An automated email was received by us from the Ontario Health Ministry; we're due for a six-month COVID booster. There's no longer any great rush for the COVID vaccines; people are no longer anxious about getting vaccinated, COVID-19 has become yesterday's story (or at the very least, last year's and the year before's and the year before that). Consequently it was not very difficult to make an appointment for our booster shot; far fewer people are responding. We thought it best to.

 And decided against attending one of those crowded set-ups serving hundreds of people at a time. Not that there would any longer be hundreds of people assembling at any given assigned place, nervously awaiting a shot. We decided on a local pharmacy instead. Their computer system is coordinated with the Ministry's and they have access to our individual records. And so, the deed was done. We'll begin to feel the immediate after-effects by some time later this evening, no doubt.

Another weather-miserable day, and we hope it will be the last in the seemingly endless string (all right; it seems endless, although it's been ?only? a week) of non-stop rain. Our local newspaper is full of flood stories sitting alongside the tail end of the public service strikes. But today there was morning rain, and then it stopped until very late afternoon, giving us ample time to get out for a ravine walk with Jackie and Jillie while the rain was in suspension.

We keep thinking the trails could not possibly get any goopier than we last found them, yesterday, but we were wrong. A mere few hours without rain makes no difference at all when it's been raining solidly for a full week. The ground is well beyond simply being saturated. And it takes dedicated hikers to venture out in these conditions. Jackie and Jillie are dedicated hikers.

There was just one other person out on the trails while we were there, a long-familiar forest trail aficionado whose two dogs came hurtling toward Irving before we even realized they were there. Jackie and Jillie were pleased no end to see them; of course not because they're so fond of the two sitting expectantly in front of Irving, but because they anticipate they won't be overlooked in the cookie handout process.

The creek was as swollen and turbulent as it's been all week. And although the landscape needs a lot of additional coaxing to take on an appearance of spring, a light green haze is beginning to appear over the forest canopy. Trees are slowly beginning to sprout their new foliage, and so are the saplings and the shrubs within the lower story of the forest interior.

More trilliums will begin opening their flowers, and so will the trout lilies and the woodland violets. Early-blooming Serviceberry will also begin their bloom. Colour is slowly returning to the forest.

We can't quite recall back in March how affected we were by our first dose of the COVID vaccine we received. We do remember that our arms were sore afterward, but that cleared up in a few days' time. We assumed the second time around with the same vaccine would impact less on us than the original one did. It may have, but our feeble memories fail to collaborate that.

After having completed the two-dose regimen yesterday, we settled into the follow-up discomfort. Every time we raised the arm that received the vaccine it hurt like the devil. The injection is an intermuscular one, and that would guarantee there would be soreness afterward. And then there's also the effect of the virus itself, commanding our immune system to straighten up and fly right. This time upset stomachs accompanied the pulsating arm and we slept slightly fitfully during the night.

In the morning it was difficult to arise out of bed. For me, anyway. And I soon discovered that my left foot hurt when it bore my weight, and my right knee was sore when I was washing the floors on this house-cleaning day. For which execution there was no enthusiasm whatever. I felt lethargic, defused of my usual energy. Irving, it seems, has weathered the storm better than me. He did the vacuuming. We decided to do a little less this time, forget about the 'spare' bedrooms, the basement and the living room. They could wait until next week.

It turned out a rainy evening last night and  rain continued into the day, lots of it under dark skies and wind. It took longer for the floors to dry because of the high humidity. But eventually we freed ourselves up for a turn in the ravine with Jackie and Jillie. The rain stopped by midafternoon and we were hoping we could avoid a threatened thunderstorm.

The forest was completely soggy, the atmosphere oppressively hot and humid, with some relief from a constantly blowing wind, itself steeped in heat. We could hear it soughing through the forest canopy as we trudged along the trails. Twice we came across people who wanted to stand around and talk, one a young man we've got to know several years ago, and the conversation was all COVID and vaccines.

The second time it was a trio of people we'd never before seen who told us they live on one of the streets not far from our own. They were taken with Jackie and Jillie, fussing over the little ingrates who kept barking at them. They pumped us for information about the ravine and Irving obliged. Eventually we made our way out of the forest and onto the street, the street quiet and void of anyone's presence.

Our puppies were not the least bit pleased with us this morning. All went well for them, just like a perfectly normal routine morning. We all enjoyed breakfast and nothing caused them to believe they were on the verge of being abandoned to themselves until the very moment of our departure. If that old platitude of seeing someone's face fall in astonishment could be used to describe the realization that dawned on Jackie and Jillie, then indeed their little faces fell in apprehension and disbelief. 

You'd think separation anxiety wouldn't be an issue when there are two of them; companions, brother and sister, and you'd be wrong. It was time for us to drive to the west end of the city where we were assigned a date and a time for our second anti-COVID vaccination. Evidently, nothing could be found in our own area, everything all booked  up, so the west end it would be. A long drive, as it happens, on a day moving toward sweltering.

In the large parking lot where we were instructed to wait in the car adjacent to the entrance we had been assigned to, for the two-day clinic taking place at a sports arena, a young Muslim couple was parked beside us. With them, four small children for whom they had no one to take their care, so they took them with, the parents awaiting their first shots. The children were a bit of a distraction, excited to be out and eager to have an adventure. Evidently when they called for an appointment they were offered spaces in the east end of the city, where we live.

Once a loudspeaker announced our assigned time, inviting us to enter at the assigned gate, we were escorted to a large functional and unbeautiful chamber. The noise in that chamber was deafening; people speaking normally, the sound amplified by acoustics owing much to a large windowless space with a metal ceiling,  and countless people both servicing and being served exchanging information.

Small spaces about six-feet-square apart set up as notional 'rooms' with the aid of plastic curtains and there people waited on chairs for a nurse with her vaccination cart to come along. In our earlier experience tables were set up spaced appropriately distanced from each other, where people were directed to, and at each table was a nurse to administer the dose. The entire process was done and completed in a snap. We were there no longer than ten minutes. This time it was over an hour as we waited our turn. Insufficient numbers of nurses were in attendance and each one assigned to a row of plastic cubicles wherein sat vaccinees.

What a joyful reunion on our return home! We were obviously mourned in our absence, as having gone forever from the lives of Jackie and Jillie. Yips of joy and forever-kisses of undying love lavished upon us. And then we set out for a ravine hike with the two little broken-hearted and miraculously-healed little puppies. By this time it was steaming hot but clouds had rolled in, and we're expecting thunderstorms through the night time hours.

The forest, cool and green, presented us with the shade of its dense, green canopy. We had light burning sensations at the site of the vaccination, that will likely turn into a dull muscular ache by evening, perhaps last a few days and then be gone. There is some stress involved in deviations from our normal routine, and relief that we felt that the second, final shot should spell the end of the pandemic for us personally. Being surrounded by trees in the forest dissipates any residual feelings of unease and discomfort. A leisure pleasure for all of us.

Toward the last one-third of our circuit, we decided to take a freshman-trail, one that didn't exist before last winter when people suffering from lockdown and stay-at-home restraints ordered by the province sought new adventure and relief, forged a new trial. Jackie and Jillie were delighted at this deviation from the norm, and ran ahead exuberantly, the footing just fine for them as we descended, and a little more dicey for ourselves. 

The little tramps refused water offered to them, despite their exertions, but they were pleased to honour us by gobbling up doggy cookies. By the time we arrived back home, however, they looked as though they felt slightly bedraggled, wandering about the garden pathways in the relative cool of the gathering cloud formations overhead.