Just one thing after another. We're coping with the novel coronavirus, taking steps we know should protect us from transmission. Our lives have been complicated. Nothing -- at least most things society takes for granted -- is quite the same any more. But this is Canada. Where case numbers are relatively low in comparison to many other parts of the world. Including our neighbour to the south, grappling to try to get a grip on their contagion and the overwhelming number of deaths caused by COVID-19.

Our economy is in shatters, many people are unemployed, food banks require more help than ever to give assistance to people in dire straits. We are reminded daily of how delicately balanced our life on this planet can be. But, again this is Canada. We're well sheltered from the disasters that strike elsewhere. As in countries in conflict, countries threatened by natural disasters causing earthquakes, floods, volcanic action.

Lebanon yesterday, was put to another kind of test when its deep-sea port at Beirut was shattered by several explosions. There are people from all over the world who migrated from their countries of birth to emigrate to Canada to become citizens and raise their families here. But they remain lovingly loyal to the country of their heritage, returning there often to touch back with families still living there. "There are no words to describe what's happening now. It's horrific. I've never seen Lebanon like this in my life. It's worse than it was during the civil war", said Ahmad Arajil, president of the Lebanese Club of Ottawa.

"Most of my family is in Lebanon. Some of them were affected directly, their windows were shattered and their kids hospitalized. The hospitals aren't even able to take in the insane amount of wounded people. It's horrible." Yes, it is horrible. A country in a financial crisis, desperately trying to deal with a pandemic, an unstable government, the major governing share of which is an actual terrorist group outlawed by Western society and some countries in the Middle East. Lebanon has become Hezbollah.

That is the kind of insane instability that millions of people are forced to live with. A country that imports 80 percent of its food from abroad, and when an entirely avoidable catastrophe occurred with an explosion at a warehouse holding ammonium nitrate, buildings were levelled, a hundred people died, thousands wounded, and a storage unit containing 85 percent of the nation's wheat was destroyed.

For us, life though complicated by the everpresent threat of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, goes on. Predictable, familiar, and comforting. We are faced with innumerable little challenges throughout the course of every day and transcend them. Never or rarely are we confronted by a multiplicity of life-threatening circumstances coming at us from all directions.

The direction we took this morning was to take our usual morning passage into routine, led by Jackie and Jillie, our two little companion dogs, making our way into the forest for a leisurely ramble through woodland trails. The rain so recently stopped that it was continually falling from the foliage surrounding us. Thimbleberries picked as per usual, to whet our puppies' appetite for their breakfast that would follow on our return back home.

The copious rain from the frequent, unrelenting rainstorms and thunderstorms have stimulated the growth of various fungi and moulds, appearing now with greater frequency on tree trunks and decomposing, fallen trunks littering the forest floor. Some are colourful, looking like discarded orange peel, others are strangely architectural and grow in colonies. And there are the other fungi that come up as perfect mushrooms, beautifully shaped and multi-coloured.

Everything green looked as though it had been freshly lacquered. The forest was dark and it was still, but for the beautiful melodic notes of a cardinal . Every leaf emphasized its presence, dark, bright green and slicked with rain. And to our surprise, we came across a red baneberry shrub with most of its ripe red berries intact; a rarity this year in the woods where usually there are so many.

We passed by a familiar figure walking his black Lab, a dog that we never, ever see without his favourite bright orange stick held firmly in his mouth, no matter how long they're out, how far they delve into the forest. And finally, we wound up our circuit for the morning and headed back to street level to make our way home to the bright colourful welcome of our garden. Safe. Secure.

Our tame adventures. Venturing out into nature. There was a time when our ventures took us far and wide. We think about that, about what we've seen and experienced. Others do the same now. It's a great, wide world with much to see and do. A world that has suddenly collapsed, shrunk in comparison to the immensity it once offered. Countries have closed their borders. Even regions within countries have done that, anxious to ensure that other areas more plagued than they are with the novel coronavirus and its threats to human longevity remain as far distant as possible.

On the other hand, that needn't necessarily condition people whose love affair with nature beckons them to ignore that call. While public parks, playgrounds and social centres have all been closed for months, only recently beginning to relax exclusion, there have always remained natural areas that could be accessed by anyone wanting to take the trouble. We know how fortunate we are living in close proximity to a natural forest whose geology is such that it was simply too impractical to 'develop' into commercial and housing sites.

