Autumn – so I am beginning to think – is like life itself; namely, an initial canvass of every colour on the palette suddenly followed by evaporation and a dormant chill. As I have so often remarked, “Nature teaches us how to die” which in this context will suffice as a period of transition from one expression to another. That is to say, there was today as we cycled along the erstwhile railway right-of-way no suggestion of either demise or disappearance; rather the willing admission of change conjoined by the uncommon beauty and effervescence of the season. The irrepressibility of the morning constitutional lingered undiminished into the afternoon.

So provocative was my post-cycle and post-petit déjeuner that I could not help but be inspired by the evident miracle and fecundity of village life in general. It is an incontrovertible observation that I have descended to the level of a shameless curmudgeon.  This – should you care to have further explanation – means for example that I enjoy peace and quiet, that I am monotonous to the point of exhaustion, that everyone else is crazy, that there is no point saving it for the funeral and that, yes, I do think seventy is the new normal! Parallel to this confessed deterioration is the surpassing charm of country living.

Down the hill from Church Street past the Elizabeth Kelly Library. The tree-lined public walkway passes over the Mississippi River before vanishing into the Village of Rosebank. The ribbons of undulating highway from the County of Lanark to the County of Renfrew border the vast and changeable colours of the harvest fields.