Tuesday is a 'free day' in the sense that other days of the week are scheduled for so many things that have to be seen to in maintaining house and home, that it often seems like a holiday. So the feeling that today is actually Saturday (another 'free day') kept running through my mind. All our breakfasts are leisurely affairs since our retirement from the active workforce decades ago. But a day free of chores really is a holiday with languid hours at our disposal.

So, what we did was take ourselves out to the garden, the backyard and the front of the house. Gardens thrive in summer, and last night we had a copious rainfall, followed by a humid and mostly overcast day, though you could still feel the heat of the sun drilling through the cloud cover. Jackie and Jillie mostly behaved themselves while we busied ourselves cutting back wayward branches of trees and shrubs to maintain a bit of order, trimming here and there.

And cleaning up a bit on the cobbles that form our patios at the front of the house, because over time thick layers of bright green moss have been established making it difficult to sweep up the walkways when, for example, the flowers of the ornamental crab trees and magnolia and flowering pea have fallen and need to be swept up as compost. Add to the moss the proliferation of heucheras, bright red and beautifully leafed, escaping the confines of the garden, to grow at the edges of the stone retaining wall my husband built years ago.

I transplant some of the more robust specimens back into the garden wherever I see any bare spots calling out to be filled, but there are so many of them it's impossible to save them all. Their spread rate is truly amazing for a beautiful little plant, appreciated for their complementary role beside our large collection of hostas.

When we were finished, off we went, the four of us, to enjoy our usual ramble through the woodland trails in the ravine. Although the temperature high was 20C, the humidity despite the overcast made it seem much warmer, so my husband brought along water for Jackie and Jillie as an offering of cool respite halfway through our trek.

Lots to see, as usual along the forest pathways, in a sense analogous to strolling along the garden beds and borders where we see woodland phlox in bloom. Unlike the cultivated varieties of phlox these bloom in spring, not summer (though ground phlox in the garden also blooms in spring). There are so many blackberry bushes flowering now, we know for certain it's going to be a good berry-picking year. Even the thimbleberry bushes are preparing to begin their flowering phase, and that's early this year.

Here and there alongside the trails, perky little buttercups have begun appearing, their bright golden faces turned to the sun like a bright yellow chorus echoing back the brilliant colour of that life-giving golden orb. Not another person was about strolling along the trails, hiking uphill and down, though one cyclist passed us early on our jaunt.

When we clambered up the longest of the hills to attain a tiny bit of a meadow, we were greeted by bees flitting on and around the myriad of flower clusters on the huge on dogwoods. There were butterflies and dragonflies exchanging passage with the bees, action everywhere we looked, as though it was a special staging on our behalf by a benevolent nature.

We came across stinging nettle, and a wide patch of poison ivy that we give wide berth, and Engleman's ivy beginning its vinelike emergence on the forest floor. None of this attracts the attention of our two little dogs, they see, hear and smell attractions we have  no notion of whatever. The atmosphere was so humid we expected rain might fall at any moment, but weren't disappointed when it failed to.

And then, on our return home, we poked about at the gardens briefly, noting the conditions of the garden urns and pots, lingering to admire the bright insouciance of the begonias, the showy petunias, the clematis vine, and noted that the first of the climbing roses are preparing to bloom in short order.

The world may be emerging from lockdown due to the novel coronavirus, but though our lives have changed in many ways, there remains much to be grateful for, and we are. Emails from an old high school friend lament that she hasn't been out of her apartment for the past three months. Her daughter and son-in-law shop weekly for her groceries. She misses being out and about.

So I replied to her complaint recommending that she use a face mask and gloves and get herself outside for fresh air and exercise, while maintaining a reasonable physical distancing from others. That there is no good reason for her to remain a hermit, closed off from human contact, isolated at home, no opportunity to exercise her limbs, breathe fresh air, appreciate the world around her.

Her response was that her daughter doesn't want her to, and she is uncertain whether she could manage. She has sold her car, though she need walk only a block to access a supermarket. Complicated rather by the fact that she now uses a walker and fears that if a bicyclist is on the sidewalk there wouldn't be enough room to pass safely, concerns that were the furthest thing from anyone's mind up until March.