There appears to be no news of a benign nature of late. The world is heavily over-shadowed by the sinister threat of the novel coronavirus. In Europe, Italy and Spain, France and Germany all have sobering news of new cases of COVID, along with staggering death rates. The United States is struggling to cope with a massive infection and death rate.

Last night I received an email from an old schoolmate, someone I had gone to high school with, seventy years ago. Later, when we were older, in our late teens and both married, we spent a lot of time together socially, as couples. Life happens, people move to other cities and connections are lost. But twenty years ago we re-connected remotely, and began sending emails updating one another. She's had a hard life.

Made all the more difficult now. One of her sons had re-located many years ago from Toronto when he married an American, to live in Colorado. He's now an American of long standing with dual citizenship. He informed his mother last Friday that his son, her grandson, had died. He was a physician practising in New York, and had been infected a month ago. He was in recovery and it was thought he had beaten the pathogen. Then he was discovered alone in his apartment, unconscious. Before he could be transferred to hospital, he died.

Sorrow hangs heavy on all of us, and fear haunts our every hour. And then, there are lighter moments. Today is our daughter's 58th birthday. I'm corresponding by email regularly with her daughter, our grandchild. We're comparing notes on grocery shopping, the difficulties inherent in trying to remain physically distant and intact while in an enclosed environment with others trying to do the same thing, focused on acquiring the necessities of living while avoiding the possibility of dying.

Today dawned sunny, but much colder than yesterday when it had been balmy, but given to heavy rain all throughout the day. We've been enjoying sunny intervals, some overcast, and light snow flurries. Last night's wind was ferocious, and it toppled a few immature trees in the forest. Today's wind is brisk, adding to the cold atmosphere.

We were able to leave the house in the early afternoon with Jackie and Jillie, to set out for a relaxing hike through the ravine, after yesterday's weather-enforced absence. For the first time since early winter we embarked on a hike without cleats strapped over our boots and it felt liberating. And though we had thought we were finished wearing hats and gloves and winter-weight jackets, we needed them today and so did Jackie and Jillie, out wearing thick wool sweaters.

Without the cleats, we had to avoid one section of a trail we always take to begin our circuit that always remains deep in snow and ice when all other areas have long since shed their ice. So we began the circuit in a total reverse of the usual and chose different connecting trails that kept us clear of any icy trail challenges. It was a relief to shed the cleats, almost as much as it was to hike along without keeping a sharp eye out for slippery surfaces; instead there were boggy ones.

The forest floor now has countless deep pools of melt-and-rainwater. Where deciduous trees tend to predominate in some areas of the forest, the view is stark and dark; bare tree trunks unrelieved by any hint of verdancy, awaiting the arrival of foliage. In avoiding the areas of deep ice still clasped to parts of the trail system, we take a different direction, briefly leaving the confines of the forest on our way to completing our circuit, which takes us alongside the creek where heavy remediation work was done years ago to stabilize the collapsing hillsides above.

There, a casual glance toward the creek from the improvised path we were on, free of the presence of trees because they had been logged out of necessity to enable large earth-moving and -drilling machinery access, brought a familiar sight to our notice. Among the granite rocks that had been dumped alongside the creek, and the detritus of fall, bright little yellow heads of Coltsfoot, the first of the wildflowers to make their early spring presence.

When we returned to street level, we came across one of our most dear neighbours, Mohindar, who had been out for a walk around the block to get some fresh air. As we chatted, we learned from him that the supermarket where we do our grocery shopping had suddenly become a potential threat. In that one of its employees had been diagnosed with COVID-19.

And then, when we arrived home, walked up the driveway, sauntering briefly past the driveway, onto the patio and walkway at the front of the house, another delightful surprise greeted us. A small patch of bright purple crocuses celebrating spring!