It’s all gone now, but for at least two days we had snow on the ground. The first real snowfall of the season dropped five centimetres on Vankleek Hill or, in layman’s terms, just enough so it became obvious that, once again, my neighbour has no intention this year of cleaning our shared 24-stair staircase.

Which means, in an effort to save myself from major back pain in my old age, once again I’ll spend this winter with my windows up and my gas furnace on high in order to hurry along this global warming thing… don’t blame the player, hate the game.