to bake an apple crumble for a change, not a pie. To four large Royal Gala apples, unpeeled and thinly sliced, I added a teaspoon of lemon juice, a third cup of granulated sugar and a quarter cup of crystallized ginger in a baking dish, topped it with a cup of almond 'flour', a quarter cup of brown sugar, teaspoon of cinnamon and one-third cup of Becel margarine to make a crumble top, with walnut pieces broken over it. Baked at 350 for less than forty minutes, a quick dessert came out of my little countertop convection oven.