Instead, the ravine and its forested enclave were simply absorbed by the city, left intact for posterity. Much the way the gravitational force of a celestial black hole attracts whatever approaches close enough to the irresistible force of its pull and becomes absorbed into the unknowable centre of a force whose magnitude can only be guessed. The magnetic appeal of the woodlands is what attracts us irresistibly to the ravined forest nestled within the community in which we have the good fortune to live.

The wary trepidation of contracting COVID-19 ensures that those people who seek out the serenity and beauty of the forest trails, maintain social distancing. With good humour and grace. Ensuring also our confidence and comfort in visiting it daily, as we do, as many others do. This morning our ramble through the ravine was particularly invested in solitude for no one else was around and we roamed the trails with Jackie and Jillie in perfect peace and harmony with our surroundings.

Once again it rained last night. Once again we awoke to a dark morning, leaden skies overhead leaving us speculating whether we might be able to manage our usual circuit without the skies opening up and drenching us all. It was cool, and it was humid and the air shifted about in a light-to-medium wind. We stopped briefly to pick some berries for Jackie and Jillie before moving on and down into the ravine.

There is colour beyond the brilliant greens of a thoroughly-rain-washed forest. The beautiful bright pink of thistles blooming. The vibrant yellows of pilotweed growing with gay abandon. The deeper, darker pink of the Himalayan orchids embroidering a patch of the forest floor. And something that resembled spilled cream splashed generously over old pine needles alongside the trail. Not cream, but an odd fungal growth that appeared suddenly as fungi tends to do.

Yesterday we also had evening rain and morning rain and we wore raincoats to catch the light drizzle we hiked through roaming on the trails. But yesterday the sun emerged when we were halfway through our circuit, so we tramped the trails half in dusky overcast and half in partially sunlit trails. Not so this morning. While the rain held off for the period that we were out, when we returned to street level and were approaching our house, drops began to fall.

Soon those drops were a growing deluge. Rain had begun in earnest, and there was only the occasional very brief lifting of its ferocity before it returned again to full-on spigot like a partially controlled waterfall. The day was destined to be dark and wet. Conditions that intensify exterior colour, making it brilliant and beyond beautiful.

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.

Last night we had a very pleasant surprise. Not exactly a surprise, but it was pleasurable. Two days earlier a lovely little white-and-black-striped animal had visited us, but Jackie and Jillie, seeing the sweet creature, barked furiously at the 'intruder', who then hurried away. He/she was back last night, around midnight, cruising about on the porch, selecting bread squares to its liking. We kept the pups away from the door, and stood watching awhile, before going up to bed.

You've just got to know that things are seriously wrong when you begin to dread the very thought of going out to the supermarket. That you sleep fitfully the night before the assigned day to tackle the issue of diminishing food making your refrigerator look empty and the pantry deserted. We'd gone out shopping for food two weeks ago. And really stocked up on fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, cheese and a whole range of perishables.

This was the first time I can remember, actually, that we skipped a week shopping. But we had just enough to stretch into a complete two weeks of pleasing menus and by yesterday had run out. So, today was shopping day. This time to make certain I'd miss nothing, I had made up a list, something I never ordinarily do. I tucked several disinfectant wipes into a baggy and stuck them in my pocket, just in case. I had to remember to take my reading glasses, and gloves we'd wear while shopping to be washed on return home.

An extra bag for the food we'd be buying for the Food Bank, usually baked beans, tinned fish, soups, Kraft dinner, and this time a big tub of peanut butter. Extra cloth bags to carry the overflow from the rigid plastic carry-alls we use. Food for two weeks, after all. When we'd gone shopping last two weeks ago, the supermarket was almost empty, the shelves (almost) well stocked, no one but ourselves at the check-out.

A Griffin that Jackie and Jillie were introduced to today

This morning we got up at 7:00 am, fed the puppies, took them out to the backyard, then left them at home moaning that they were being deserted as we drove out to the supermarket. Absolutely dismaying to see that many people milling about in the store. I don't recall seeing that many ever, in 'normal' times. Some wearing face masks, some gloves like us. Most taking care to maintain a good distance from others, but it was awkward at times.

