Guess we just don't give them enough credit for their analytical prowess, thinking they're just two little puppies, and what would they know, other than the urban tales we fill their ears with? Well, they've been telling us of late that when we prefer to arise in the morning, it's too late. They're right, of course, but it's just so very comfortable snuggling into the bedding.

Mind, there isn't much of that lately, other than a cool cotton sheet thrown over our slumbering bodies in this heat wave we've been blessed with. Trying to catch the occasional breeze that wafts through the bedroom window. At some time during the middle of the night my husband usually shuts off the floor fan. Oh yes, we do have air conditioning. And it works splendidly at the basement level where it's so cool it feels like you're in a cold-storage locker.

Perfect for my husband when he's in his workshop downstairs. And when he is, on comes a warm pullover otherwise he'd freeze to death while painstakingly fitting another piece of stained glass into the puzzle he has constructed that will become another window. Needless to say, in the winter the reverse is true; it's snug and warm in the basement while the rest of the house struggles to cope with the howling winter winds outside doing their best to attain entry.

The first level is fine, very comfortable, nice and cool. Even so, Jillie has abandoned her usual sleeping space on the sofa, preferring to crawl under the coffee table and splay out there. And very unusual for Jackie, he now prefers to abandon the backrest of the sofa where he usually ensconces himself, for the cool tile floor of the breakfast room, legs akimbo.

So, we listen to them, and we get out early, before breakfast these mornings, to take the forest trails through the ravine, before the heat of the day makes it suicidal to get out at our usual cruising hour in the afternoon. On the perimeter of the forest, just before we plunge into the descent of the ravine, thimbleberries have grown this year to an impressive height, and their hot-pink blossoms steam in the sun. Alfalfa, growing on the forest floor, has also gone into bloom, with delicate little purple flowers.

Usually, Jackie and Jillie prefer to run ahead of us; like an advance party ensuring that all is well and we can proceed with assurance. That's all changed on these hot days, hot mornings that is, when there's yet some residual coolness lingering from a night-time dip in temperature.

Our puppies simply cannot muster up any enthusiasm. They plod along behind us. They're still interested as healthy little dogs in everything around them, veering off left, right, crossing leashes leaving us to untangle them, to investigate odours of interest. And should they sense something or someone ahead and as yet unseen moving toward us, they'll still rush forward to defend us from the dastardly plans of any oncomers.

By the  time we've completed our circuit an hour or hour-and-a-half later and make it down the street from the ravine entrance to our driveway and over to the garden, they may be regretting having insisted that we go out at all. On the trail, while Jillie will rarely reject an offer of cooling water, Jackie never deigns to take a lap or two to cool down. We're hoping the burden of carrying around all that extra hair that has grown in since their last grooming appointment was cancelled due to the lockdown will come to a screeching end on Wednesday when we take them in for another appointment.

So, we're home. The garden has done its important function of greeting us with its irrepressibly colourful landscape of bright-faced flowers. And in its nooks Jackie and Jillie briefly find relief from the oppressive heat, under the cool green shade of the trees surrounding the garden in our own little Paradise. Then we all make a break for the house where the interior suddenly assumes a new identity, that of a cooling oasis in the desert of a blast furnace....