They have three things in common; each is of French-Canadian extraction, they both live on the same street as we do, and they share the very same surname. They are not related, however, and their personalities couldn't be more different and nor do they appear to notice one another. Serge lives four houses down from us, on the same side of the street, the other Poirier lives across the street, about three houses further down.

We've known Serge for decades, and consider him a very dear person, a valued neighbour, someone with whom we have shared many thoughts and conversations, and of whom we think kindly. My husband has never had the occasion to actually come across the other man, but I have had on a number of occasions and that only because I've knocked at his door. When I've been doing the annual canvass for one charity or another.

This man takes umbrage at the very fact that anyone would have the temerity to come to his door to address the resident-owner in a language other than French. He invariably scowls and abruptly shuts the door, after declining my offer to relieve him of a small amount of cash in favour of a medical charity. More latterly I've taken to avoiding his door and just move on to the next house.

It doesn't seem as though this man has anything to do with any of his neighbours, anglophone, allophone or francophone. Living the life of a hermit, as far as one can see. One does see him, however, on a daily basis, hovering beside a shrivelled little woman, slowly pushing a walker before her. Obviously his wife, the elderly couple having lived on the street for as long as I can recall; silently, aloof, insular, seemingly resentful of all that surrounds them.

Often, we see them moving slowly by as we prepare to leave for one of our vigorous jaunts in the ravine. They don't in fact, travel along the entire street, traversing usually a ten-house length before returning to their own home, fresh air and exercise exposure accomplished for the day. He is obviously devoted to the tender care of his physically frail wife. Only on two occasions have we ever come abreast of them, and at that time I've extended a greeting, and received a polite-enough acknowledgement, in passable English from the woman. Accompanied by a wan smile.

Serge, on the other had, is now single, and has been for over a decade. He married late, and seems always to have been a bon vivant. His wife was much  younger than him, a pretty woman with two pre-teens when we first knew them. They seemed amicably enough suited to one another, but his incessant social philandering appears to have moved them beyond reconciliation leading to a separation, then a divorce.

Something he has lived to regret as he has admitted on more than one occasion.

When I finally awoke this morning after sleeping in shamefully late, it was to the divine aroma of freshly baked bread, and underlying it was the somewhat less-appreciated smell of freshly-roasted coffee beans. I love bread, particularly seed-filled and well herbed, heavy-grained bread, of the type my husband has learned to produce in his bread-making machine.

I am quite a bit less enthralled with the fragrance of coffee, a holdover from my first pregnancy 54 years ago when I was overwhelmed by a sudden distaste for all manner of food smells, coffee chief among them and have never lost my then-newly-developed dislike for coffee since that time.

I had been aware in a sleep-interrupted way that my husband had migrated out of bed and downstairs to putter around, something he regularly does before climbing back into bed beside me awhile later. I would much prefer he remain beside me comfortingly, but his is a restless soul and he does what best suits his mood. It's he who should be sleeping in, not me. The installation of the vanity/sink he bought for the laundry room turned out to be a little more complicated than he had anticipated, requiring some plumbing alterations and changes to the vanity format, all of which he accomplished in a little more time and effort than he had foreseen. But now it's done, and he's pleased with the effort it took, yet another challenge for him.

When he peered out the glass-front door leading to the porch at the crack of dawn he saw there a neighbourhood cat stretched out on the outside portal. Needless to say there were no birds nor squirrels about as usual taking their morning victuals.

After shooing the cat away, when my husband returned to look again there were the chickadees, the doves, the juncos, and the squirrels scrabbling about in the various places where nuts and seeds had been scattered for them, as usual.

It is then, in the early morning hours, that my husband sets the breakfast table, fills up the electric water kettle and sugar containers, takes butter and cheese out of the refrigerator to come to room temperature, and does other things like roast the raw free-trade coffee beans he orders, and on the occasion when I've run out of that special bread, bakes another.

After breakfast I watched as one of our regular little red squirrel guests chaotically, compulsively rushed from the feeder on the porch to the nearby garden where it had prepared a surprisingly large hole and deposited one peanut after another, before deciding to carefully and skilfully cover over his new cache. Then turned his frenetic attention to what most occupies it usually, frantically chasing black and grey squirrels ten times its size away from their placid occupation of eating away at what the red squirrel interprets as its monopolistic feeding stations.

Several days back when we began one of our daily ravine circuits, and the weather seemed reasonably mild, just below freezing, we were surprised to see a group of robins flying about an area of the creek that runs through the ravine. There were at least six, and we thought perhaps they were juveniles. They should long since have migrated away from the severity of the winters we undergo. But the last few years we have noticed on occasion robins surprising us by their appearance in the ravine, alongside the creek, likely on the lookout for aquatic life, since they're basically live-eaters. We've seen them sometime at the miniature 'apples' on our Sargenti ornamental crab trees in the winter. Birds that used to vacate this geography have become accustomed to remaining behind, though we haven't noticed much of a let-up in the harshness of our winters.

