We live in an incorporated jurisdiction formerly termed a suburb of Ottawa, called Orleans, now just part of the enlarged Ottawa capital city area. The street our house is located on is quite short, no more than say 40 houses, half on either side. The residents are now likely fifty percent or so retired. There aren't many young children in those family homes, but some.

If anyone ever doubted that Canada is a country of immigrants a glance at the residents of this street might convince them otherwise. Likely fifty percent, perhaps more, of the residents are first-generation Canadian. Which is to say they were born elsewhere, then came to Canada to become Canadian citizens. My husband and I are second-generation; it was our parents who were born outside Canada and then arrived here to make a life for themselves and their children born here. Our children are third-generation Canadians.

On this street live people originally from France, Hong Kong, Poland, Bangladesh, Russia, India, Egypt, Syria and Britain. There are also residents who were born in other provinces of Canada who moved to Ottawa from Nova Scotia and Quebec. And there may be others of whom we know little. Other than that they're our neighbours with whom we share a community, all part of the same nation. There are also those who out-migrate. When we first moved into our house thirty years ago, the couple who owned the house directly across from us were Black Canadians, but after a decade, they who were the first to welcome us to the street, moved to the United States with their two boys to take up an irresistible employment offer.

We know some of these people in a personal way, some with friendships that go back decades, others just slightly, in passing, as it were. Although quite a few of our neighbours are  retired, we're beyond doubt the oldest of the people who live on the street now. One neighbour older than us married to a younger woman, now lives in a personal care/retirement home in the greater community, while his wife continues to live in their house.

Newer residents who have moved into houses that the original owners have sold to move elsewhere, usually in 'down-sizing', tend to be more reserved as neighbours, less comfortable in being friendly with others, or perhaps just so busy in their private lives they cannot spare a smile or a greeting. People of immigrant stock, on the other hand, don't tend to be among those that prefer to withdraw from any vestige of neighbourliness.

When we've been in dire straits, some of our neighbours have felt moved to lend us their emotional support, their time and their energy to help us in a time of need. We're not in that position now, everything is fine with us. But we discovered today that someone has taken it upon themselves to shovel out our house walkways and our porch after snow has fallen. We hadn't noticed it before. Strange, that.

But whenever we've had snow fall, the weather has turned very mild, melting the snow, making it difficult for us to realize that before the snow melted it had been shovelled. I had put out some shelled walnuts on the porch this morning for a little red squirrel that often comes around. I had seen it earlier in the morning, looking about on the porch. Later I looked out to see whether the squirrel had claimed the nuts.

What I observed is that the nuts were covered with snow, snow that had been shovelled under the seating arrangement on the porch where I had left the nuts. I looked again and finally understood that some good soul had taken it upon themselves to do our shovelling. Who it might be eludes us, but surely in time we'll discover who it is and thank them for their generosity of spirit.

Fresh snow fell this morning, not a lot, about 4 cm. And before breakfast my husband shovelled out the back, but didn't bother with the front. The temperature quickly rose under heavily clouded skies that cast a dark atmosphere over the landscape. That deep dusk remained with us the entire day. When we cast ourselves off for a ravine hike in the afternoon it was still dark and soon to become darker, nearing four in the afternoon. Late, because it takes me many hours to clean the house, wash the floors, do the dusting.

 had put a half turkey breast into the oven under a very low heat before we left, potatoes arrayed around it in a large casserole dish. So we could take our time ambulating through the forest trails. And we did, though we decided on a shorter circuit than usual. When we returned home, it was to total darkness. Second-by-second, things are being reversed; we already passed the shortest day of the year and daylight hours are beginning to increase ... incrementally.