Then and now. What a sheltered life we live. With all its complications life here where we are is simple though it most definitely is not for other people living elsewhere in a world of mass upheaval. For those people living through the trauma of war and tragedy, areas of the world where disease and exploitation by their governments, neglect and privation take their toll, life is anything but simple; it is a challenge to survive. News reports of events taking place elsewhere on the globe keeps us informed and even at times incredulous that violent strife and existential threats must be faced by others, while our lives proceed along a circumscribed path of peace and stability. Reminding us of our good fortune in living in a country like Canada with its enormous geography and vast natural resources.

Bedtime reading has me lately fascinated by accounts written 550 years ago throughout Europe, penned by people living in England, and preserved by a chronicler of the same era, Richard Hakluyt. His Voyages and Discoveries make for fascinating instruction on the state of the world in the 1560s. Where wars were always on the horizon and humankind was as discriminatory toward others different by ethnicity, culture, religion and tribe as they are at the present. Take this for example:

Presently the Inquisitors came up another pair of stairs, and the Viceroy and all the chief justices with them. When they were set down, then came up also a great number of friars, white black and grey (orders) about the number of three hundred persons. Then was silence commanded and then presently began their severe and cruel judgement.

The first man that was called was one Roger the chief armourer of the Jesus, and he had judgement to have three hundred stripes on horseback, and after condemned to the galleys as a slave for ten years.

After him were called John Gray, John Browne, John Rider, John Moone, James Collier, and one Thomas Browne: these were adjudged to have 200 stripes on horseback and after to be committed to the galleys for the space of 8 years.

Then was called John Keyes, and was adjudged to have 100 stripes on horseback and condemned to serve in the galleys for the space of 6 years.

Then were severally called the number of 53 one after another, and every man had his several judgement, some to have 200 stripes on horseback, and some 100, and condemned for slaves to the galleys, some for 6 years, some for 8 and some for 10.

And then was I Miles Philips called, and was adjudged to serve in a monastery for 5 years without stripes, and to wear a fool's coat or sanbenito during all that time.

Then were called John Storey, Richard Williams, David Alexander, Robert Cooke, Paul Horsewell and Thomas Hull: the six were condemned to serve in monasteries without stripes, some for three years and some for four, and to wear the sanbenito during all the said time.

Which being done, and it now drawing toward night, George Rively, Peter Momfrie, and Cornelius the Irishman, were called and had their judgement to be burnt to ashes and so were presently sent away to the place of execution in the market place but a little from the scaffold, where they were quickly burnt and consumed. And as for us that had received our judgement, being 68 in number, we were carried back that night to prison again.

And the next day in the morning being Good Friday the year of Our Lord 1575, we were all brought into a court of the Inquisitor's palace, where we fund a horse in readiness for every one of our men which were condemned to have stripes, and to be committed to the galleys, which were in number 60 and so they being forced to mount up on horseback naked from the middle upward, were carried to be showed as a spectacle for all the people to behold throughout the chief and principal streets of the city, and had the number of stripes to every one of them appointed, most cruelly laid upon their naked bodies with long whips by sundry men appointed to be the executioners thereof; and before our men there went a couple of criers which cried as they went: behold these English dogs, Lutherans enemies to God.

They returned to the Inquisitor's house, with their backs all gore blood, and swollen with great bumps, and were then taken from their horses, and carried again to prison, where they remained until they were sent into Spain to the galleys, there to receive the rest of their martyrdom: and I and the 6 other with me which had judgement and were condemned amongst the rest to serve an apprenticeship in the monastery were taken presently and sent to certain religious houses.

That was then. This is now. And early this morning, after yet another predictable early morning rainfall, we tucked Jackie and Jillie into their harnesses and walked with them up the quiet street we live on to access the ingress to the ravine and the forest below, to spend the next hour-and-half wandering about the forest trails, mindful of the berries waiting to be picked and eaten and shared with our two little dogs. If these summer days do not represent a blessed life, then what does?

From time to time, as is usual, we came alongside others we know, some just recently introduced as it were, but most familiar to us from years of mutual devotion to the fresh air, exercise and sheer unadulterated pleasure of enjoying tramping through woods in all seasons and all weathers. With most of these people were their companion animals. All of us serene in the landscape. Appreciative but not too engaged in the thought that we are all extremely fortunate.