People seemed glum and out-of-sorts, no one spoke, just moved about like wraiths, pushing their needed food products in a shopping cart an attendant had sprayed with disinfectant. It's an eerie feeling. No one was exuding either good cheer or concern for anyone but themselves. Finally, plastic shields had been installed for the cashiers. None of them wore masks. An unenviable but critical job.

Finished selecting what we needed, we headed for the check-out, and at first glance thought how nice it was that there was only one shopping cart-and-person at each check-out aisle. Then we were informed we'd have to go 'to the back of the line'. Line? What line? Casting our eyes abroad we saw the 'line', snaking the width of the store at the front, then the length of the store and again the width at the back.

People were frantically jockeying their carts toward the end of the line, anxious to get there and in line before others. And then we found ourselves in a position we'd never thought about, and waited and gradually moved forward, maintaining a 'safe' distance between ourselves and the cart/person ahead. Until we finally gained the check-out desk and were informed of new imperatives, nothing you brought with you was to be placed on the conveyor, pack your food as best you could (ours is a supermarket where the customers pack their own purchases).

Back home again, we unloaded everything and calmed return-ecstatic Jackie and Jillie. Then, withdrawing objects one-by-one, everything got wiped down with a soapy sponge before being placed in the pantry or the refrigerator. Then it was the turn of the bags and the plastic boxes to be wiped down. Then we showered, prepared breakfast, and relaxed. Jackie and Jillie were rewarded with a chopped boiled egg divided between them to augment their earlier breakfast.

Soon afterward, more activity, but this of a variety we can live happily with, preparing Jackie and Jillie for a round in the ravine, across the forest trails on a superb spring day with a high temperature of 14C, wind and sun, and off we went!

Routine and familiar dishes aside, it's always a bit of a head-scratcher to come up with something a little different to put on the table at dinnertime. It's still wintry out, still cold, still plenty of snow around, windy and with all the reminders of a stubborn winter reluctant to leave. So comfort-type food helps to distract, all the more so now that the world is faced with the dilemma that COVID-19 has presented us with.

The daily news is one long string of horrendous news. How can the infection rate and death of so many be assimilated into one's understanding of the threat to the state of the world's health today, an abrupt departure from our focus on societal upsets around the world, the kind of vicious, violent destabilization that has produced so many refugees in various parts of the world? And then, everything put on hold while the focus is on a dreadfully communicable disease, a pathogen that has placed all countries on notice that no one is immune.

We need all the little mood pick-ups that come our way. So yesterday, I thought of a noodle/cheese casserole. My husband doesn't care for macaroni, the traditional type of pasta used in such dishes, but he does like egg noodles, so I thought I'd give it a try, last evening. I cooked the noodles, placed them in a strainer, then made the choux with 1/4 c.butter, 2 tbsp.flour, 1 tsp.dry mustard, ground lots of pepper cloves into it, added a cup of milk, and stirred until it thickened, then added a cup of grated old cheddar cheese. In went the noodles, then 1/4 cup of sliced green onion, and a cup of frozen green peas.

All mixed together, it was poured into a casserole dish, the top smoothed, then bread crumbs sprinkled over, and over the bread crumbs, finely grated Parmesan cheese. It was baked for about 40 minutes at 350, and came out good and bubbly. I'd also prepared acorn squash as a side-dish to accompany the casserole. And to my delight, my husband liked it, and ate almost all of what was on his plate. Beyond satisfying.

This morning when we came downstairs for breakfast we stopped, all four of us, at the front door. My husband had been down earlier to set out some peanuts and soda crackers for the squirrels. They'd had as much as they wanted for the time being, and in their place was a succession of chickadees and sparrows, coming along in an orderly fashion, one after another. Surprisingly for chickadees they seemed to prefer the crackers (unsalted) over the peanuts!

It was sunny, and there's nothing quite like a bright sunlit morning to start the day with, to feel its warmth streaming through the house windows, relaxing us as we enjoyed a long, leisurely breakfast of navel oranges, bananas, eggs, toast, tea and coffee. After they'd eaten their kibble breakfast, Jackie and Jillie had a scrambled egg divided between them as a treat. We've long had a habit, my husband and me, of reading the daily newspaper at the breakfast table. Now, my husband sets the papers aside, preferring to look at art magazines, while I read the news.

