I feel better today — thanks for asking, Stilly — not least because I’ve been dosing myself repeatedly with my steroid inhaler. The cough is both loud and persistent, but not quite so uncontrollable. I went to church choir practice — I’m cantor on Sunday — and everything worked, if not at full force.

This house is feeling more and more like home. I haven’t finished putting up pictures yet and the kitchen is still wretched, but I can list the changes I want to make on one small sheet of paper. All I gotta do is find the right people to execute all these projects … starting with replacing the cracked toilet in the, um, “powder room” (I prefer to call it the ground floor loo).

Edmund’s favourite sister phoned yesterday to check up on me — I just love that woman — and asked “So, do you feel happier there?” I have to say that I do. Ottawa isn’t any kind of Promised Land, but it’s where I belong. The house needs work, but whose house doesn’t need work?