I am rarely disappointed in the gardens, since we developed them first, twenty years ago.  When we moved into our house there was so much to do the gardens were the last things on our mind.  We were both working outside the house then and regular house maintenance along with adjusting ourselves to living in this then-new house took most of our energies.

Our daughter, however, who lived nearby in her own house, decided that as her gift to us she would spend the hours it would take to begin our gardens.  The house footprint on the property seemed to naturally invite gardens in a unique twist of placement, and our daughter set about first amending the mostly clay soil to make it more productive, digging in sand, peat moss and bags of black soil and sheep manure, an enormous job in itself.

After which she began buying and planting the perennials she thought would most likely thrive in that micro-climate where the sun came in early mornings and was gone by early afternoon.  She would inform us of how much she had spent and we would reimburse her.  I suggested a little more emphasis on ornamental trees and shrubs and she accommodated.  She seemed to know everything about gardening, and I very little.

In the end, we wound up with the scaffolding of what we have today.  Over the years we have added trees and shrubbery and other types of perennials, but many of those that she had planted are still thriving and giving us great pleasure, from roses to burning bushes.  Eventually, together we developed the gardens in the backyard and they too have added to our enjoyment of our property.

It was her hard work, her natural and acquired knowledge of gardening, and her willingness to set this task for herself that gifted us with the legacy we enjoy today.

It's an understatement to merely say it was a surprise to see her with one of those distinctive Home Depot aprons on, working at our local big box store.  She had been there since the spring, she said.  But what about their business?  Confidentially, not to mention it to anyone, they were in the process of winding up, selling out.

This is a Lebanese-Canadian family that had at one time owned two local Dollar stores.  Each of two brothers and their wives working in each of the stores, several miles apart. Other, extended family members helping out.  The profits from which kept both families nicely afloat.

Until a few years back one was informed that their lease in a nearby plaza would not be renewed, after all.  They had always had problems with lease renewal and worked them out, but this time there was nothing to be worked out.  The pharmacy two doors over with a video rental between them, had decided to remake itself into a super-pharmacy and needed the room and the plaza owners were only too happy to accommodate them. 

They set out to look for a new re-location only to discover that with the vigorous spate of commercial building going on, new franchises had been opening up at a tremendous clip resulting in the presence of several larger competitors whose purchasing power was definitely greater than theirs.

Both families were now putting in equal time in the remaining store they shared between them.  They had converted one-third of their store to a gift section with pricier items and for a while they held their own.  Finally, however, a family council seemed to decide that they worked too hard among themselves for the increasingly paltry take. 

They were tired, their business was clapped out, thanks to the competition; they were, after all, a small independent business relying on customer loyalty and such loyalties tended to evaporate as people moved to other locations, and as others realized that there was a greater selection of items in larger premises that were franchises representing large chains with far greater opportunities to practise economies of scale.

The final irony: that this vigorous woman whom we had known for years, the very face of neighbourhood enterprise, had succumbed to what appears to be the inevitable, and was herself forced by circumstances to add to the family coffers by putting in her time working as a 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. employee of the very type of commercial enterprise that put her own family business out of commission.

 Again, yesterday, we were fortunate.  For the most part, we seem to be able, somehow, to evade the slight misfortune of being caught in a resolute downpour that no amount of leafy canopy could protect us from, as a result of sheer volume.

Yesterday dawned dark and overcast, and but for a very brief period when the sun managed to evince itself through the conspiracy of clouds, the day remained heavily overcast.  A situation which never deters us from our daily ravine walk.  We tied rainjackets around our waists, tucked little Riley's raincoat into one of our pockets and set off into the ravine which was well soaked from overnight rain.  So well soaked the upturned leaves cradled their fill of rainfall.

The creek still ran vigorously with its excess of water, and the squirrels were busy after a strange absence of several days' duration, scavenging for peanuts we normally leave in various cache spots.  There was a bluejay close by, with its rusty-hinge calls; we thought it might be a juvenile.  We saw quite a few robins; they seem to gather in small flocks in the ravine at this late-summer time of year.  And there was a hairy woodpecker busy on a tree trunk.

The larger of the deep purple and the pink asters are now in bloom, alongside the more insignificant appearing white ones.  There is plenty of Queen Anne's lace and a bit of chicory still in bloom. 

And overhead, in the sky, there were long, low rumbles whose portent was unmistakable.  Those rumbling warnings became progressively nearer and louder as the sky became more densely occupied with darker clouds.  We took our time nonetheless and it was over an hour by the time we emerged from our ramble.

Up the last long hill, and out onto the street, then an amble down the street to our driveway.  And that's precisely when we felt the first tentative drops of rain.

There we are, then, moved a few pieces of furniture around - no mean task in this house - to provide a corner for my new-old computer desk.  Set up the computer and away we go!

We moved the bureau platet from its place in the corner and replaced it with my newly-finished old desk hauled up from the basement workshop and fitted out with a keyboard slide.  The bureau platte was moved into the dining room, at one end between the pillars.

And the half-round Chinese black lacquer table that had sat between he pillars where we placed the bureau platte was moved into the family room and it too sits between two pillars between the family room and the passage leading to the kitchen. 

A place for everything and everyhting in its place.


