Never let it be presumptuously supposed however plaintively that there is nothing to do in a household at a time of widespread self-isolation while a mysterious public danger haunts the byways of ordinary life. Certainly the parents of children, small and large, have more than ample concerns, both to keep their families safe, and to ensure the children are well occupied.

Those without children at home have more than enough preoccupations to wile away the day, any day, in ordinary everyday tasks that, despite emergencies of unforeseen and dramatic proportions must and should be done, if for no other reason than to maintain a semblance of sanity. Being busy and looking after matters is an excellent way of distracting the mind from dreadfully pressing news that never fail to upset.

Of course, reading the newspapers is for many people like ourselves also an act of obedience to custom and since we have two newspapers delivered daily to the house, we have two newspapers to inform us of all the alarming things that are happening in the world. Aside from the usual diet of concerns over conflict, abnormal weather conditions, critical food shortages and petty crime, the last of which directly impacts, the former hitting elsewhere around the globe, there is the one, universal calamity that has focused the mind on how vulnerable humanity is to the vicissitudes of natural selection.

In the sense that some areas of the world's humanity adapted to a culture that preys for food on exotic wild animals, and the pathogens those animals harbour which don't appear to harm them, have selected humanity to begin infesting with the glee of finally finding warm and moist interior homes that succumb to the devastating effects of dominating immune systems to death.

When we cracked our eyes open this morning we had the sense that the outdoors would be dark and dismal, so we closed our eyes again and went back to sleep. Waking to the day, however, is an inevitability and eventually we roused ourselves, a little late, much to the annoyance of Jackie and Jillie, though they slept as soundly as we did until we no longer did.

The importance of routine is never to be discounted, even though doing things that are a little extraordinary from time to time, is a pleasurable breakaway from routine, after which we're always pleased to return to the familiar. In a time of COVID, representing the routine breakaway, there is no pleasure however, and routine calls out to rescue us from dwelling too heavily on the 'what-ifs' that send blood pressure soaring and mood crashing.

My husband has his workshop and I have my kitchen. In that kitchen crisp oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies were baked today. Bathrooms were scrubbed. Beds made. Old newspapers in the family room discarded. Order restored where disorder had reigned after the day before. And then the decision to embark on an adventure, even if that too is a familiar routine.

Overcast, cooler than it has been the last few days, we dressed a little warmer, and Jackie and Jillie wore snug little sweaters and off we went. Some of those parents with children stopped tearing their hair in frustration long enough to haul their kiddies off to the forest trails, but not many. It's good for children to be immersed in natural surroundings, but notoriously children don't care for anything that's 'good for them'.

We, on the other hand, do appreciate everything that's good for us, and made the most of our hour-and-a-half circuit along forest trails, opting today to select a series of interlocking trails that we began in a reverse-order pattern, making the familiar a trifle unfamiliar and pleasing Jackie and Jillie no end.