Most people, when they're young don't look ahead to retirement. But if they, by some quirk of thought process do, they tend to wonder what on earth would they ever do with all that free time of nothing but boredom. It's possible that some people are bored once their paid working life comes to an end, even though there are people who continue to work for as long as they can physically manage to, either by deliberate design because their life revolves around their workplace, they enjoy what they do to the exclusion of all else, or because their financial situation mandates it.

 

We've been retired for a long time, fully a quarter of our lives. And we've never been bored. There is so much to do that at times we wonder where the time has gone. There never seems to be enough of it to squeeze in all the things we plan or want to do, even mundane things that capture our attention and give us pleasure. Mundane only in the sense that they become a routine, however important they are in our lives.

 

 

Perhaps it's true that as we age time seems to telescope, closing in from all corners, leaving us gasping for more. Something as routine as doing a weekly food shopping seems to take an enormous amount of time. Mostly because of multiple stops; say first to the pharmacy, then on to the main supermarket and following that over to the specialty shop to complete the shopping. Even though all these destinations are in fairly close proximity to our home, the entire enterprise takes hours out of the day as it did today.

 

Our focus on shopping didn't deter us to notice the obvious, that increasingly fewer people are masking up. And that's people from all age demographics. In a sense it's understandable; people are learning, as social observers claim, 'to live with COVID'; it's here to stay. Which, needless to say, does not mean that intelligent caution should be set aside in the maintenance of a respectable space between yourself and others. Still, the first line of defence is masking.

 

Not so long ago, cautionary advice from infectious disease specialists urging the public to be vaccinated, to wash their hands frequently, to maintain distance and to wear masks hit the front page of any newspaper. That advice is being renewed, but now it's published in small columns below the fold, in obscure parts of the paper. People are sick and tired of the pandemic, and who can blame us?

In more obvious locations in the papers are reports of schoolchildren arriving in droves at area hospitals too swamped with cases to even admit them. Hospital emergency rooms are closing down, unable to handle the bloated workload. And those who track the prevalence and ongoing surges of new COVID mutations circulating in the public sphere and their infectiousness are quietly advising the public to exercise more caution.

On the more light-hearted and equally important version of our days when we set aside such conerns there is the companionship of our two little dogs. Where omnivorous Jillie refused her breakfast this morning, and even her chopped-up hard-boiled egg. Under the weather, as it were; more unusual for her than it is for Jackie. But as we entered the ravine for our afternoon forest dawdle-about, there she was prancing about with Jackie, agitating for cookie treats.

 

 

It's said that Canadians love their universal health care system. We certainly do. It's been there for us when we needed it, and always delivered. We didn't call upon it often, mind, but when we did hospital and medical personnel delivered handsomely, we trusted them as professionals of the highest calibre and had no reason ever to think otherwise.

Things have certainly changed in the past three years. But then, health delivery in its most basic function changed dramatically long before the advent of a novel pathogen that coursed through the world community spreading havoc, illness and death everywhere, upending routine and everything we thought of as normal in our social, business and private lives.

We personally experienced a rude awakening when our family physician of forty years retired. We had every reason to fully appreciate his dedication to administering care to the best of his ability throughout his long career. We liked him and gave him our unalloyed trust. He was a kind and gentle man, interested in all his patients and determined to give them all the care he felt they deserved from him.

We've had over a decade of experiencing a new crop of medical practitioners. We'd give them all a failing grade. They're supposed to be generalists administering health care at the most basic level. They've become diarists, busy on a computer instead of looking at you, registering everything on a computerized patient chart. It isn't medicine they administer, but prescriptions and referrals to specialists.

No qualms about most of the specialists; they know their field and dedicate themselves to performing as specialists aiming for the best of all possible outcomes. Now, however, in the wake of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen cutting a swath through normalcy, we saw family physicians close down their offices, and restrict themselves to 'distanced' appointments. Where once doctors said they had to see a patient in person to prescribe treatment, now it's just fine to do so remotely. 

Where once in an emergency you could be shoehorned into a brief afternoon appointment, you now wait, and wait and wait. If  you're referred onward you wait even longer; not days or weeks, but months creeping toward a year. Guess we're fortunate not to have required the attention of the medical field in the past three years. But what if we did? The prospect is dismal; doctors are in short supply, hospitals are packed, nurses and technicians are short-staffed and fatigued. Good luck.

So we are among the fortunate and hope it will stay that way, while also hoping the nation's universal access to quality health care can correct itself. Although this country rates among the highest health care spenders in the OECD, actually delivering top-notch health care has hit a road block. 

We shove those thoughts to the back of our minds. We think about our relatives and those we care so deeply about and shudder at the thought that the system is gasping for air. And then we decide to get some fresh air ourselves for the day. The rain has finally stopped and we're faced with two little puppies who are urgently in need of quality time outdoors; our special formula for well-being.

There are still dark clouds scudding overhead. Leave now, or wait? It's humid, though nowhere near as hot as yesterday. We decide on rain jackets and tuck theirs into our pockets, and off we go. The garden has brightened up since the rain, though it shouldn't have been thirsty. The pots were watered yesterday and so was the newgrown lawn. But it's the rain all vegetation responds to.

