We've a gathering carpet of fallen leaves underfoot now, walking through our wooded ravine, with the canopy overhead shrinking by the day.  At close range the trees don't present a variety of colours as the leaves turn, but underfoot there is red, orange, yellow and lime green aplenty.  This is one of those rare times of year that brings out the curiosity and latent nature-attraction in many people who would not ordinarily traverse through the trails in the ravine.

So we see people whom we have never before seen; couples and those with young families.  And among them another part of the community that chooses to segregate itself from the greater community of which we are all an integral portion.  French-Canadians tend to be insular, blinkered to the others in their midst, and resentfully blind to the presence of anglophones, English-speaking Canadians.

Say a cheery "hello", or a blithe "hi!" in expectations that a simple acknowledgement of one's common humanity will ensue, and you will be, in 80% of instances, disappointed at the reaction of francophones.  Eyes straight ahead or averted they hurry past, behaving as though another human being who greets them in English and not French, is no more notable than a falling leaf; studiously ignored.

They are, of course, completely bilingual.  They are drawn to the nation's capital, leaving their home province of Quebec because of the allure of well-compensated government jobs.  Working for government they are secure and well employed and they gravitate to enclaves of others like themselves, inuring themselves to the presence of 'les autres', sending their children to French schools, having as little contact with non-francophones as possible.

Those whom we recognize as acquaintances, and others whom we have known for years as devoted ravine walkers are all abuzz about the Thanksgiving holiday, pausing to ask whether you are prepared, plan to set your table with the traditional Thanksgiving meal.

My husband's choice for general practitioner was not my initial choice.  However, given my disappointment with the ability of my first-choice physician over the two years I had given my health and medical condition over to her care (on the retirement of our old doctor who had seen to our family's health needs over forty years), I decided to seek professional support elsewhere.  Although my husband's doctor had long since closed his practise to new patients, on enquiry he agreed to an interview with me.

During the interview, in response to his query, I first spoke of the lack of diagnostic acuity evidenced by my doctor's failure to identify symptoms I presented with as harbingers of chronic heart-related problems that had become so acute I admitted myself the day following her examination to the emergency department of our major general hospital.  Where my condition was considered to be so alarming I was immediately surrounded by doctors, tests taken and I was installed for a five-day stay at the Heart Institute.

That, with my more recent disappointment at her lack of commitment to providing what appeared to me to be basic medical care, referring me on to an Urgent Care Centre for treatment she should have provided, led me to the conclusion I could no longer rely on her for the professional medical attention anyone should expect of a general practitioner.

The interview was such that I supplied the doctor with all the relevant details I could muster with respect to my state of health as a 75-year-old woman who is physically fit, energetic and committed to prolonging quality of life as long as possible.  Smoking was a concern to him, an exercise regimen as well, and in both areas I fit the bill, having never smoked, and physical activity representing an important part of our daily routine.

We spoke casually of much aside from my medical history which in fact has been extremely sparse over the years, other than the revelations of the last two years that I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels, a very worrisome combination.  With a low degree of arteriosclerosis, all conditions which are being monitored annually by a cardiologist, and for which a prescription drug protocol has been established.

And now, I have a new personal physician.  A young man, who received his training in the United States and decided to settle in Canada, from his origins in Eastern Europe.  A frank, practical individual who assured me that he was eminently accessible; I need only to call and he would make himself available either that same day or the day following.

Unlike my previous doctor, there will be no need for him to see me personally just for prescription renewals; they can be done through other arrangements with the pharmacy that has had my family's prescription records over the years.  And it is my intention to call upon the professional services of my new doctor as infrequently as possible, confident that infrequent calls will be all that will be required.

Doesn't seem like too much to expect from a general practitioner in the capacity of a family practise.  A simple enough medical procedure.  A patient presents with an infected cyst located just below the epidermis, with the infection hugely visible in the appearance of a large, raised blister, on the cusp of bursting and obviously infected. 

It requires that the physician proceed with a simple enough protocol:  lance, drain, dress, prescribe. 

In my previous experiences with this cyst that is located on my abdomen wall - two times when this occurred before in the space of a decade - I had not even bothered to go to my family doctor of 30 years' duration, choosing instead to drop in to a more local walk-in clinic.  Where, on each occasion, the physician who attended to me, once a male, the other time a female doctor, proceeded without any fuss to tend to the matter.

My old doctor had retired after a long practise during which time he was our family doctor for forty years.  I had chosen to have a female doctor this time, a young woman whom I thought would be more than adequate to my needs, given that I rarely had occasion to seek medical-health advice in the past.  In the first several months of our relationship I suddenly experienced peculiar symptoms of deep-seated exhaustion.  Her examination turned up nothing amiss.

A day later I admitted myself to the emergency department of our general hospital and was speedily admitted to the Heart Institute for a five-day stay, during which I had two blood transfusions to amend very low haemoglobin and treatment for a bleeding ulcer caused by long-term baby aspirin dosage, then an angiogram done to ascertain whether my heart had been affected.

My new doctor had obviously failed to detect incipient heart problems in a 75-year-old woman.

On this second, less serious occasion two years later, she informed me that I would have to seek the services of an Urgent Care Centre to lance, drain, and dress the abscess she deigned was not in her sphere of operation, although she did prescribe an antiobiotic for me.  Her scribbled note to the Urgent Care Centre as a referral was not accepted by them as proper authorization and caused me hours of time wasted pointlessly and a return to the Centre the following day for the procedure to be undertaken.

