When we've so many successive days of 30C+ temperatures, we tend to keep the windows on the first story of the house shuttered to preserve whatever cool air we can and in the evening the windows are opened. Last evening while setting the table for dinner in the dining room because on Fridays we celebrate the oncoming weekend by a special meal there, the windows were open and gave us a view of a small part of the garden, a special treat the memory of which remains wistfully with us over the cold winter months.

And this morning once again we knew we'd best head out for an early morning tramp through the ravine to take advantage of whatever coolness was left over from the night before. Usually we see no one else on the street at that hour, though eight in the morning is not early for many people. But our neighbour directly across the street was out, of all things, washing one of their vehicles. And there was her husband, Mustapha, whom we haven't seen in months, standing beside her. He is in late-stage cancer, and his wife who always had a confiding relationship with my husband updates him regularly. He is taking part in an experimental new drug trial in the hopes that its protocol may be useful to him.

Just outside the entrance to the ravine, where we have reason to be glad that the municipality no longer outsources cutting of the grass, allowing wildflowers to flourish, we saw that the creeping jenny that we knew grows in patches there, is now in flower, its bright little yellow cups open to catch the rays of the sun.

As we descended the trail into the forest we could hear the sound of the creek below informing us that it was at a higher level than yesterday. There was a clear, steady flow, and we surmised that it wasn't the effect of the heavy rain of Thursday afternoon, but that sluices on holding ponds miles away that been opened and the water they held was being flushed through the creek which serves a double function; that of a natural waterway and a storm-surge overflow.

We heard, but were unable to see, the steady, hollow-sounding thrum at some distance of a Pileated woodpecker, busy at work. Alongside the creek, up the next hill accessed by crossing the first of a number of bridges, fresh bright new pink thimbleberries were in flower, the rich colour they flaunt burnished by strands of light from the overhead sun filtering through the canopy.

It was hot, yet not as much as the preceding days; the humidity appears to have lifted, the air felt fresh, clean and cool, and completely comfortable. My husband, in curiosity, lifted a few branches of the many understory hazelnut branches as we sauntered through the trails, and sure enough, the outer cases of hazelnuts were in their early forming stage. Eventually as they ripen, the squirrels will eat them, so they go to a good cause.

A few other people were out on the trails capturing the cool morning air sheltered under the shaded canopy of the forest, like us. At one point, I looked back and through a dense cover of immature trees saw something black moving about on a trail junction we had just left to approach a main trail. I doubled back out of curiosity, expecting to see a squirrel, and instead came face-to-face with a large, muscular Doberman that hadn't been neutered.

He was a beautiful specimen. We don't see many of his breed any more. And he was shy and well behaved and curious about us, in particular Jackie and Jillie who appeared not to be the least bit willing to politely reciprocate. Soon enough his human companion came into view. But the dog remained to linger beside us, feeling quite comfortable with itself, and allowing us to admire him, until after we'd finished a conversation with his human when both disappeared down a hill in a direction other than where we were heading toward.

We passed another plant, one we'd seen on a number of other occasions, growing in a bit of sunlight-warmed clearing beside the trail. A plant we'd never seen in this forest before. Which I believe to be a type of small shrub called a leather leaf, with tiny bell-like flowers linked in a spray at the end of each branch. Possibly more of them will appear in years to come.

Back home again, we rambled briefly through the garden. At the very front,  unseen from the street because of the screen of trees shielding it from view, is our secret garden, dark and cool, in shadowed calm. It's the first part of the garden the sun illuminates much earlier in the morning hours. Enough sun exposure to convince the roses there that a full flush of bloom is appropriate in late June.