Worrying rumblings from health authorities tasked by governments to oversee and advise with respect to the way forward out of this virus nightmare we've been stuck under for almost two years. As though Delta, that avid hunter of humanity hasn't been a severe enough 'variant of concern' racking up huge numbers of victims leading to yet another wave of COVID, news of one more mutation that has emerged and identified by scientists as even more infectious, and potentially capable of evading the protective effects of current vaccines is being bruited about.

Who could possibly forget the eerie silence that fell when the SARS-CoV-2 virus began running amok after escaping China, devastating Europe before heading to North America and the first tentative, chaotic reactions. When total lockdown was imposed and just about everything commercial was shuttered and doctors' offices, health clinics and even hospitals couldn't be approached. Fear was as viral and communicable as the pathogen itself.

 

Driving local streets meant encountering no traffic, seeing no pedestrians, seeing signs reading 'closed' everywhere but supermarkets and pharmacies. Schools closed along with all 'non-essential' institutions and private enterprises. People frantically tried to avoid touching surfaces of any kind. Masks were -- and remain -- de rigueur everywhere; no entry to interiors without masks. People were advised to distance, isolate themselves, take rigorous care to not be in close proximity to others -- any others at all.

 

And now that we're aware of a new, more threatening variant are we to return to that time, when we thought with gratitude and great relief, it was all behind us? If need be. There seems to be no escaping this nightmare. And we're people who had the good fortune to be less impacted by the universal presence of this threat to what we've always considered normalcy than most. Time -- and not too much of it -- will tell how this new confrontation with biology works out.

As for us, it was routine as normal. Yesterday's light flirtation of winter snow has left little mark of its presence today. But it is cold, the temperature barely nudging above -3C, with a cutting wind, blustering up to 40 kmh as we walked up the street toward the ravine entrance. The new winter coats and harnesses that we bought for Jackie and Jillie two days back will have to be returned. And we hate returning merchandise. They're too tight-fitting for both, though we had chosen sizes we thought were reflective of the two little imps' physical characteristics.

 

Not only do they not fit, they don't fill the other requirements of easy usage and practicality. So back they go. Rummaging about in the cupboard where their 'clothes' are kept we hauled out other little winter jackets that are lined with a fur-like material and we tried them for our hike through the trails today. They're outgrown and tend to open up, and they're too short, not adequately covering the puppies' backs. Fine in a pinch, but they need replacing.

It's icily cold today, and though it's sunny, once gaining the interior of the forest the dusklike atmosphere prevails, other than where exposure to the sun brightens the landscape, and that's not everywhere. On some of the  trails, well sheltered from the wind by the surrounding forest, the wind is scarcely to be noticed, but on others where the trails are wider and the forest density diminished, both wind and sun gain entrance with greater exposure to that now-early-afternoon-sinking golden orb.

There was a cheerful fellow we used to see fairly often on our hikes, with an elderly pit bull mix that was as gentle as a lamb, preferring to mind its own business after acknowledging the presence of others in near proximity. Bill used to tell us his companion wasn't his dog, but his son's. And although they didn't share a house, mornings would see the dog dropped off at Bill's house where he spent the rest of the day. Bill certainly looked after the dog as though he were his own, and in a sense he was.

We had heard back in March that the dog had suddenly died. And from that time forward Bill no longer took daily hikes through the ravine. Today, however, he was there, and we could barely recognize him. He looks about a decade older than when we saw him last. Now he has a white beard to match the hair on  his skull, deep lines about his face. But his wide, crooked smile is the same, and the mischief in his eyes is the same, and his great booming voice is the same. And so we did, after all, recognize him.