We're in such a hurry to leave before rain starts up again that Irving forgets his treat bag. Go back for it? Hmm, we'll take the chance we won't come across the usual suspects, planning a shorter circuit to avoid promising rain. Jackie and Jillie still expect their treats. Telling them 'sorry' just doesn't cut it, nor does the promise of an extra large salad on our return. But it's when we are hailed by two sets of excited dogs galloping toward Irving, their Cookie Man, that we feel really bad. 

Sorry, chaps. See you tomorrow. Double rations of cookie, then!

 

Evidently the 7th COVID-19 wave is now peaking in Ontario. It will take a while before the decline in cases is felt in area hospitals, all too many of which were forced by circumstances to close their emergency rooms and impose a limit on new admissions. The virus is circulating freely and quite a number of people have been infected. Summer in previous iterations represented a break from the viral spread, but not this year.

 

When we're out doing the shopping we see young people wearing masks and elderly people dispensing with them. Curious, since in the initial waves the toll taken on the elderly was wildly out of proportion to that suffered by the young. Generalizations aren't all that useful, however, since people are idiosyncratically inclined regardless of age.

 

We just think it's somewhat peculiarly nonsensical when on the rare occasion we see a preteen bicycler wearing a mask. Likely because he/she was enjoined by a concerned parent to wear a mask at all times. It simply defies logic, however, to wear a mask when in an outdoors landscape where the chances of coming in close contact with other people is just about nil.

 

Our heat wave, we believe, is now culminating with the hottest day yet. The forecast for tomorrow is in the low 20Cs, as unbelievable as that seems, given that today we've had 33C weather; a searingly-hot, close and humid atmosphere -- thick and exhausting. So needless to say we chose not to leave our daily tramp through the ravine for afternoon, and set off instead at 8:00 am.

 

Even at that hour the heat was building from its then-27C, to 33C a few hours later. There was immediate relief in the bosom of the forest and that was very much appreciated; the deep shade of the forest canopy is very efficient, all the more so that the cooler night-time temperature that prevailed the night before still lingered in the ravine depths. It dissipates more readily at the upper ridge of the ravine.

 

As we enter the forest, at its perimeter, the hordes of compass plant flower have all gone to seed looking very similar to dandelion fluff. But the Himalayan orchids are still blooming cheerfully, their bright pink petals beautiful against the dark green of the shrubbery growing among them, as well as the backdrop trees. And though the bright yellow flower heads of the compass plant flowers are no longer in evidence, there are buoyant little yellow bursts of flight among the wildflowers as goldfinches wind their way in and out of the small meadow.

 

Few hikes seem to be our lot without the opportunity of one or several dogs realizing they're in the near presence of the cookie man and this morning was no exception. Two dogs familiar with Irving's penchant to dole out dog cookies briskly approached, to sit placidly beside him, anticipating a reward for their loyalty and social politeness.

 

And then, just as we were in the process of winding up this morning's circuit, striding along the near bank of the forest creek, we saw a lone chicory plant in bloom, the first we've seen this season. Its bright blue flowers distinctive, and recalling our childhood when they were ubiquitous in abandoned fields.

 

Then home again for a brief spin in the garden where we loosen the laces on our  hiking boots and Jackie and Jillie are excited about returning to the house. Breakfast this morning is melon and bananas followed by French toast and sausages, our two little dogs' absolute favourite breakfast treat. And some relief from the stifling heat did eventuate later in the day when a series of thunderstorms swept through the area.

News of the new COVID strain is smothering all other news items at the present time. The preeminent concern with the wide spread globally in alarmingly quick order. Much faster than the original Wuhan strain, and it in its first go-round was unbelievably swift in infecting the world population. Omicron is that much more impressively invasive and infectious. 

The Province of Ontario is urgently trying to convince its residents to waste no time in booking a third, 'booster' shot in self-defence against the virus. Two weeks ago when it was first announced that those over 70 years of age in the province were eligible to make appointments through the provincial booking agency, we did just that. The best they could offer us was an appointment on December 31. We read soon afterward that there were so many attempts at booking the system went down, leaving people flummoxed.

You do a mental shrug, well, it's something' we did after all get an appointment. The booking agent knew our history of course, it's all available online; 85 years of age, and from the time of our second dose almost six months had elapsed one of the conditions to be met by anyone wanted a third dose. Famously/infamously, it is generally known that by six months following the second dose of vaccine, antibodies have waned considerably; so from at least an 80% protection rate, it has plummeted to below30%. 

Today, emergency news blared the absolute, utter requirement that all vulnerable people, indeed everyone from childhood up, must be vaccinated with the booster shot. Urging people to right away, instantly make their appointments so that as many people as possible can be vaccinated by year's end. So much for efficiency and bureaucratic malaise. We're headed directly into a storm of frightful proportions and everything we heard on the CBC's emergency updates sounds more like political electioneering poses than sound medical advice with sonorous voices of 'authority' intoning how we're all in this together and Ontario has done a magnificent job of protecting its population.

