Visitors!

Tuesday, 30th August.  A quiet day; more yellow / orange on the cabin door  (two teaspoons of Carmine oil paint in the can of yellow Tremclad - didn't look too different really.  Fishing at day's end - another little one to add to the freezer.....

Wednesday, 31st August.  In to the village to shop, then Karen and Denis came - to stay over.  Ali and Karen and I went paddling - myself to fish (this is a sun-fish)

and Ali and Karen to paddle through to Lac Noir (the pass is open again).






The wind got up but we were all fine :-)

"Kit" and Kit :-)

Home for Poulet Bonne femme, followed by Karen's latest Facebook recipe - delicious!

They're staying over - which means that we get to share breakfast :-)

Fishers of.....

Sunday, 28th August.

To Grace, Arundel, for Communion; then, via a wondrous cross-country route, to Camp Weredale on Lac L'Achigan, close to St Hippolyte, north of St Jerome, for the Parish (all 13 or so of us!) Picnic and confirmation service!  About an hour and a half's travel!

Brilliant!  THIS is what my other Bishop looks like!

 - and my other Archdeacon and Priest, Ralph, who was retiring today and whose last "employed" ministry this was.

We met for worship at 15.00 and a confirmation followed - including Wayne (I think) from Morin Heights.  It was very good to be there. I feel connected to these people; the style of even Ordained Ministry here is so relaxed, so "along side".  I could wish to be much longer here.

Although Nick Pang is Dean of the Laurentians, you get the feeling that he is young in post.  And you definitely get the feeling that he has hugely valued Ralph's pastoral care for him.

And I get such lovely emails - "Thanks for agreeing to take worship on....  It's such a help!"

I know, we shouldn't look for reward, but I've been so long in this role in the UK now that this freshness is really exciting!

We ate well at the "pot luck" afterwards and then drove down to Prevost to visit with and stay over with Karen and Denis.  Lovely as always to see them; great to catch up.  Monday, 29th August.  Really good breakfast at the new, local "place"......

Back home; another coat of paint on the Cabin door (it's yellow - I miss the more orange sun-flower colour; might do something about that.....). 

Then fishing!  Another Bass - 1lb 1oz this time.  Swift despatch - one for the freezer!

I'm getting better at this (or they're getting suicidal!) and I'm really enjoying it!

Skyped with the kids in the UK.  Guy and Julie arrived at our place safely; Ginny and Iain had come for supper.

Have a great trip, folks :-)

Halcyon days

Originally "Halcyon days'" proper meaning was that of a lucky break, or a bright interval set in the midst of adversity; it referred to the 14 days  in winter (seven days  either side of the shortest day of the year) when storms never occur.  However, the phrase has since come to refer to any peaceful time.

I would have said that I was using it in the later, lazy, hazy sense, but I opened my email yesterday morning (Friday, 26th August) to read of deep sadness from Flax Bourton.  One of our young friends - grew up with our kids - has been being treated for bowel cancer - and it's taken a very aggressive turn for the worse.  She was due to come home from hospital within the day "to say goodbye to family and friends".  Heartbreaking.  Two small boys and a doting husband and adoring parents.  Yeuch.  Apparently the mood in the village is very dark.  Sometimes life just stinks.

We arranged for flowers and a card to be delivered; told the kids by email; spent the day in almost constant thought for her and hers.  Gill Luff rang (!) to let us know, so that we could warn Guy - who is about to go over on a visit; just so that he wouldn't be too taken aback when he arrived.

Difficult to think of trivia when faced with that sort of thing.

Anyway - I took the car back to Marcel again and we (finally!?) got 'round to testing the plugs.  Cylinder 5 wasn't firing; the coil was dead in that hexant.  I drove home.  Marcel wasn't keen on our driving anywhere much on 5 cylinders - the engine warning light was actually flashing at me!  But, no sooner had I got home than his wonderful spares department in La Conception delivered the thing to him!

I drove back and, after a tussle with rusted bolts and seized nuts here and there, he / we got the new coil fitted.  Feels like a new car!  Phew!












And Gilles had a go at the brakes of the quad for me - that's better, too. 

On the way back from the barn, parking it for the night, this bright fungus on dead wood in the fire-pit caught our attention....




















Saturday, 27th August. 

Gotta DO something!  Decided to make good the work on the Cabin door.  Lots of patches where old locks have come out; some putty missing from the window; the "butterflies" that hold the window in place - to be replaced by a screen in the summer - need stripping and re-spraying.  Established readers of these ramblings will know the pattern by now!

