Most mornings when we set out early for a tramp through the forest trails alongside Jackie and Jillie we can depend on encountering cool shade as we descend into the ravine. It isn't too good a choice to leave our daily rambles through the ravine for an afternoon hour any more. At least not until we're out of the current heat wave. Day after day of overheated temperatures averaging 32C  and above.

Not much humidity, and usually there's a bit of wind accompanying the heat which does offer some slight relief. The birds are certainly happy, the heat doesn't seem to bother them, though they're warm-blooded like us. There's no question the overheated atmosphere bothers Jackie and Jillie, particularly Jilly, given her sturdy little frame, well padded and now carrying about quite a thick haircoat.

We're left with little option but to venture out before breakfast, in the hope of escaping the worst heat excesses of the day. And it's worked quite well up to the present. Today seemed a bit of an exception. It was quite simply hot, with little relief to be had irrespective of our early gambit. All the vegetation in the ravine seems to our critical eye to be enjoying the heat, however. There are more blossoms on the soft-fruit bearing plants than we've ever seen before.

By late July and mid-August there will be an extraordinarily heavy crop of blackberries and thimbleberries, and no doubt ample raspberries as well. Their fruit is sweet, juicy and delicious. We even noted that the haws of the hawthorn trees are beginning to form. And to add a bit of another colour shade, the cowvetch which entangles itself vine-like up, around and through other vegetation has now begun to bloom.

Our shaggy, hot little dogs, despite the searing heat being transferred through the atmosphere even in the shade of the forest canopy, were far livelier this morning, rushing interestedly ahead of us rather than hanging back as they were doing in a listless fashion days earlier when it was slightly cooler. Could be they're acclimating. We're not doing much of that ourselves, it seems. The change just too abrupt, from cooler, wetter days to the situation we find ourselves in now.

The lighting in the forest is different in the morning as opposed to the afternoon. Although the forest interior tends to be dark, looking up at the fringes of the tree canopy in the direction of the sun, the trees are limned in a broad halo of light. Though some spears of light penetrate the leafy canopy, for the most part the foliage looks dark green, capped by bright white light.

There was a thunderstorm warning out, but that was for the afternoon. And though we like and enjoy and appreciate thunderstorms for the relief they bring to a dry landscape and the entertainment they offer in the force of the copious rain that accompanies thunder and lighting, we aren't too fond of being stuck in one, caught by surprise at its sudden appearance when we're deep in a forest interior.

When the first of the thunderclaps pealed through the landscape, we were home and ready to enjoy its presence. Neither of the pups is nervous about thunder, though they both tend to bark back at it. They don't cower fearfully, just give it a bit of its own back. And then, like us, watch out the glassed front door as the rain sweeps in great windy gusts across the roofs, the driveways opposite us, the wind pushing the trees in front of the house into a celebratory dance of welcome.