I can now post whatever I please whenever I please in the family room.  Rather than go upstairs to the room where the large armoire-computer corner is set up - which will also continue to be used for the time being, when it is more convenient to work from there, but I do now have other options.

Which means, in the evenings I can remain downstairs with my husband, and do my thing on my desktop, while he busies himself using his laptop.  Was a time when we would watch television programs together, but that time has long since past.  Mostly because there's so little worthwhile watching and because now we have no working television at our use.

In the year we've been without a television set in the house we haven't missed one.  We've kept busy doing what we prefer to do; reading books, magazines and newspapers, and working on our computer; my husband using his for viewing the British detective videos he enjoys.

There, I've done it again.  It's a literately Philistine thing to do.  To begin a novel, struggle through at least two-thirds of it, and then abandon it. 

When I read Margaret Atwood's Survival many years ago I liked it quite a lot, and thought she was an excellent writer.  Since then, downhill all the way.  I couldn't get past the first few chapters of The Handmaid's Tale, and now I've set aside The Blind Assassin.

And, I don't feel the least bit badly about not continuing either of them.  The story line, the language and the crude attempts to integrate fantasy with reality could never begin to match the mastery of the Bulgakov classic, The Master and Margarita.

What accounts for her formidable reputation as an elegant and excellent writer?  She's no Doris Lessing, no Umberto Eco, no Paul Theroux, no V.S. Naipaul, no Zhang Wei, no Frank McCourt.  Nor is she the equal of a writer like Neil Bissoondath, Frances Itani, or Rohinton Mistry, let alone Alice Munroe.

Her writing is the epitome of clumsy; her plots zanily uninteresting, careful editing is not her style, an arrogant presumption seems more to her taste. 

Reading her books I feel irritated beyond belief that someone like her is possessed of such an outstanding international reputation, that she is recipient of so much respect, so many awards, both national and international.

Above all, it's a puzzle to me.  Somewhat like the non-objective art of an artist like Mark Rothko; a reputation built on bamboozling the public into thinking there is quality when in fact there is none whatever.

With the end of summer approaching, the atmosphere is also changing, subtly in some ways, more obviously in others.  We're distressed to witness the inevitability of shorter days so soon upon us.  Where once dusk fell after nine in the evening, it now sets almost two hours earlier and we feel cheated.

On the plus side, there is cooler nights even when the days are hot.  That suffocating night-time temperature that gives little relief from the heat and humidity of the day that preceded it has now gone with the height of summer.  And Riley, who so much loves the sun warming his little hide, agitates endlessly to be allowed out into the morning sun to sit there, basking in its warmth.

We hesitate to leave him too long exposed to the raw sun rays because of course, dogs are just as susceptible to sunburn as are humans, despite their haircoat.  His is comprised of hair, not fur, making him even more likely to become sunburned, particularly in those areas where his haircoat is not as thick as other areas.  So we leave him out in the garden for awhile, checking on him from time to time. 

We know he is ready to come back into the house out of the sun and the warming temperature that always bakes our backyard, with its very warm mini-climate when he wags his little tail at us on our enquiries of him.

Since I'm on the cusp of setting up a new computer to take the place of this decrepit old one that is begging for retirement, we thought it would represent a good opportunity to re-position the area that I use nightly to write my opinion blogs.  At the present time one of our upstairs bedrooms has been designated that place where, years ago, my husband put together a huge and weighty computer corner designed and built as an armoire.  It has served me well, and has become cluttered with all manner of odds and ends that I cannot bear to rid myself of.

But using the computer there meant sequestering myself away from my husband, who remains on the first floor in the family room generally speaking, doing his own thing.  Which, since we rid ourselves of our television sets a year ago, means most often using his mini laptop to access hundreds of episodes of mostly British mysteries - alternatively, reading mostly (preferred) British mysteries.  Separating us, in the process by a level in our home.

We thought why not install a desk in the family room, in a discreet corner and set up the new computer there?  To which end we hied ourselves off first to JYSK to have a closer look at those neat-looking glass-and-steel computer desks, and once there discovered that they're neat looking all right, but flimsy in construction and inferior in material.  Which then led us down the street as it were to the local Office Depot franchise to poke around at their offerings, which were plentiful enough to select from.  We chose one with the features we liked, and were told by a lugubrious young salesperson that none were in stock.

We chose a second, more expensive and larger, and when the computer inventory was checked were informed how fortunate we were; two left in stock.  Just take this slip to the front desk, pay for the item, and it'll be brought out front to be loaded onto our car-top carrier.  We went to the front desk, asked for the item to be brought from inventory, intent on paying after it showed up since, as my husband said joshingly, to the clerk, whenever he's at Canadian Tire and something shows up in their inventory as having a few in stock, there aren't any actually.

An observation that did not find favour with the two men behind the desk, old enough to know better.  In due course, the young man who had been dispatched to bring hither the item in question returned with profuse apologies: none in stock, and none would be available through order; production has been stopped.

At home later, my husband suddenly recalled that old heavy, solid-wood pine desk he had in his basement workshop that he often used to place tools on, as a catch-all when they're not being hung neatly in place, during heavy usage.  Down he went, retrieving it from its burden, and then he began refinishing it which took several days' work.  That done, he installed a long, wide sliding drawer under the top. 

Voila!  My new computer desk....