Here's a "starting out" and an  "under-coated" shot......


But those "Lazy, hazy days"?   No haze, brilliant blue sky; but just deliciously warm, and no flies.  Warm enough to eat both lunch and supper on the deck, out of the screen room. 

Dear God, this is a beautiful place! 

A fawn and doe surveyed us from the bottom of the trail; three chipmunks came and demanded pea-nuts.











A Canary-Island inspired supper, memories of other good times. 





Give huge thanks for what we have; remember Libby, James, Charlie and Margaret.

Sans titre (without title)

Wednesday, 24th August.

The spare for the car fits - and seems to have improved things....  Improved; not cured.  So we have a bottle of "Magic Mixture" injector jet cleaner in the tank and here's hoping!

In the afternoon, on a whim, we went to have a look at our woods for the first time this trip.  Of course, not having thought it through, we had totally unsuitable footwear but the weather has been so dry generally - with deluges it's true - that we survived.  As Ali says, as a little girl playing in the woods in Shirley, near Croydon in Surrey,  she would never have dreamed that she would one day own a wood!

It is a magical place, hard to beat.  You could tidy it up it's true, but then it wouldn't be a wood; it would be a park with trees.....

In the evening I went fishing!  The begins to feel like a holiday.  1lb 4 oz. Bass.  And before anyone begins, that's a dinner plate, not a side-plate ;-)

Thursday, 25th August.

Up early-ish; it was VERY humid this morning.  By 10.00 with the temperature over 25 degrees, there was still heavy dew on the deck. 

So I fought Burlesque out of the screen room and on to the deck to sand the gunwales - to try to minimise the dust in there.  And then Ali came and helped with the reverse process and I varnished the new timber!

In to the village - after a lovely Skype chat with Posy - to order a bit of oak from Glen to make grab handles with and to try to buy longer bolts for the seats.  No luck.  And then home and fishing.  A "little" success (i.e small fish, rapidly returned), but including a "Perchaude" - a slimmer version of the UK Perch, barred flanks and red pectoral fins.

And then the rain began; spotting on to what had been a mirror-smooth lake.  Not being to establish where the rain was coming from in particular - the sky was clouded but not especially so - I decided to head for the dock and ended up scrambling out of the canoe, across the pontoon and into Yve's boat to shelter under the cover whilst the rain just tipped down for five minutes. 

The buoyancy aid kept me warm, there was a chair to sit on.  What else did I need?




I would have been a wet lad in the canoe!





Home to Italian style liver and pasta.

Dry and cosy now.

A change of gear!

I have to admit that I quite like this more leisurely pace of life - at least for now!

Monday, 22nd August.  So, I went to see Marcel at the garage; he was suffering from a hang-over after a family reunion of umpteen cousins and, besides, was booked up with work for the day.  On top of which, he had come home late the day before to find that the deer - and a ground-hog, and the blue-jays - had raided his wife's vegetable patch; eaten her last two, seemingly huge, Savoy cabbages and raided the blueberry bushes.  She was "not pleased" and had not come in to work in reception.  I think she comes for the company really; they're never very busy these days....

I spent time in the afternoon (!) collating all the photos for the re-build of the Cedar-canvas canoe, ready to make a photo-book in due course.  And we had Cod for supper, "en papillote".  A bit boring after the previous Bass!

Today, Tuesday the 23rd of August, back to Marcel's.  He was feeling a lot better today!.  After two hours we / he traced the fault to a solenoid feeding the idler.  He's ordered the part so it'll be back there  tomorrow.




We're hoping to 'cycle Prince Edward County as a part of our "grand tour" later in September.  Whilst I was searching for a route, this cheeky thing had a go at the geraniums - despite my gesticulations...  Hmmmm.




















And in the afternoon, we turned Burlesque over and added what will hopefully be the last coat of paint!

I'm sorry that the masking tape on the gunwales didn't do its job very well :-(

Down time

Friday afternoon had been lovely; as I wrote to a dear friend: 

"The day turned out well in the end.  It was a deliciously soft, warm afternoon - they had left before lunch - and I went finally to install the new latch on the Cabin; about five years late!  I thought that I was going to have to rebuild the door where the old latch came from.  In the end, I did a new installation and, despite the usual faff with holes in the frame to receive the latches, "The job's a good 'un".  I shall repair the site of the old latch and make good in due course.....

