Burning the midnight oil -



Two parties in two nights. I've eaten wonderful food in delightful company, and come home too late to blog (midnight is beyond the witching hour for me, but I was having too much fun to leave).

The day before yesterday, we boarded the little barge and were ferried out into the lake, where we sat and watched our host and his cottage buddies do their daily water skiing.


They have a slalom course set up, and there's an ongoing competition. When I wasn't watching the skiing, I was photographing water lilies - or the light on the water.

Watching the water skiing brought back memories of my one and only attempt to stand up on a pair of water skis.
I seem to be too bottom-heavy for that sport. My attempts did provide amusement for the whole company (read "provoke hilarity among"), though, so I guess my performance was successful in some sense. That was many years ago. I shudder to think what would happen if I tried it now.

Later, I went for a one-hour walk in the woods with our hostess. I forgot to gird myself with Deet, so I came home bloodied, but I enjoyed the walk nonetheless. Then, we were off to the party. There was chicken cooked on the barbecue (beautifully), along with multiple side dishes - oh, and as an appetizer, we had escargot. There's nothing like roughing it, is there?

Yesterday, it was too cool and rainy to go out on the lake, so we drove to town to run some errands and have a little flying fun in our host's tow plane. Along the way, we stopped in at a used bookstore run by an old friend. We said a quick hello, then headed to the airfield. I didn't have my camera with me, so I'm afraid there are no photos of the plane. It was my duty to use the camcorder to record the take-off. I did that, then drove back to the bookstore. (There was quite a brisk wind, so I decided against flying - or my stomach did). Back at the bookstore, I found volumes 5-7 of Anais Nin's journal, another of her books, a volume of Alice Walker's poetry, a Lillian Hellman book, and a copy of Georgette Heyer's The Grand Sophy. I had to close my eyes and sit down, lest I find any other irresistible books. Once seated, I accepted the offer of coffee and a muffin. We chatted, the proprietor and I, until my phone rang to tell me it was time to go pick up the menfolk.

In the evening, more old friends came over for a steak barbecue. By then, the outdoor thermometer was reading 16C (60F) and the fireplace was crackling. A fine time was had by all, and it was just about midnight when I got back to the Turtle.

This is our last full day here. It's absolutely pouring out, so we're watching videos, reading books, blogging (s-l-o-w-l-y), drinking tea. Tomorrow morning, we'll head out bright and early - or dark and early, as the case may be - aiming for the first car wash big enough to take the Turtle. I hear it's hot out west. Maybe the weather will have moderated by the time we get home.