We set out in early afternoon for the ravine, but by then the sun had mostly gone in. Not long after we'd descended into the ravine, a chirpy little Brittany spaniel that we see on occasion came running down off another hillside to greet us, then scampered off into the creek, his human standing above on the trail we would soon access ourselves, waving hello.

At 10C, it was mild enough for all of us to surrender our heavy winter jackets for lighter ones. There are so many micro-climates throughout the forest that in some areas the snow has noticeably melted whereas in others it looks as though it's barely started. And in those areas, the cold from the packed ice and snow radiates upwards. For the most part, it's the hillsides that have shed a lot of their snow, however. The wind was up, just as it had been yesterday, blowing tree tops back and forth in a swaying dance as though the trees are appealing to spring to arrive.

There's been a lot more squirrel activity the last few weeks in the ravine, where we see black, grey and red squirrels bustling about -- their senses, like ours, awakened to the prospect of impending spring weather banishing those winter's elements we've all grown so tired of. We've seen them though, around our house throughout the course of the winter, looking for the food we put out for them, they've just been less visible in their more natural habitat.

In the annals of human history there have been few global events that have shaken the world, as the emergence of a mysterious new ailment threatening human existence in such a wide scale as that of an infectious pandemic. That we are now living through such a time, after the last one a century ago of a similar magnitude brings up a widely-shared sense of disbelief. After all, in a century, human ingenuity has matured science to the extent that surely research and scientific breakthoughs should be able to rescue us from a threat such as this? Ah, before we even came to this desperate point, the question looms; why hadn't government, science and health authorities taken steps to prepare our institutions to mount an instant response to defeating a health threat before it even established its presence?

This is yet to be seen. And yet to be seen is the amount of damage in human life that this novel coronavirus out of China will wreak before it is brought under control. Everyone is vulnerable to its depredations, but of course some of us more vulnerable than others, and we personally just happen to fall into a particularly vulnerable population group since we're approaching our mid-80s, and both of us have underlying serious medical conditions.

So it was with relief that I signed up online to be able to shop for our groceries remotely, then simply pick them up at a designated place and time. Canada's largest grocery retailer had initiated such a program well prior to the current pandemic. Where one accesses one of their outlets like the Loblaw Superstore close to where we live, and where we never shop because of the sky-high prices. We had, years ago, shopped there for several months, paying those exorbitant prices, then finally returned to a supermarket where the same fresh goods are available but at a more reasonable price range.

Under these very special, trying circumstances, though, I resolved that I would shop online and not expose us directly to the possibility of disease transmission. I sat down before my computer this morning and began to navigate the Loblaw system of online grocery ordering. It was dismaying. The relief I'd felt in signing up and anticipating the rewards inherent in shopping remotely, minimizing contact with others quickly dissipated. The food choices that came up were, for the most part, pre-prepared foodstuffs, convenience foods, organic foods, or just plain junk.

It seemed to take me forever to get through all the categories I was interested in; fruits and vegetables, dairy, meat, pantry products. My incredulity just grew, that such items posing as food proliferates, while whole foods, fresh foods, are represented by such few choices. Having, however, made my choices, I went to the checkout, and was reminded that before completing my credit information I would have to select a pick-up time. That's where I moved to, only to discover that there were no pick-up times available.  The chart giving date, time-of-day options clearly showed it was in lock-down; no such arrangements could be made. I moved from March into April and it was just the same; the option to select a pick-up time was inoperative.

The largest grocery retailer in the country which has gone out of its way to assure Canadians that there is no shortage of edible products and that the company, Loblaw, having the best interests of its customers uppermost in concern, was dedicated to offering quality products, a reasonable shopping experience, and shopping options, yet was unable to fulfill the function to which it has dedicated itself.

For us, it's back to square one. Shopping at our usual, reliable grocery outlet where we can indulge in filling our refrigerator and cupboards with whole foods, the basic foods we need for nutrition and the pleasures inherent in eating meals that appeal to our visual aesthetic, our hunger for fresh and natural ingredients, and the pleasure we take in preparing for ourselves the finest food choices that agriculture can provide.