May Day! The arrival of the first of May is so hugely anticipated in so many corners of the world signifying many things, but most of all that the cruel cold of the winter months is long past and in the Western Hemisphere flowers will finally emerge in the wake of April showers. They are doubtless emerging somewhere, just not in this part of the world.

While we were still mired in an unusually cold April we looked forward to May's arrival. All would instantly change, the weather ameliorate, and the spontaneous warmth would engender a feeling of freedom in everyone, the landscape would change from sere greys and blacks to brilliant greens sprinkled with dashes of bright colour from blooming tulips.

Not this year. At least not quite yet. Usually, by this time of year the house furnace has been long shut off. We were glad to hear it humming last night as we shivered in bed. Glad to turn on our gas fireplace in the evening while we relaxed, read, and felt unusually chilled. It had been a heavily overcast, dark and gloomy day. All day.

And certainly cold. We had decided, after listening to the weather forecast, to venture out earlier than usual to the ravine to access the forest trails since the expectation was that the afternoon would be rather damp to put it mildly. In anticipation of moisture falling sooner rather than later, we dressed in raingear, including Jackie and Jillie.

Ten minutes into our forest hike, we heard the unmistakable sound of pinging on our rainhoods. The hoods were up because it was so cold and the wind, walking up the street to the entrance to the ravine, battered our heads, making us even colder than we felt at the onset. It isn't rain that pings, it's ice pellets. And ice pellets fell from that point on, almost until we exited.

"Almost" because eventually it turned to light snow flurries briefly and then freezing rain. We were fine for a long circuit in the ravine because freezing rain, ice pellets and flurries do not end up soaking us. Rain does. So though we felt uncomfortably cold because of the probing icy fingers of a low temperature for the time of year, we were dry. Only Jackie's and Jillie's ears and top of their heads became slightly encrusted with brilliant little crystals of ice and they didn't mind; their lined raincoats covered their bodies quite satisfactorily.

Despite the cold we came across tender young foliage beginning to emerge from trees and shrubs and applauded them for their perseverance and determination. There were no other hikers to be seen through the length of our woodland walk, and little wonder. We're on a slow trajectory toward warmer days, quite obviously. It's just that the visual evidence is elusive.

But soon after our return home the precipitation turned to rain, just cold rain. And it persisted, raining all the rest of the day and into the night. Which will not be the least bit helpful to the folks living alongside the vast river system running through the Ottawa Valley where water levels are inordinately, threateningly high and evacuation orders have already gone out.

The Rideau Valley watershed has been overwhelmed. The monumental snowpack of the winter of 2018/19 larger than usual, combined with the equally unusual lack of a January thaw has led to a swollen, still-rising river system threatening homes stupidly built on floodplains.

Not quite what one might expect during a period when we're informed that Global Warming is threatening our planet.