Her office staff had not responded to two urgent calls from the receptionist of the Urgent Care Centre that proper referral be sent to them by fax to enable them to proceed.

I sought the services of another doctor, and have had myself de-listed on OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) with this doctor who has failed to win my confidence as a patient.

Our granddaughter attends a high school in a town with a population of roughly seven thousand people.  The town's high schools are rated quite highly for level of academic performance.  At that high school there is one history teacher in particular who has been responsible over the years for inviting Holocaust survivors to speak to the school's students to ensure they are aware of the realities surrounding that dread episode of fairly modern history.

Other subjects of more current social studies are broached among the students in various of their classes.  Our granddaughter is taking a World Religions course this year.  In some of those classes, not necessarily that one, students have been exposed to various scenarios, and their opinions elicited with respect to their perceptions surrounding those social conventions.

There was the debate over whether or not they felt it was right for people bearing signs identifying a foetus as a living child and abortion representing infanticide.  There was another on protests against same-sex marriage and the rights of alter-gendered people within society.  There was one recently on what the Grade 11 students felt personally about a video showing a woman handing out Holocaust-denial literature on the street.

Opinion coming from the students is always mixed.  But it tends to reflect the values of a rural community.  Invariably, our granddaughter comes away from these exchanges upset at what she calls the utter stupidity of people, their unwillingness to let others live in peace.  Enough so that she scorns Canada's pride in its homogeneous equality provisions, and its vaunted multiculturalism.  Bigotry, as far as she is concerned is rampant.

She feels that someone handing out such literature as Holocaust denial should simply be allowed to do whatever they're doing, feeling personally assured that reason will always prevail.  That reasonably intelligent people will simply ignore the message and go about their business, deflating the purpose of the Holocaust denier. 

On the other hand, she is livid with fury over one of her classmates who blithely stated his smugly opinionated position that there is no need to be concerned over the Holocaust, over denials of its having existed as a reality "because it doesn't have anything to do with us, anyway".

We enjoyed a brief period of unusual company on our initial few minutes into the ravine yesterday when we came across our friend and neighbour, Mohinder, walking alongside a tiny figure in front of our house.  Mohinder, with his first grandchild, visiting from Toronto, now three years old, about the age that Mohinder's son was when we first met them.

Wary of strange faces he had never before seen, he was not completely at ease in our company, but in the presence of our little dog felt his confidence returning, more it seemed, that Riley was around and appeared an interesting new companion, than that his grandfather held his hand.

As we entered into the ravine trail before descending the first long hill into the ravine proper, the child was concerned that Riley not be left behind, and spoke to him encouragingly to come along, reaching over to pat him reassuringly from time to time.  They went no further than the crest of the hill, before taking their leave of us, the child by now assured that as friends of his grandfather we were reliably invested in his best interest.

He attends a Montessori preschool, and already, his proud grandfather told us, can count to ten in French, to eight in Spanish and ten in English.  And he knows the alphabet.  He speaks volubly when the spirit moves him, and behaves with complete confidence among his peers. 

A very pleasant start to a warmer-than-usual walk in the woods.

We absolutely love trees, and in our gardens, have many ornamental types as well as some that are quite ordinary, native species that we value.  Twenty years ago, when our gardens were first being established our green-thumb-knowledgeable daughter planted a standard caragena in our front gardens, along with another caragena placed elsewhere in the front, a pendulous type .  Both of these trees, also known more popular as flowering peas, have lovely bright yellow flowers in the spring.

Later, in the summer, the flowers develop into pea pods, and there is quite a surprising amount of detritus that results from the process.  The weeping caragena is attractive, its size controlled by the grafting which turned it into a weeping specimen, whereas the standard decreased in attractive presentation as the years went on.

Over the years the standard caragena has been cut back numerous times to control its reach toward the sky, becoming rangy and unattractive in the process and overgrowing the space allotted to it.  It presented as being out of place in the garden, unlike many other types of trees we have there that have grown large and larger yet, but still maintain their attractive presentation.

Finally, yesterday, we decided this was one tree that had outlived its usefulness in the garden.  Its foliage had become sparse, the branches unattractive and it took away rather than added to the look of the garden.  My husband brought upstairs a small reciprocating saw and set about cutting the tree into sections, preparing them for removal in the weekly garden compost collection our municipality provides for that purpose.

Hard to believe it's October already, but that nostalgic time of year is upon us, we're reminded when we smell the acridity of leaves falling, view the magnificence of autumn-coloured trees, experience shorter daylight hours, hear geese off in the distant sky, honking, flying in formation, and hear the sounds of smaller wings and shrill cries of smaller birds making their epic fall departure flying throughout the night hours to southern climes.

October is the month when two of our children were born.  It's a month that always seems to creep up behind us, taking us by surprise.  We've sent off birthday cards to the boys with the modest financial gifts we usually send them, a mere token of our love for them.  One may arrive in time, before our youngest leaves Vancouver for his trip to Toronto, then Montreal, and then to see us for five days. 

In Toronto he will visit with his brother and sister-in-law and with some long-time friends.  Then on to Montreal to sit on a doctoral committee.  And then to Ottawa, to spend some time with us.  He's just come back from a week's trip to Colorado where he took part in a scientific enquiry revolving about the fish habitat in the Colorado River, in part of the Grand Canyon.  I anticipate some very beautiful photographs will accompany him.

Hard to believe that our oldest son is approaching fifty-three, our youngest forty-nine, with our daughter sandwiched between.  It seems only yesterday that we were ourselves so amazed that we had reached the half-century mark ourselves.