It makes sense when we're feeling constrained, cooped up, unable to go places, knowing that there's danger lurking everywhere, with a human-destructive virus of as-yet-fully-unknown capabilities on the loose with no medical safeguard against its predations yet available, that we look to other means to try to cheer ourselves up. One of those distractions is, of course, food and its presentation and meals that can give comfort.

Yesterday was fish day in this family. We chose haddock, breaded it lightly, seasoned it and laid it in an olive-oil primed casserole to bake. And I had pre-cooked a few white potatoes then grated them along with raw onion to stir-fry both together in hot olive oil, salt and pepper. I prepared a fresh vegetable salad with bell pepper, avocado, carrot, tomatoes, snow peas and carrots; colourful and nutritious, finishing the meal off with clementine segments.

This morning I used a 600-gram vacuum-packed frozen bag of mixed berries -- blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries as a filling for a lattice-topped fruit pie. I prepare the filling by mixing 2/3 cup sugar with 3 tablespoons of cornstarch, adding 1/3 cup of cranberry juice, then simmering that with the fruit until I've got a nice, thick filling. Add 2 tablespoons butter and a squirt of brandy flavouring, mix and cool it, pile it into a pie crust, arrange the lattice top and bake for about 30 minutes at 350 F. Dessert for this evening's meal.

Jackie and Jillie seemed a little perturbed today. As though they sense something not quite right. Not entirely surprising. I wouldn't doubt at all they've become aware of an underlying sombre state of mind in the family. These are so far beyond normal times it's not quite possible to describe what has been happening, here, there and everywhere.

The world has turned in upon itself. Sheltering from a bioweaponized virus that is stalking humanity. Human beings who tend to congregate in like-minded groups, to search out one another's company are advised strictly to avoid doing that; our gregarious natures are being denied. The world community that had so recently applauded growing globalization in trade, tourism, sharing of science, has become a threat. Countries that shopped out their manufacturing to a region of the world where wages were low, with a huge workforce that produced salable products the world wanted to buy inexpensively now find themselves at an impasse.

China, where the coronavirus that now threatens humankind emerged, has the manufacturing capacity to provide newly-suffering nations with the medical equipment and the drugs needed in a world over-dependent on cheap labour resulting in profitable incomes, yet finding itself unable to cope with a health emergency because of low stocks of necessary hospital equipment and drugs, cornered by China.

Our response to Jackie and Jillie was an invitation to head outside. We are among the fortunate few who have only to walk a few hundred yards to access a natural environment where we can lose ourselves in the familiar pleasurable comfort of ambling through forest trails, and seldom encounter anyone else. This has been an overcast day, with rain throughout the night before and into the morning hours. The rain stopped, more or less in the early afternoon.

Not quite stopped, but became less evident, in a light drizzle. And it was in a light drizzle that we made our way into the ravine and chose variant trails for our daily ramble. This is a time when, if old acquaintances are seen in a distance, no one makes an effort to meet up; instead waves of sad acknowledgement take place and even at a far distance one can imagine the thoughts running through others' minds.

If and when we do approach fairly closely on trails -- careful to maintain a safe distance the while -- brief, desultory, half-hearted conversations take place at a physical remove. One strains to hear what another is saying. Efforts are made, that fail, to inject a light-hearted note. The situation is simply far too grim. And we smile that forced smile, bid one another adieu, wish them a safe and secure passage back home, and carry on.

The rain was light enough so it didn't bother us. Jackie and Jillie wore their raincoats. There's always much for them to do, even on their retractable leashes, ripping about here and there. On occasion they'll espie movement or hear another dog on another trail, out of sight, above where we happen to be at the moment, or down below, when we gain the heights ourselves.

These little outdoor respites are vital for our sense of self and happiness, though both are in short supply at this time with the world struggling to make sense of a nightmare that just doesn't want to end, one that, we are led to believe, has only just begun....

We are bombarded with constant updates on the novel coronovirus as it storms its way across the globe. Those countries which have not yet been touched by the outbreak of the global pandemic have good reason to be apprehensive, for more join the ranks of the affected nations each day. It begins with one individual diagnosed with the dread COVID-19 who had travelled abroad where the virus has affected many, bringing that nasty souvenir home with them.

Ironically, while China advises the outside world that the number of cases have dwindled markedly there, Chinese travellers who had gone abroad for the Chinese New Year, some undoubtedly taking the virus with them, have returned bringing back with them the virus acquired in Europe, Australia, the United States and elsewhere. And the returning vacationers have as well initiated a second phase of the virus in Singapore and Hong Kong whose immediate clamp-down on their population had succeeded in minimizing contact and contagion.

Of course, it's difficult to really credit anything that comes out of official China when they claim to have conquered the virus that they will not have referred to as Wuhan coronavirus, claiming that to be racist, though the virus emerged there, as a result of cultural dining habits which themselves have done much to radically reduce the numbers of endangered wildlife. China, after all, instead of putting a preventive clamp on the virus to control it, denied at first that there was any such viral threat. The virus is nature's way of hitting back on presumptuously entitled humanity for thinking they could ravage nature's other creatures without consequences.

It's not too far a stretch to imagine that there are few people who go to bed at night feeling calm and relaxed. Most people would be haunted by the fear of contracting the coronavirus, and with good reason. The parlous situation in Italy is a case in point, where so many cases have developed that the health care system has come to the conclusion that there must be sacrifices for the greater good of the entire population, to conserve hospital space and equipment. That limited medical equipment and increasing numbers of medical personnel themselves falling victim must result in a decision not to admit the elderly and health-compromised -- the most vulnerable of all people -- to extensive care.

There are many people everywhere worldwide where hygiene required to help stave off the virus is not available and they will fall. Even in the developed world, where people in crowded living arrangements like apartment complexes make it difficult to maintain a social distance there will see dreadful fallout. Panic has long since set in among many people acting quite unreasonably allowing their fears to set aside their common sense, by stockpiling food, hygiene products and pharmaceuticals, taking far more than they need, and in the process leaving little for others.

The mental health declines in world populations desperate to evade the doom of oblivion in the face of a zoonotic coronavirus, variously referred to as the SARS novel coronavirus, will live long after science has somehow managed to quell the emergency. People are urged to self-isolate voluntarily for the good of society and for their own health, and feelings of fear, boredom and misery will take their toll, to be long remembered and inevitably affecting the psyches of much of the population worldwide.

We engaged in our own positive mental health option this afternoon, bowing both to routine and to necessity, by heading out to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie on a heavily overcast, 4C, windless day. The creek in the ravine is still running full with meltwater, and it will be increased this evening when overnight rain falls, as expected. The absence of bright, spring sun has slowed down the melt, but there are some areas adjacent the forest trails where we can already see snow-absent patches of mud and green revealing themselves on the forest floor.

The newly-revealed underlayers of snow and ice hold endless fascination for Jackie and Jillie, as new smells rise up and entice them to keep their scent-sensitive little noses down and sniffing wildly. That, and the embarrassment of riches they find in revealed twigs and branches offering chewing delights keeps them busy now on our outdoor ventures. It's much harder to make our way uphill now, since the thick layers of alternating ice and snow are becoming soft and slippery when it's mild like today and hard and icy on cooler days, so we trudge uphill and fall backward in a spring ritual that can be exhausting making our way up the many hills in the ravine.