We may be beleaguered with fear of a global pandemic that haunts the world as a threat to health and recover, taking countless human beings to an early grave, but we are reconciled to the fact that we must take extraordinary precautions to maintain our health and keeping a reasonable distance while still making the most of life's opportunities is certainly to be recognized as cardinal in our efforts to remain well. And so, we do.

Many years ago when we still lived in Toronto and our family was very young marked the first time we had ever seen what is now our most favourite of annual garden plants, begonias. They were planted in a public park in Rosedale, an upscale part of the city. Their pale, waxen petals beguiled us, the beauty of the delicate looking flowers fascinated us, we thought back then they were the most beautiful flowers we'd ever seen. And they were.

We were young, and busy maintaining a household, steeped deep in nurturing three young children with one working parent. Opportunities to seriously garden were rare; our time was given elsewhere. But the memory of the impact of that aesthetic revelation was never forgotten. It was the reason, a lifetime later, we focused as retirees building a garden, on highlighting begonias, those most beautiful and hard-working of annual flowers, closer to eye level, planting them in garden urns and pots.

Year after year we've gone to one particular nearby grower of begonias. And year after year we would winter over some of the begonia bulbs, storing them in the basement to be brought out in spring and re-planted. Last year was the first in many that we decided we would no longer overwinter the bulbs. We also found that some of the most beautiful of the begonias were somehow cultivated to have no bulbs whatever, however that could be explained.

We reasoned that come spring, we would have ample access to the tuberous begonias whose appeal to our sense of aesthetic was so strong. They need little care, other than watering and the occasional addition of fertilizer throughout the summer months. The layered-petal beauty of the flowers are absolutely enchanting. The plant produces its treasured flowers continuously throughout its flowering, its stem and foliage growing all the while to impressive size and height.

The flowers' shadings in pastels and bright, strong colours, from white to pink shades, bright orange, yellow and red are brilliant. They sing to the senses. And we have always valued the huge contribution they make to our garden. They, and perennial hostas and heucheras form a kind of summer backbone to the garden, although the architectural element is expressed largely by the ornamental trees we have planted over the decades.

The Magnolias, the flowering Crabs, the Japanese maple, the weeping Mulberries and flowering Peas, along with the specimen Corkscrew Hazel, Purple Smoke tree and Hydrangea shrubs. The garden beds and borders are also dependent for variety and sequential blooming on Bearded Irises, Lilies, Canterbury Bells, Bleeding Hearts, Geraniums, Poppies, Peonies, Roses, Clematis vines, Mountain Bluet and Monarda.

Each time one of these perennial flowering plants comes to seasonal maturity and bloom, it's another milestone in the season. Filling out the garden, presenting with each bloom period, another aspect of form, texture and colour to the ever-changing landscape. Some things, of necessity have changed as far as the ability to acquire annual bedding plants, thanks to the intervention of COVID-19 in every aspect of our lives.

This was the year we hadn't nurtured begonia bulbs, overwintering them, and bringing them out for spring planting. And this is the year that we discovered that from our usual vendor we could no longer access tuberous begonias as we had long been accustomed to. Their entire stock of any kind of bedding plant was finite this year; they were besieged by people anxious to start gardens to while the time away, unable to work during lockdown. We were able to acquire everblooming begonias and a new hybrid cultivar of Elatior begonias.

They're all hugely productive, producing myriads of small and beautiful blossoms, but we do very much miss those huge, glorious blossoms that spoke to our yearning to produce, year after year, the ideal landscape to reflect our personal taste. We've accessed angel-wing begonias that produce interesting foliage and flowers that seem add-ons, not proudly assertive, large and prominently colour-blazing the conceit of their beauty.

And nor were we able to procure the giant zinnias -- any zinnias for that matter -- that we featured alongside large-blooming marigolds; alternating hot pink and gold that blazed the confidence of their lovely appearance in the sunny garden at the front of the house. There, in resignation, we planted some of those pink-hued-bearing begonias, languid and temperamental and disappointing. Still, the structure of the garden remains intact, and for the most part, it offers and succeeds to please us no end. Most of the beds and borders, enclosed within retaining walls my husband had built have their presence behind the visual buffer of our many trees; for a small urban lot there are plenty of trees; blue spruce and false cypress and cedars and Alberta spruce among them.