I'm Home!

Yes friends, I'm home again after a three-week vacation. In a nutshell, it was great and very relaxing, but we're all really happy to be back in our own home.

Over the past nine years, we have gone to the same cottage six times. It is situated in a gorgeous location--the lake is small, quiet and there are no motorboats. There is also the nicest resident cat I have ever met in my life. But the cottage itself is not rustic...it's falling apart. Last year, the bathroom sink started seriously leaking a few days before we left. It was impossible to turn off. This year, there was a slow but persistent leak under the kitchen sink and by the time we left, it was getting pretty smelly. The satellite TV went kaplooey a few days after we arrived. Our rule is no electronic devices until after supper except for the radio. That way, we spend as much time as possible reading, swimming, walking and decompressing. But after supper, it's nice to watch the news and catch a silly TV show. Not this year. I could have called the satellite supplier but I didn't dare. I suspect the owner of the cottage has a pirated connection. And then there's the washing machine. The internal water house only lets in a trickle, so we basically fill it up manually with potfulls of water. And more potfulls for the rinse...

The owner and her husband apparently lead a very "hand to mouth" existence, paying their bills at the last possible moment, only repairing things when the alternative would be disastrous. And usually waiting until the disaster arrives before doing anything. The amazing thing is that they actually live in this place during the off-season. I really don't think it's very healthy to spend a long time there with all the windows closed during the winter.

So why do we keep going back? Because of the lake, the friendly (and responsible) people who own properties around the lake, the absolutely adorable cat (Pushkin), the village nearby, the fact that it's in Quebec so I can speak French and that we can drive down to Montreal fairly quickly if we want/need to. And she doesn't charge us an arm and a leg for the pleasure of living in her dump. I guess this means that despite my bellaching, we'll go back again next year.

I've got a few topics that I'll be blogging about over the next few days, but right now, I'm just catching up on reading YOUR blogs.

So stay tuned, I'm BAAACK.