If there’s one thing here in Toronto, Ontario which makes toiling through its winters bearable, it’s the arrival of the summer, the season of summer and the return of summer. Let me say it again if you’re missing the subtle point here: Summers here are what makes the winters bearable. Period.

It is indeed hard to believe, when one looks at the cityscape in summers, that just a few weeks ago, everything was covered deep in snow, ice and all that the winter leaves behind. It is really an experience for someone not used to all this during the better part of his previous life.

I know two persons in this entire country, literally. One is a friend and the other is a sibling on the other side of the continent. In addition, two more people on my cellphone’s contact-list are really acquaintances with whom I have verbal speech once every 12 weeks or a dozen fortnights, whichever is less. When I left the mother-ship to beam up to Planet Canada, I had bid farewell to all my half-a-dozen friends and relatives there as well, for good. A couple of them I speak to once every six months. But that’s another story.

Much is being made of the cold weather “alerts”, as they’re called here. These remind me of those almost-Orwellian efficiency ‘campaigns’ at government departments when suddenly saving a bunch of paper-clips becomes top priority just because a ‘green week’ is being celebrated — when it really should be standard practice.

But if braving Canadian winters (as blogged earlier) in a previous suburban neighbourhood seemed a little getting used to — as I was new to all this — surviving a recurring winter gives one plenty of fodder to ruminate over, if you’d excuse the terrible pun.