The streets are deserted when we venture out before eight in the morning, no one about on foot, and few vehicles on the road. Stay-at-home orders are still in effect, and the easing of the lockdown has been moved forward a few days. Ottawa will see a cautious opening, but Toronto and region will not, not yet, not until their case counts are somewhat reduced. Quebec is opening up as well; not sure whether the curfew remains in effect there, arguably the worst-hit by the coronavirus epidemic in the country.. 

We  haven't gone out anywhere for quite a while; it's more than a little sobering and encouraging of caution when your province goes into lockdown augmented by stay-at-home conditions. All the more so, if you keep abreast of the day's COVID figures. A ray of sunlight has emerged, though with a week and more of steadily reducing numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths attributed to COVID.

Although Ottawa is not a city that has been hit hard particularly by the coronavirus generally, like other areas of the country where long-term care residents and caregivers have been hit hard where the most vulnerable of the vulnerable have become sickened and died in great numbers from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the same situation has occurred here as elsewhere. So, yes, caution is not only advised but personally mandatory. Now that vaccinations have got underway in the long-term and retirement homes along with inoculation of caregivers and health emergency responders there's been a reduction of cases and deaths there, too.

Reason for optimism, even if Canada's place in the firmament of vaccine shipments and inoculations has been so dismal, placing us in 51st spot for both, whereas other countries whose leaders were far more aggressive and timely in their response to the need to ensure their populations received life-saving inoculations left ours in the dust. Time has never been more 'of the essence', however, than now. To ensure that the base of the population is protected and we head into 'herd immunity' territory.

This morning's grocery shopping went well. Unlike last week we encountered fully packed shelves and lacked for nothing. The temptation in these times is to buy more than we need; the expression of a little bit of anxiety over whether food supplies are secure. Food bank donations are certainly increased again with people seeming to regularly now remember to buy additional food to place in the large receptacle placed in the supermarket's foyer for that purpose.

 By the time we had breakfast and Jackie and Jillie were truly surfeit with treats topping up their morning meal, we gratefully relaxed, and then prepared to go out for our hike through the ravine. We had light snow again this morning, the wind had come up somewhat, and the morning's -12C had risen to -6C.

Yesterday, when Irving had picked up a few items at Farmboy, having reasoned that going there at dinnertime would see the place deserted, and he was able to stock up on wine, cider and U.S.-sourced oranges, he also bought a bottle of wine as a gift. He generally doesn't pay much for his own wine, but splurged this time, since the wine was meant as a token of appreciation for Dan, our next-door neighbour, and Lynn who have been shovelling our front walk and porch this winter, despite our protestations.

We were pleasantly surprised once out in the ravine to realize after awhile that we weren't seeing many others out on the trails. We took a long circuit of interconnected trails and ended up seeing fewer than a handful of other people, other dogs, so it felt as though we had the entire forest to ourselves, just like old times before the advent of lockdown and people desperately looking for things to do.