And then I went fishing with some success, the lake as flat as a mirror, the (big, green) canoe needing only small adjustments, and came across Ali sitting reading on the dock, watching me across the water at the end of my session.  It doesn't get better."

But Saturday, 20th August was definitely a down time day.  Going in to the village the car hesitated as if mis-firing; the brake light is coming on again......  A very quiet day.

Sunday, 21st August, I woke in the night, praying that God would look over us as we drove to church in the morning.   And the strange thing was that both of us overslept far too late to go!  We shall see what that brings tomorrow when I get the car to Marcel.

It has rained all day, sometimes quite heavily.  We have pottered and potched and enjoyed a day truly resting.  Time off for good behaviour?

Slipping moorings

Wednesday, 17th August.







During the day, Beckie, Lucas, Rachel and I sized and fitted the seats and thwarts to the inwales.





 



The shipping company's tracker was still not playing ball.  In the end, we arranged for Ali and Jeremy to go via Pam and Noel's (the glass fibre had been delivered there but the resin, seemingly, had not), just in case the resin had in fact arrived, but heading to Kingston as a back-up purchase if needed.

On the way down, Ali met a very nice Policeman in Vendee, who was both mystified as to how an Englishwoman, and  visitor at that, could have a Canadian car, and troubled that none of the relevant documents were in the car with her (my fault - they were in my wallet :-(   )!  Nevertheless, after what was possibly a "test" burst of local patois, he graciously conceded that the journey to the ATM was so long and so laborious that he would have been much better employed in fighting crime in the interim and waved her on her way!

And by the time that they got to Aylmer, the resin had arrived - to the complete mystification of the shipping company.  So, duly refreshed and conversation caught up with, they returned in time for supper.  After which we got to grips with more fibre-glassing and fitting outwales.  A messy job!

Thursday, 18th August.  The day of the big push!


Second boat outwales; decks; final inner fibreglass.....















My right shoulder gave up!  I couldn't do any more after a delicious C.O.P. pie for supper and took to my bed.

Friday, 19th August.  Very uncomfortable and Ali had to dress me for breakfast, complete with sling - like some ancient, Japanese warrior donning clothes for battle!

And then there it was - better!  Bizarre.  A blessedly short attack this time.



The workshop crew were up early to sand down the gunwales and re-fit the seats and then - they were gone!

These boats that have had such a presence in the basement for a whole year - departed!













It's a long way back to Alberg, to the Vermont camp, and so the launch will be deferred until they arrive "home".

I think that we can be rightly proud of the finished products.

And so - away.

 Good trip - much learning; many laughs, lovely veggie food.  Fun!

The house is quiet again........

Row faster (the captain wants to water-ski!)

Well, everything is a bit out of order now. 

Monday, 15th August; we contacted Noah's in Toronto and ordered resin and glass cloth.  They said we would have delivery by tomorrow  to Ottawa / Aylmer and three days later to here.  So we asked for it to be sent to Pam and Noel - and then asked Pam and Noel whether it was OK for that to happen.  Phew!  It was!

I needed a break at some point so I went paddling and fishing.  Score; Fish 2; me 2.  But little ones really.  Eatable if I'd been hungry with no other source of sustenance but about two fish-fingers each!

We kept going with this and that on the two boats until the evening when we bit the bullet and glued in the inwales, countersinking screws every 6".  A VERY sticky and successful job which ended at about 12.30pm.

Tuesday, 16th August - and here is the latest Tracking!

The two parcels got split up!  One has arrived and one went to Vaughan - wherever that is - before returning to Toronto Central sorting.

Still.  Silver linings......

The Vermont 4 have cut and more-or-less fitted the deck panels, as well as making fillets for the tips of the inwales!







And I have steamed and dry-fitted the outwales to Burlesque!

Not a bad day, all-in-all.

Ups and downs - mostly ups!

Saturday, 13th August.  Out fairly early to buy timber for Jeremy and Lucas to make a pair of canoe-stands; and to reinforce mine, too.  It has tended to lean in towards the middle when weighted! 

Making the stands (of which the lads were justifiably proud!) took  until about lunch-time;



at which point we returned from a generous but light collection of humus and pitta and all things middle-Eastern to start on the fiddly, messy and generally horrible job of glassing the bow and stern tanks on both boats.  I hate fibre-glassing!

which left us with the main inner hulls to do either side of a rather late supper.



