Janet Wendy's progress

As we begin April of 2010 we have unprecedented heat. Yesterday, Easter Saturday, it was officially 29 C but the outdoor thermometer on our balcony, shielded from direct sunlight, was reading 30-31 C in late afternoon. We have had several weeks of warm and mostly sunny weather with average temperatures in the low to middle teens at a time of year when it is usually still very cold with blizzards and snow still thick on the ground. The weather has lifted Wendy's spirits and mine too (I try to overlook the unpleasant fact that it's another unmistakable sign of climate change occurring more rapidly than predicted). There's no doubt at all that we are more cheerful when we look out our windows at blue skies and sunshine. This year when it's usual to squint against the glare of sunlight on snow on sunny days in late March and early April, we look out at grass that is already green, at trees where the buds of the new leaves have swollen in the unusually warm weather and are beginning to burst into leaf. The crocuses are in full bloom, spears of tulips have burst through the grass, and on the lawns between the University of Ottawa campus and the Rideau Canal, innumerable clusters of daffodils are almost ready to open up their bright yellow flowers. We can hear red-wing blackbirds marking their territory with their rasping call; as the skies lighten just before dawn I hear geese honking overhead as they make their way from their overnight roosts to the feeding stations in farmers' fields where they will gorge themselves before the next leg of their journey northward -- or, in many cases, fatten up and breed here on the banks of the Ottawa, Rideau and Gatineau Rivers or on lawns and fields beside the Rideau Canal. I saw my first immense skeins of northbound geese before the end of February, and they have been heading north in vast numbers ever since. The crows have been active too, and I think Wendy has begun to get over her aversion to crows; David Attenborough's documentary series about the life of birds has made her aware that crows are, after all, the Rhodes scholars and Nobel prize-winners of the bird world, the most intelligent of them all. The bright sunny weather and the return of bird life have probably helped to lift Wendy's spirits. In recent weeks she has been understandably a bit depressed at times, as she comes to grips with her increasing inability to do all the things she has been accustomed to do all her life - the housework, the sewing, preparing meals and all the innumerable activities that filled her days. I've taken over some of these as best as I can although inadequately, and realize when I do her jobs how energetic she has always been. So I understand how frustrating it is for her not to be able to do these things anymore. Anyway, this glorious weather, the signs of spring, the greening all about us, the bird life, all help; and more so are visits by good friends. Mariem Martinson was in Ottawa for several days, left to go back to Victoria BC yesterday. Her daily visits while she was in Ottawa cheered Wendy immensely. It's sad that she lives so far away now. I hope I have convinced her to persuade her husband Ross to install Skype on their computer so we can chat back and forth that way and see each other's faces in the same way we see David and Desre when we chat to them. Another thing that has helped Wendy lately is the twice weekly working visits by Sharon Morrison, a bright and bubbly brown-skinned lassie whose parents came from Jamaica to settle in Ottawa. So far Sharon's role has been to help with the housework, but as Wendy's condition advances, Sharon will help also with feeding, dressing and grooming. It's valuable for them to get to know each other before that stage comes, because later on Wendy will have difficulty speaking too, so learning how to communicate with each other in alternative ways is important. Sharon, I hope, can help us all to achieve this. But for now, we will go on as we are, taking life one day at a time and making the best of every one of them.