With rare exceptions I absolutely detest telephone calls ringing in of a morning. And this morning was one of those. First a call from the dentist's office offering an earlier appointment for teeth-cleaning than was scheduled, and Irving accepted. Then a call from the Hearing Aid office that my appointment with the audiologist was bumped forward a half hour tomorrow afternoon. Finally, a call from the medical clinic from our family physicians' home-visiting nursing teams comprised of a nurse-practitioner and a registered nurse, wanting to know whether I had been keeping track of my blood pressure, asking for the values of the last five tests I'd taken.

 

And then, following hard on those telephone calls, the doorbell rang and Jackie and Jillie went into guardian action. It was a young woman 'selling' a refurbishing driveway service. And it turned out she was representing a student group that we had hired last year and the really professional work they had done of spraying the driveway quite impressed us. So we agreed to have it done again.

 

 

Our neighbour Melanie across the street was first, and we were second. The young people doing the work; this time a young man and a young woman -- to be joined eventually by a third young man, fully equipped with professional gear, set to work. Clearing away any weeds that had established themselves in  driveway cracks, cleaning up areas where garden soil slopped over from the gardens onto the driveway surface, making is easier for the garden vegetation to spread beyond its limits. Finally vacuuming up any detritus before spraying.

 

That preparatory work took them hours. I was cleaning the  house, but took long enough to compel them to stop and seat themselves in the garden nook. Then I took out a chilled bottle of Cranberry juice, drinking glasses, and individual fruit-flavoured yoghurt cups with spoons and told them to relax. They had been working like demons, on a 30C-degree day in the full sun. They were happy to oblige and I was satisfied to see them relax. 

 

When I finished washing the floors, out came Jackie and Jillie with me to saunter briefly around the backyard while I snipped a generous amount of chives to include in a potato salad I had planned for today. Earlier, I had boiled Yukon Gold potatoes and a few eggs. To the cubed potatoes I added chopped celery, green onion, snow peas, bell pepper and chives. I prepared a dressing of salt, pepper, cider vinegar, olive oil and mayonnaise. Some of the dressing was used on a tin of tuna meant to top the potato salad which was turned out over chopped lettuce into a bowl. 

Jackie and Jillie were constantly at my feet in the kitchen, drawn by the sound of chopping vegetables and the irresistible aroma of fresh vegetables entreating me to share some of the goodies with them. So I prepared an early salad treat for them, while I was working on our potato salad. Finally, we were ready to venture out for a ravine hike, speculating just how hot it might be with the  temperature flirting with 30C. As soon as we got into the shade of the forest canopy, and felt a quite brisk wind, we knew our tramp through the woods would be without discomfort.

 

The wind kept insects down, and the forest canopy ensured we weren't roasted in the sun, making the heat and humidity quite tolerable. We hadn't seen little CoCo for ages, and then suddenly, there she was, probing the opportunity for appealing to Irving for dog cookies. We had a brief reunion with CoCo's person, and then came across one of the original people we had met through the ravine over 30 years ago. She was just a young woman back then, newly married, with a dog she named 'crook' describing the crook in his tail. And then came three children, first two girls, then a son. Her husband rarely walked with her. Once, away back then in the winter, we had seen him zipping through the snowy trails with a snowmobile. There was no repeat.

Back  home once again, Irving took a little snooze. His day had been busy too, starting with mowing the back lawn after breakfast, then doing the house vacuuming while I dusted, and then washed the floors.

Jackie and Jillie were beyond puzzled; no salad as usual for them on our return from the forest trails. Habit is hard to change, but their earlier-than-usual salad before we had set out for our hike, nixed them for a salad after the hike. They finally gave up in disappointed resignation, and snuggled up to Irving for a group nap.