"It was imprudent of us, in the first place, to become authors. We could have become something regular, but we managed not to.
We were lucky, but we were also determined." Roy Blount Jr

"I don’t change the facts to enhance the drama. I think of it the other way round, the drama has got to fit the facts,
and it’s your job as a writer to find the shape in real life."
Hilary Mantel

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Hectic times and Hard Work

Ran up to the lake cottage--taking advantage of a brief lull in my overly packed schedule of meetings and activities--and spent the night there.

My major contributions were a bit of groundskeeping (removing a leaf pile from our property, adding it to a bigger leaf pile across the road) and a lot of painting (bright new colour scheme in the big bedroom).

fresh paint in the big bedrooom

Look, we live in the sticks...ha ha ha.

our cottage is in the sticks

Watched an old cottage being busted up...I now have a very vivid impression of the term "teardown".

demolition, Day 1: crashing through the roof

But it's a part of lakeside history here on the bay, as the oldest portion of it used to be an ice house--for storing ice cut from the lake in wintertime. Here's the pile of rubble a the end of the first day of demolition.

the rubble at the end of Demolition Day 1

The place was rarely used, in terrible condition, and the docks need much repair. It has sold twice, for increasingly insane amounts of money twice in the past 2 years. We expect to see a new 3-bedroom house appear on this site someday--that's the local rumour.

So hot and humid yesterday, it was nice to cool off with a refreshing swim at dusk. And a refreshing dose of hard cider, very nice after a day of brush removal and painting on a warm, thick day!

cold and refreshing cider

Grey and drizzly and rainy all afternoon...more rain expected in the coming days (including a visitation from Hurricane Ophelia, according to the weatherman.)