Last evening, as the temperature was speedily dropping from its day-time high of minus-6 degrees and had reached minus-11, on its way to minus-16 for the night, my husband hied himself outside and worked to clean up spent seeds, to replace them with a fresh offering. He does this in the roofed pavilion meant primarily for squirrels, but which occasionally local raccoons visit as well, demonstrating for us on several occasions that there is room enough for a mother and two juveniles to sit together within its confines, nibbling at the peanuts and seeds. As well, he sprinkles seed liberally under the tall bird feeder, and on a smaller tray he keeps refreshed on the porch itself to which the raccoons also tend to migrate at night, along with the occasional presence of a rabbit.

Sometimes when he wakes early he ambles downstairs to open the dining room shutters and observe who might be there at dawn, and this morning, when the temperature was still at minus-14 with a stiff wind, there was the pair of doves we occasionally see. A day earlier a hairy woodpecker had been busy at the suet; previously we've seen downy woodpeckers and chickadees pecking at the suet.

The cardinal pair come along faithfully to take their measure of seed, and it's always such a pleasure to see them, their blaze of colour enlivening the atmosphere. On one occasion we even saw a large rat filling its stomach on the porch, at the seed offering. It was dark and the rat had no competition that night; we didn't mind its presence there for it's still an animal requiring sustenance and since it's there, why not?

Although we don't much mind when crows follow us in the ravine as we deposit peanuts in the usual cache spots, to retrieve them and methodically crack them open to extract the nuts, my husband would prefer they not feed at the seeds he puts out on our home turf for nuthatches, juncos, chickadees and any of our other avian visitors to which he is far more sympathetic, though I don't mind the presence of those clever crows one bit.

Late afternoon ravine walks have their special appeal. We're always surprised when we are in there, walking along the side trails, to hear the work in progress, the motorized sound permeating the atmosphere, of the tracked vehicles on the major trails. They've become 'major' in the sense that they now resemble 19th Century cart tracks, not the nature trails we've so long become accustomed to.

The work crews have widened the major trails to accommodate the width of the heavy equipment brought in to enable the building of long-lasting bridges in replacement of those that have been demolished by order of the municipality. Themselves built to last, a mere five years earlier. But falling prey to the inevitable degradation caused by the clay base upon which they were built, succumbing to environmental challenges of weather. The four replacement bridges will have steel and concrete bases.

As the prevailing light slowly succumbs to dusk, the atmosphere in the forest changes subtly and beautifully. The sight is captivating, clutching at our aesthetic, bringing with it a comfort in being temporarily within the nature surrounding us. To avoid encountering the mechanized shovels and shovers we have taken to crossing the major street at the foot of our own street to access the other side of the ravine. Not nearly blessed with the width and breadth of our own, but beautiful in its own singular presence. Not as physically challenging to access and perambulate, either, for that matter. Nor as difficult to retreat from, given its relative shallowness.

Which also endows it with especial sightlines, particularly as dusk begins to fall and the sun begins to set on the horizon. When the sky turns a spectacular blazing orange behind the trees, on the line of the horizon. And the trees become dark sentinels, silence pervading the atmosphere. And when the urge to remember the beauty by taking photographs which do not, in the end, quite capture the majesty and loveliness of it all, takes hold.

There is something mysterious and inviting in the short interval at this time of year between daylight and falling dusk and the swiftness of nightfall. It had snowed two days ago, and a little more the following day. Not a truly substantial amount of snow, but several inches. And then the temperature dropped again, and ice crystals formed on top of the light snowpack, so our boots crunch through it all, a sound that recalls so many memories of times past when we revelled in such pleasurable delights.

The youngest of the four siblings in our parents' family, my brother is thirteen years my junior. When he was born my busy mother assigned me tasks related to looking after him; I learned early how to change diapers and carry babies about, so that when my own were born I felt quite at home looking after them.

Our father died of cancer at age 54, an inveterate smoker who often rolled his own with a neat little device he was quite proud of. He developed throat cancer. Surgery finally removed much of his throat and his face took on quite an adverse aspect as a result, something he would prefer to hide, but could not. He also volunteered in the later stages of his cancer for experimental therapeutic treatments, speaking candidly of himself as a guinea pig who didn't want to die. But he did, in agonizing pain.

Our mother developed two many-years-apart colon cancer episodes for both of which she had surgery, neither of which took her life. She died of the effects of frontal-lobe dementia at age 84.

