It's a day of good news and bad news. The good news comprised of more pharmaceutical companies announcing success in their Phase Three vaccine trials, giving themselves an astonishingly generous 90% and more pass rate, expressing confidence in their product, coming to the world's timely rescue and that now it's over to government health regulators to do the right thing and proceed with the assent for emergency expediting of their offerings to anxiously waiting countries that have signed up, pre-ordering the precious, life- and economy-saving drugs.

The complication is that the first such vaccine requires the kind of refrigeration that's quite unthinkable for swift distribution and inoculation; -70C required to keep it active; while another needs only normal refrigeration and yet another needs none at all. Oh, and a double inoculation, 28 days apart for the vaccine to be fully successful. In Canada, the provincial government health authorities in Ontario with the country's largest population base, with the prior knowledge that more people would be taking a seasonal flu shot reflecting warnings from the medical community that if seasonal flu and COVID-19 intersected the result could be catastrophic, ordered more shots than usual to accommodate a larger take-up.

Somehow, whoever did the ordering must have 'forgotten' to order enough of the triple shot for senior adults, and those seniors who hadn't moved quickly to acquire those shots are now left in a situation where the more powerful shots have been depleted. Bad enough doctors' offices and doctors themselves are not fully accessible to their patients for fear of COVID infection, having turned the inessentials like offering flu shots to their elderly patients elsewhere, referring them instead to pharmacies where it's perfectly all right for a pharmacist to risk infection, but not a doctor or a nurse.

The point being, it stands to reason that if a routine vaccination like that for the seasonal flu can't be undertaken properly, it's a test-run case for the distribution and mass inoculation  of a population to render the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID to be similarly problematical.

And just as well we can forget all these troubling little details when Jackie and Jillie confront us with far more outstanding matters; their perception that we're ignoring the vital importance of getting them out for their daily tramp through the forest trails. They did offer to help me change the bed linen, and do the laundry today, but I demurred, said I could handle it fellas. Having done so, they queried us as to the hold-up in their entitlements.

Finally, we could offer no more excuses. It's turned out to be a perfect day for a stroll through the woods; nowhere near as bitterly cold and windy as yesterday. And though the sun had shone earlier in the day when they frolicked about in the backyard, it had decided to make an early day of it, and toddled off somewhere else, prior to its early retirement for the day.

The absent sun makes quite the difference. Not merely to the ambient temperature, but of course to the quality of light in the afternoon, particularly inside a forest where the forest canopy throws its own bit of twilight onto the landscape even before dusk begins its early-winter arrival. The landscape looks unmistakably drear at this time of year; gone the verdant blessing of all green growing things but for the needles of conifers, never so much appreciated as at this time of year.

And although we really have no idea who the silent benefactor of the ravine is who occasionally leaves behind piquant little gestures to elicit a smile from any passerby, today we came across more of his/her handiwork, earning great admiration for the wag with the droll sense of humour. Whoever it was chosethe most unlikely of trees as a proxy for a Christmas tree.

There, before us, stood the wreck of an old wild apple tree, gnarled, broken, rotting, but still living albeit in winter mode. And there, festooned on its trunk and branches were gay and twinkly Christmas ornaments of good cheer, a large red bow, and dangling coloured balls. A sight certain to move anyone to smile in appreciation, though to be sure, Jackie and Jillie took no notice.

A thoughtful gift from whoever it may happen to be, to those who pass through those trails regularly, to ease the ache of trepidation over a viral scourge that is decimating the world population and sending its nations to its knees in desperation to save their own.