I started clearing the garden of winter debris this week, so now I have a waist-high heap of deadfall branches off my (too) many maple trees and two huge bags of dead leaves swept, scraped and scooped off the patio. It’s still too early to clear the beds — that’s a task to undertake in May. At present, the cold wind howling in the chimney has me convinced to keep the furnace running for a while yet.

I’ve had three asthma flares since the snow melted, so I keep the dope kit handy and limit garden efforts to an hour or so at a time. Asthma notwithstanding, I’m singing well these days and I get out to the Y for pool class three mornings a week.

The next challenge is deodorizing the green Bokhara carpet in the parlour, which Watson has pissed on again. The air has a very slight pong and I’m expecting a dinner guest on Sunday. I’ve heard good things about Nature’s Miracle; any opinions, Stilly?