Lengthening Days

Three cheers for us! We walked to work this morning! Though I hadn’t planned on doing so, I am of course delighted that I did. If nothing else it expiates my general guilt about Winter laziness and lassitude, a posture sadly only too readily assumed if encouraged in the least by foul weather and a blazing fireplace (not to mention the complimentary libations). Today, however, the sun shone brilliantly, and I was energized by last evening’s welcome though infrequent abstemious conduct. I suspect it takes little more than fifteen minutes to walk from the house to the office. Even as we crossed the Maclan Bridge over the flowing Mississippi River, the air, though damp, was not freezing, bringing only a slight blush to our cheeks. I proudly sported a multi-coloured woolen cap which I had purchased this past weekend at the Wool Growers’ Cooperative in Carleton Place, one of those best kept secrets, merchandising as it does some high quality items. It is an urban prejudice that one must shop in the City to find good stuff. Frequently I have found myself observing with no small element of pride that this or that item was purchased locally.

Once at the office, we immediately assumed our respective duties. With the advent of a new month, the month-end reconciliations of the general and trust accounts were the order of the day for my learned Assistant; meanwhile I attended to the exigencies of what has been a wearing and deadening refinancing, now at last thankfully concluded. I confess to a pleasurable sense of revenge in sending the lender a wad of paper as thick as one’s fist by way of reporting letter. So often the lenders bury Solicitors in unimaginable quantities of paper outlining their repetitious and entirely superfluous instructions. More of them should take their lead from the Royal Bank of Canada, which correctly accepts that the Solicitor is the one to dictate what is required to consummate he transaction, not the lender.

The level of commerce appears to be quickening, no doubt in concert with the lengthening days and the restoration of some hope after breaking the back of Winter. We Canadians are forward-thinking individuals. I find it takes relatively little motivation to encourage sanguine anticipation.