It's also the perfect place for a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine

We renovated our quite massive back deck last year, but we hardly got to enjoy it before the weather turned cold and wet. I plan to take full advantage of it this year; I've got my own little café set up there. Nothing fancy: just a little folding table, a couple of orange vinyl chairs, and some t-shirts or towels on the laundry line. The service is often terrible – strictly self-serve – but well worth it, as food tastes better when eaten outside. My current favourite breakfast is a toasted bagel spread with plain goat's chevre and cherry spread, accompanied by an almond latté.

I've been spending a lot of Saturdays at my little table, accompanied by a trashy library book, watching the neighbourhood go by. There are gardening households; always someone weeding or planting, pruning or watering. The guys in the house right next door spend every sunny Saturday rebuilding their motorcycles. On the other side, the elderly couple shuffle slowly to the car in the morning and then back to the house in the late afternoon, while their son trots ahead with groceries or to open a door. The middle-aged woman who lives with them mumbles and cries out and laughs as she hangs laundry in the garden in the morning and as she gathers it back in the evening. I don't know what she says; she doesn't speak any English. My upstairs neighbours come and go from under my deck on their scooter, giving me a little wave.

Russ has further plans for the deck: built in benches, another laundry line, planters, and probably more. Me, I'm pretty happy to just sit in the shade of a drying bed sheet and sip a coffee. If you need me, I'll be on the deck.