My brother, an environmental scientist and professor of botany, is on the cusp of retiring. He still plays regular games of competitive squash and he always wins. He's an avid bird-watcher, a true nature-lover. He is active, and in excellent health.  Something the oncologist noted as he confirmed the diagnosis and said he was unable to give any kind of prognosis, even though the cancer had spread and surgery was not possible. My brother presented as atypical, no warning, no symptoms, nothing at all.

He had himself simply noticed one evening, what appeared to be a lump on his abdomen wall. So he is now undergoing chemotherapy. Which has transformed him from his usual robust healthy self to someone experiencing constant nausea, though he's been able to eat and generally feels well enough. Enough so to go to his university office regularly. He has three active manuscripts in the works, one almost ready for publication, on the history of Sable Island.

He has always been a jolly temperamented man, and that hasn't changed. His deep-throated chuckle that I so love is still there. He loves a good joke and never hesitates with his playful language, confusing to people until they realize that's his type of humour; good-natured and low-key, a social clown.

His wife is optimistic and clings to the hope that she will not soon become a widow. Her voice is strong and positive.

And, in fact, so is his.

I listen disbelievingly. But there they are, the voices over the radio who have responded to a radio 'phone-in request to tell their personal stories. We know that hunger exists in our communities. But we certainly are not aware of the extent to which it pervades society. We are, after all, one of the wealthiest countries on the globe, a country with immense natural resources, a high standard of living, and a relatively small population base.

That privation haunts a significant segment of our population is beyond belief.

Yet, among us are those unable to find employment, those who live at the subsistence level, the low-wage earners barely able to keep pace with the growing cost of fundamental commodities that we depend upon, and most of us think little of, regarding the rising expenses to obtain. Those of us who are comfortable economically give few thoughts to the hardships that prices we take for grudging granted, are catastrophically experienced by those whose budgets have been strained beyond their capacity.

They are people from all walks of life -- including those living an endless gap between the generational cycle of the poor and the middle-class -- who depend upon public welfare for a myriad of reasons; those suffering from catastrophic illness diminishing their ability to care for their own needs and perhaps those who might otherwise depend upon them; the children living in families whose struggle to provide the basic necessities of life overwhelm them; the elderly for whom retirement has been anything but the golden years; and university students for whom the on-campus food bank aids them to attain the basic nutritional level growing bodies and minds require.

Some are those with less than high school education who have never aspired to leaping over social barriers to attain the independence of financial stability. Others are people who have achieved the goals of educating themselves, people with university degrees in the humanities who worked as social service providers and know the welfare system inside-out, now finding themselves in a situation where that knowledge has had to be turned to their own personal needs.

It is difficult beyond belief to digest the reality that these daily struggles occur from within our communities. Those of us who are able to live a comfortable life, for whom the occasional need to address unusual expenses represent an irritant, have no idea what it is like to live with the spectre of indigence hovering constantly.

When we are reminded, as we must be occasionally, it is obvious that if we have any conscience, we have little option but to augment whatever we normally allocate to charity by extending our view of our obligations to the society in which we live and thrive.

Late Friday afternoon while I was sitting on the sofa reading the newspapers, Riley snuggled in beside me, I heard my husband galumphing downstairs, my mind registering that he seemed to be in a hurry. And then, there he was, standing before me as I raised my eyes from the newspaper, holding out something and smiling broadly. Confessing he just couldn't wait. I was to consider it a preliminary.

Ah yes, my birthday. Fast approaching. End of the month, in fact. When I will be officially as it were, 78. So, what do you need to worry about gifting someone of my age with, someone who has everything she could ever want in emotional completion, material possessions? I'm well aware that as December draws near my husband frantically looks at advertisements, searching for inspiration for a birthday gift for me.

For my 40th birthday he had taken me to the Bay for their first-time-ever-advertised sale of Italian gold jewellery, and there he bought me a robust spiral-ornamented bracelet. In all those years it has never left my wrist. And over the years he has gradually supplemented that single bracelet with others, and usually as birthday gifts, in between rings and watches (how many watches does anyone need!) and whatever else might occur to him that might be pleasing to me.

It's useless for me to plead with him not to bother, since he rarely 'hears' such implausible statements offensive to his sense of the rightness of things. So on this occasion, even with all my experience I felt a little taken aback, uselessly stuttering it wasn't my birthday yet. But he's always been that way, unable to keep things from me, eager to present gifts, happy to anticipate my pleasure.

Within the tiny 'shopping bag' was a wide, flat box which I withdrew to find inside yet another gleaming gold bangle, to add to my collection. My husband beaming with satisfaction.