Today a different, more expected and natural storm developed, and we found ourselves in a snow blizzard. Blowing wind and heavy snow created near a white-out landscape. And we know from long experience that new snow over existing ice creates really hazardous conditions. What was merely difficult yesterday would today be downright dangerous. Not only does new snow on ice make for extremely slippery conditions, newfallen snow hides from view what lies under it, ensuring that searching out safe places to tread in avoiding the ice would no longer be possible.

 

The alternative was something we usually avoid if at all possible, and today it was not: a walk with Jackie and Jillie well leashed, on nearby streets. Even that turned out to be difficult as we watched a teen slithering on icy portions of the road with his year-old bulldog who wanted to play with Jackie and Jillie hauling him along.

Cold enough at -3 for Jackie and Jillie to need their boots on the falling snow. Jackie was beside himself with happiness, wandering everywhere back and forth, under and over and across Jillie's leash, prancing about on the snow, fully exhilarated by its presence. They were both slipping on thin layers of ice under the snow, but it makes all the difference being on level ground, to enable one to maintain balance. 

The wind whipped the snow into our faces as we walked along the sidewalk next to a heavily-trafficked main road until we made our way once again back onto a street that is more like a looping court with a little playground that was quite abandoned of the presence of children anywhere. Irving and I are anything but fond about walking on urban streets, but Jackie and Jillie didn't seem to mind today, and getting them out for a bit of a stretch and fresh air was the important thing.

Before reaching home we passed the ravine entrance and decided to drop the bag of stools we had accumulated from J&J on the way, in the receptacle for ordure at the entrance to the forest. Leaving the road and stepping onto the trail, our boots were soon slipping everywhere as we negotiated the newfallen snow, revealing the ice underfoot. Conditions so dangerous it would have been well nigh impossible to descend the first long hill into the ravine, as usual without risking life and limb. 

Jackie and Jillie can always be relied upon to bark up a storm whenever our front doorbell rings. They take their presence domiciled here as 'guard dogs' seriously. Their piercing barks are enough to bring on a headache but that's the price to pay to ensure that any unwanted intruders know their status; fair game for ferocious ear-splitting calls to the barricades.

 

A few days back Irving placed one of his regular orders for fair trade organic raw coffee beans. Today was the delivery. Every few days he hauls himself downstairs to the studio in the basement where his coffee roaster is located and gets it going, and the house is suffused with the odour of roasting coffee. Aromatic and pleasurable to coffee lovers, not so much for people who can't tolerate coffee. That's me.

 

It was one of the tastes I 'lost' 62 years ago during my first pregnancy. Up to then I had consumed coffee like any other normal person. And it's why I'm a dedicated  tea drinker now. That initial distaste for coffee during that pregnancy has only deepened since then. The smell of any kind of cooking meat made me gag back then too, but I got over that. So it's just one of those little mysteries that life is so full of. 

 

I think we've become a tad paranoid over the pandemic. I'm always urging Irving not to go out when he doesn't really, really, really have to. The fewer occasions for exposure to the virus, the better. He needed gas for the snow thrower, had to go to the bank for cash-and-carry (he doesn't like being without paper money, just reliant on credit/debit cards), wanted to pick up a Toronto Star/New York Times, and a few other items like batteries.

My pleading poodle eyes stop him in his tracks. We discuss how careful we always are when we're out and he finally agrees he'll go to the bank and get gas, but forget about the other things. When he's gone for longer than those two stops would warrant, I know he's changed his mind.It's a concern to both of us and of course to most people that case numbers are steadily increasing once again; Delta predominating for now, but Omicron fast catching  up.

Afterward we took the puppies out to the ravine.  A surprisingly mild day, the thermometer rose steadily to an afternoon high of 4C with a stiff wind, but a gloriously blue sky and full sun exposure. Unfortunately, even with the forest canopy now bare of foliage, not all that much sun filters through to the forest interior, but it is decidedly lighter than an overcast day

 

We decided at that temperature and hazarding that there would be lots of ice on the trail, Jackie and Jillie would be better off without their boots. We had cleats firmly strapped over ours.  And we needed them. Though we anticipated icy trails, we under-appreciated what the weather conditions would make of the forest floor. Both we and J&J were soon engrossed in weighing the chances of making it down the first hill into the ravine without slipping.

 

Careful attention to where our boots were being directed by our eyes picking out opportunistic areas that appeared safe, which is to say, snow-piled at the outer edges of the trails, we managed to stay upright. Striding confidently ahead was not in the books today. Once we had re-gained the upper ridge trail we were able to relax, still placing our boots judiciously but not as critically so; no longer ascending or descending.

We basked, in a sense, in the milder temperature, finally relaxing as we made our way along the ridge. In any direction the distant view of the forest canopy showed the sun lighting up the spires of both evergreens and hardwoods in bright, fiery orange shades. Getting on into late afternoon the sun preparing to set beyond the horizon.