We're back into hot weather again, it'll be in the 30C-range today, so we decided we'd go out earlier with Jackie and Jillie, and have breakfast on our return from a sunny ramble through forest trails. On our way in to the ravine, a neighbour who has lived beside the ravine for twenty years called my husband to 'come, look!', and he did. She was rhapsodic, pointing up to a tree-tall dogwood in flower. In all those years she had never before 'noticed' its presence. Nor did she know what it was, until my husband informed her.

Yesterday, it wasn't quite so warm, and we embarked on our ravine trek around the usual afternoon hour. These days we come across mostly people we know and have known for years, taking their own circuits through the forest. The COVID lockdown inundation from the community and further, that had marked the months when area parks and playgrounds were off limits to everyone for any reason, even walk-throughs, has been relaxed.

Which means we're less likely now to come across people who aren't aware of civil etiquette in sharing trails and at the same time maintaining a safe distance from one another. Nor are we likely now to come across people with unleashed dogs who are unfriendly and pose a threat to people and well-behaved dogs. Not that ours are well behaved, but they don't pose a threat because though they bark because they're small dogs that tend to behave in this manner irritatingly upon seeing unfamiliar faces and other dogs, they would never go so far as to attack anyone.

Yesterday was almost as warm, and certainly as bright and beautiful as today is turning out to be. We're well and truly into good weather and we feel we deserve it. That, at the very minimum is popular opinion. And with good reason. Ever since the beginning of March when intimations of serious health harm related to a novel coronavirus were being bandied about, and finally in mid-month affirmed, our lives have been turned inside out.

It has been difficult for many people, and those fortunate enough not to have been infected have with good reason, been concerned they might become yet another victim of this cruel virus that has killed so many people across the globe. Social expectations that go to the very core of civilization have been set aside and new, cautious routines have taken their place. What was once casually taken for granted cannot now be undertaken as cavalierly as previously.

Extended family may no longer be in close communion with one another, and the overwhelming concerns over the safety of family members consumes one's thoughts daily. People have felt trapped in their homes, many of whom have lost employment as the lockdown has also resulted in businesses failing. Others have been instructed to work from home, missing the camaraderie of the presence of co-workers, and working under pressure of looking after and entertaining children who may no longer attend schools and day-cares.

Older people with impaired immune systems, with failing health, with critical medical needs who have been warehoused in long-term care homes have felt the brunt of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It has been seen around the world, just as here in Canada, that most critical cases of COVID requiring intense medical attention, and the most deaths that have occurred have been at the expense of these vulnerable people.

Today is our 65th wedding anniversary. We can celebrate our good fortune on many levels, not the least of which is that we have one another, and our love is as intense and deep as it ever was for each other. In comparison to the sufferings of others we have had a blessed lifetime together. Even during the COVID lockdown, not that much has changed in our lifestyle aside from irritating changes in routine and the need to ensure we practise careful prevention.

Unlike people living in densely-packed urban areas, in apartments with little room to move about, with little access to natural green spaces, we have the good fortune to continue living in our own home amongst familiar neighbours, in close proximity to a large, extended natural green space that the forest represents, making it available to us for exercise, fresh air and entertainment on an ongoing basis.

And when we're there, on the forest trails, concerns lift themselves from our minds, however temporarily. We take pleasure in the landscape, in the details that are revealed to us, in watching our two little dogs disport themselves. When we return from our daily jaunts and unleash Jackie and Jillie in the driveway prior to entering the house, they dash up the walkway to see whether any neighbours are about next door, whom they can inveigle some notice from.

And we can wander briefly in the garden, to admire the flowers we've been able to plant to surround ourselves with beauty. All this, in and of itself, presents to us as gifts in our daily lives, in the long partnership through life we have shared together, as fortunate people.