Recipe to cure the Post-Summer blues:

• Wake up early (for you). Read the news and your favorite blogs, and realize the weather is getting better by the minute. Decide to head to the farmers' market for dinner supplies. Stop in at your mom's on the way over, on impulse, and invite her along. Pick up some delicious locally grown produce. Run into friends and pat their grinning baby. Head home to sleepy man.
• Cajole sleepy man into hurrying so you can hit the great outdoors. Drive through the 'burbs to a nearby Provincial Park. Hike 5.5 km up and down a rocky trail. Hear the wind rustling in the trees around you. You should watch for bears, but not too vigilantly. Relish the scent of sweat and sunscreen on your skin. Your heart will pound at first as you hit the first steep part, but you'll adjust. Try not to feel too peeved as your pack-a-day boyfriend cruises by you. The temperature will be perfect, the trail a lovely mix of sun and shade. You will hear people in the distance, but only a few other hikers will actually cross your path.
• You'll come to a small, rocky beach at the trail's end. At first it'll be filled with kayakers, but be patient. Soon they'll push off again into the water and you can explore alone. Marvel as you so often have that here within this huge city are such pockets of absolute beauty and nature. Vow that you will do this much more often.
• Have a home-cooked dinner of local corn, tomatoes stuffed with home-made pesto and baked, small spicy sausages.
  
• Go to the Fringe Festival and watch some theatre, the first time you have done this in years.
  
• Savour the feeling of being comfortable in your body for the first time in days. Sleep soundly.