Setting up for which we found ourselves very tight for fibre-glass and, finishing which (a centre section on each boat only), we decided that we were too short for resin to continue and very tight for fabric anyway.

A message left on web-sites overnight confirmed that ordering more of our particular resin, next-day delivery, was the way to go.  We shall add some more cloth  to the order......



BUT, Sunday, 14th August was a very GOOD day.  Rachael was up early to the shops!  We left by 09.45 to go to church where baby Olivia was Christened.  It was a very moving service, led by Nick Pang.  Two things struck me; this sentence after the signing with the oil...




And the reading in French buy Olivia's Mum and in English by her Dad, of a letter they have been asked to write to her, to find in the future, explaining to her what they will become of their decision to have her baptised. 

Lovely, slightly gooey, family words but showing an insight and reverence that many families don't show.






Back home, gunwales dry fitted and beginning the process of making the decks.  We're having to recess the inwales to accept the decks lower than the outwales.

Beckie is learning to use a spokeshave and a chisel; Lucas is deeply useful measuring and clamping and cutting out!

Master of none!

Thursday, 11th of August.  The overnight tiling had set; I popped down to Claude's to borrow a tile cutter / electric tile saw. 
He was packing up to head off to the Gaspe for a week; fishing!  The saw was just magical!

But I got rather messy with the back-splash......


So, the rest of the tiles were in place by lunch-time.  I had a bit of a sit-down (it was super hot again) and then I went out to cut the front lawn whilst the first outwale for V2 steamed away, and I got rather hot and bothered as well.

But happy!

I have drunk so much liquid today; sadly, I've run out of calorie-free and so have been reduced to Spruce Beer.  Strange tasting stuff (someone has to drink it, right?) and lots of calories.  Still.  I have been working hard.....

Back to grout the tiles and re-install the loo.  Seems stable!  And looks OK too.  Left-over tiles from the previous owner.  WNWN!  Re-installed the baseboard heater in the bathroom.  Up off the floor and away from the loo!  Just have to clean the place tomorrow and it will be fit for visitors - if the water works of course!

Grabbed some supper and then back to the boatyard / basement to steam and bend the last outwale for V1.

As I mailed the Vermontians earlier.  "About 3 hours behind where I wanted to be in a perfect world, but ostensibly "There".      Looking forward to seeing you all."

And I am!

Burlesque needs attention.....

Hugely noisy rain overnight!  The heat has broken - at least, for now!

Today, Friday, 12th August.  Up early to get to grips with cleaning the house (Shhhhh!), the cabin and myself! 

All was going well until I heard from Ali that her flight was delayed; in the end it was late by 2 hours and 20 minutes!  I fitted in a trip to the tip (they weigh you in, send you to the recycling centre or where ever - really pleasant chaps at both - and then weigh you out and calculate the fee.  Mine today?  "Gratuite"!  Too light to measure), and then to IGA for shopping - wildly resisting made cakes contemplated on the basis that the visitors would like them - and Rona for screws for the Vermont boats... 

I was intending to buy timber for new boat cradles but the queue was silly long and I worried about getting to the airport to meet Ali.  In the end, her flight was even later than called so I needn't have worried; but hey, it was very good to see her.  Very good.

Final bed-making in the Cabin, beds made up in the main house.  Just waiting for our visitors now :-)

All work and (almost) no pictures!

But happy work!

It just seems to take a long time, that's all.

Tuesday, 9th August.  Up fairly early after a poor night's sleep to put a coat of paint on Burlesque and then to get going on V1. 

Which took until about 11.00 pm  When I had a text Chat with Ali, after which I fell asleep on the settee and went to bed at about 2.00 am.  Idiot!

Today, Wednesday, 10th August,  was a "No boats" day.  I have to tile the platform under the loo in the Cabin.  Which I have mostly done!  It was hard work sawing out the curve around the out-pipe, especially when the saw broke 5/8 of the way through the job!

I need to borrow a tile-cutter tomorrow to do the edges!

On the way up from the barn - the quad bike is sick; I need to fix the brakes! - this little chap toughed it out.  Well, nearly toughed it out!

Michel came for supper and we put the world to rights until just now!

Fun!

Après le déluge

...  Moi!

Sunday, 7th August.

Too short a night for a 7.00 am start.  The sun was low and in my eyes as we set off to St Saveur - leading worship again!  So Ali drove, thankfully.

