"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

Monday, August 11, 2008

Recreation and Celebration

As seen from my stroll, yesterday started out well. But during our busy afternoon the dark clouds rolled in. The Chap arrived from church around lunchtime--he'd stayed for the Adult Forum. As I prepared for the company, Ruth and Jewel dogged my every step. We took them for a second walk in the afternoon, after all was in readiness.

I love adding a leaf to the dining room table to extend it! This house has a long history of festive gatherings, a tradition we uphold whenever possible.



The skies were threatening rain by the time our friends and their daughters arrived. Even so, the little girls managed a swim and a little fishing from the dock before the thunder and lightning chased us indoors. Ruth and Jewel were in their element, receiving lots of attention from guests of all ages. Our cookout wasn't hampered by the drizzle.

Our friend, a priest and canon, has just begun his sabbatical. So I bought alphabet letters to decorate our dessert:



I used the Busy Day Cake recipe posted by Nan about a month ago. I'd been waiting for a reason to try it out. Over the years I've had very good luck baking cakes in the oven here at the cottage. This one turned out beautifully and I'm glad to have such a simple, successful version.

After cake, we returned to the dock for more fishing and a little swimming. One of the girls landed a big stick. There were lots of fish tugs and nibbles, and only after the bugs came out in force did we put the rods and worms away.

Our girls--the four-legged ones--were absolutely exhausted after a long and exciting day of no down time. Not only were they comatose last night, they slept really, really late this morning.

Today the mercury in the thermometer barely reached 60, and there was heavy rain in the morning and low dark grey clouds all day long, and dead calm on the water. Loon weather. When we took our morning walk (in the rain), we spotted a huge loon very near the shore, just where the road out to the point meets our road. We stood and admired it for a long time.

In the afternoon the Chap headed back to the Lodge, and found our bathroom renovation underway. Ruth and Jewel are still recovering from the excitement of having young and attentive guests.

This piece of cake was supposed to have gone back to the Lodge with my spousal unit but didn't. So I ate it for lunch.



For supper--salad!


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