We picked up packed lunch before service - which was complemented on (but a change is ....., Eh?!).  Fortunately, Ali came in to the vestry before we began, to tell me that the organist had decided on different hymns.  Just like that.  In fact, I had been told that this sometimes happens but still; just as well I wasn't using a line from one of them as my text!

On to Morin Heights for round two.  The same organist, the same changes.  Unrepentant!  Ho hum.



The weather was warming up and the cassock, better suited for chilly, English gravesides, needed airing in the car on the way to the Grace Church Parish Pic-nic at Arundel! 

Great fun, lovely people.  Wanda's place is a beautiful, old but restored 1920's farm house, lined with Western cedar strips.  Not a knot in sight.




Mind, the privy was interesting.....






We came home via L & A to return her phone - the house was asleep and so, nearly, were we so we didn't stay.  

As we drove in, this lovely doe was there to greet us - and in no hurry to be gone!


We were shattered; I think that we both fell asleep on the settee / floor.





A light supper revived us after a fashion and Ali joined the Olympic coverage whilst I went to steam the second intwale on Vermont 2!




Monday, 8th August.  A more leisurely day - of sorts.

The blue jays have discovered the feeder....









This guy is still in evidence.....

And I moved V 2 onto the rack in order to begin V 1!

Wire-holes filled, stems filleted.

Tomorrow I intend to give poor, neglected Burlesque a coat of paint and to begin the mammoth task of bending the inwales and the outwales of V 1!




 But how, I hear you ask, I am free to do all this?  Are there not wifely-dictated duties to carry out?






Well, yes; the lawns, clearing the cabin for visitors, putting the laundry in the tumble-drier (done that already!)...

But Ali has deserted me; fled to Toronto on Granny duties.  Her plane flew right over the lake here and Guy was there at Billy Bishop to meet her.

Sob!

(Now - where did I put the Dom Perignan........)

Blink - and you'll miss it!

Thursday, 4th August.  Off early to the village - well, to Mark Goldman's wonderfully equipped workshop actually - to make the first cuts on the inwales for the Vermont boats.

The plan is to taper the ends of the inwales so as to make the steam-bending easier and to give a more aesthetically pleasing line to the wood!

The blue rectangle is the initial, 16ft long by 7/8 inch (this is Canada - none of your metric stuff here, Eh!?) square oak.

The cuts at each end take off a 1/4 of an inch - 2/8ths.  I then plane a smooth line from about 6 inches (Hush at the back!) central to the ends of the cuts on to the flats - by bending the ends downwards and effectively planing the outside of a curve!

Then I steamed and bent the first inwale in to the curve.  Easy!  Er, not actually, but straightforward anyway and a GREAT deal easier than when we steamed the gunwales for MarRon all those years ago!

But that was later;  on Thursday I just went to make the cuts and came home.  Later in the afternoon, Ali joined her UK book-club by Skype.  She has been reading - for the third time - a book called The Goldfinch and she really wanted to join the discussion.  She must have been linked in for 3/4 of an hour and loved it - and the book!
And then Lorne and Audrey came for a lovely, straggling, chatty supper in the screen room.  Rhubarb crumble :-)

Then I don't remember quite when - it's been an eventful 36 hours since!  - at some point, Gilles came to let me know that the second Quad inner tube, which I had paid for and collected at some point in the proceedings, had not in fact been fitted.  By Friday lunchtime, 5th August, I had been to the garage - again - and now had my battery, finally properly identified and filled with acid, and my second, tubed tyre.  And I brought the quad home - to everyone's relief.

Friday afternoon I began steaming the inwale and got that two thirds fitted and clamped.  And decided to call it quits for the evening and to get to grips with the sermon for Sunday.  And the most enormous thunderstorm arrived and banged and crashed and the rain "came down in torrents"!  And the lights went out.  And stayed out.

And so we dug out the camping gear and fought with corroded batteries (funny that, I NEVER leave batteries in things long term - only I do :-(  ) and got the Trangia stove out and set ourselves up for the evening without e-readers or the internet.

 

It was an early and broken night, very hot and humid but cooler by the morning.  

Saturday, 6th of August.  Still no power at breakfast so coffee by the Trangia and in the cafetière and then serious efforts to get the frozen food safe.  All around us the houses hummed - or clattered, or rattled depending on the age - with the sound of portable generators.  Claire had room in her freezer and water from the lake for us to use to flush the loos..... 

And I went in to the village to buy more batteries - in case things lasted longer still, to fill up the municipal source water bottles and to buy canned soups to replenish our emergency stocks.


And on the way, I was met with this - a traffic jam!

We NEVER have traffic jams.  Only this time it was because Hydro Quebec (electricity company)  were clearing a fallen tree from across the road - where it had cut a power line.




And things got worse closer to the village centre....


The saddest being the demise of the remaining fir outside the church.  There had been two until last year when safety concerns demanded the removal of one.  Now they're both gone.


I sat outside the boulangerie supping my cafe au lait and eating my pain au chocolat (you have to spend $5.00 in order to get the free wi-fi) transferring my sermon to the Kindle, just in case, and letting the wider family know that we were out of communication but OK.

But the rest of the day was wonderfully productive.  The power came back at about lunch-time I think.  There were lovely emails from a number of people.  We replaced the snow-bent roof glazing bars on the screen room, brought the cedar canvas boat up to from the barn so that I can see to paint it in a bug-free zone; I finished bending the first inwale to Vermont boat 2; I Skype-texted with Ginny, getting ready for camp, Ali chatted to Bryony later.  And then we had that firm favourite, cauliflower cheese (only made with cream, I'd forgotten to buy more milk!) for supper before I fought the printer and assembled the materials for the services tomorrow.

And now time for you, dear Reader.  I hope that you slept well; I intend to, very soon.

Fish and Chips and fillets generally!

Apparently, Lila talked of "fishing" all the way home to Toronto.  All nine hours of it!

Tuesday, 2nd August.  Sorry Lila, darling; it had to happen didn't it?

Advice from M. Bruneau.  Bass - Green Popper on a fly rod.  14.4 ounces.  One of three........

Oh well, next time, eh!

Otherwise, a pretty quiet day.  Some planning and scheming over the Vermont boats - how shall we make the decks?  And the discovery - after hours of fruitless searching, of the fittings bought last year!.    “When people say "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why would you keep looking after you've found it?” - Billy Connolly  - priceless!

Wednesday, 3rd August.  A day in waiting.  The washing-machine repair man was due to come today.  We had all sorts of other stuff that needed doing but we just waited.  Eventually, at 6.30pm, we fired off a pretty vexed email to HQ.  He turned up at 7.15.  It's the summer; work ends when the job's done.  I should have remembered.

But being tied to the house meant that we got some constructive bits done; 

progress on the Vermont boats; progress on our new head-board.

And, at the end of the day, one for the Pedlar's Pack, Fish and Chips, Laurentian style! 

Bass; caught, cleaned, filletted, cooked, eaten.

Yum!

 

Cottage Country!

Sunday, 31st July.

It's obvious, isn't it?  When a young lady has expressed an interest in canoeing, she just has to have a paddle!  So Guy and I set about making this little paddle for Lila, fairly early on Saturday morning!

Not the most classic shape perhaps, nor yet the perfect size-match, but her first, very own paddle.  It's a piece of tamarack (larch) that I've had for a year, just waiting....  Super light; just right!





And it meant that she could go paddling with Daddy and Granny (and the photographer ;-).

Perfick - as Pa Larkin would have said.

But we couldn't leave this chap out of the fun, could we?  A lovely afternoon, and a lovely supper in the North American style (BBQ ribs and a very cunning hot dog (no buns, so a slice of bread, flattened by the bottle/rolling pin and wrapped - with our dwindling supply of Tommy K - around the sausage))!

Yum!
















After that culinary effort, the chef took to the water - ostensibly to put the boats away, but also to record this Sunday evening idyll.  Owners gone back to the City.....


















And look!  Ali's grass has sprouted!

Monday, 1st of August.

I got pinched and punched!  And we woke at a much better time!

Ali led a raspberry hunt in to the top meadow - rapidly becoming the raspberry patch and Christmas tree plantation!  Apparently many raspberries of fine and excellent flavour were found; none survived to prove the fact!

Guy, Lila and I went for a last paddle here for this year; lunch and then away!  Very sad - a big hole gapes in the life of this place.

So - back to the basement; displacement therapy, at least for me.

Of interest - the left hand image is of the outwhale steamed by the traditional - box (or pipe) - method.  The right hand image was steamed "boil in the bag"!

Can you tell the difference?

And then, a benison - a little shaft of sunlight at the end of the day.



Thanks for coming kids - loved it!