Tuesday, August 07, 2007

The Cottage

I am back. Back at work, back in my own bed, on my own couch. And, as promised, (and to prevent further 'boo'-ing - geez, you'd think I had some kind of history of blogging reliability or something. heh.) ready to present a few pictures so that we can all make believe that we are all there, lounging on the Muskoka chairs.

John and I drove up from Toronto, and Charlotte drove down from North Bay, and we somehow managed to meet up at the McDonalds in Gravenhurst at just about the same time, through some miracle. We continued to drive, Char following, through Gravenhurst, noting the locations of grocery store, beer store, and fruit stand as we passed.

Cherrywood Lane

We arrived at the cottage, and got the lay of the land from the owners as they downed their wine and ran out the door. (Our kind of people)
(This is Charlotte's picture - I somehow managed to take no shots from the non-lake side of the cottage. )

After choosing our rooms and doing a quick tour of the cottage, we changed into bathing suits and headed down to the dock. Now, I am very physically uncoordinated, and so it should come as no surprise to learn that I am not a swimmer. So it seemed just serendipitous when we were told that the bay - our bay for the next week - was shallow. Shallow enough to walk all the way across. The chances of me dying on this vacation dropped greatly.

Saturday Muskoka Chairs at Sunset

The week unfolded without fanfare, and with much nerdiness.

We had no schedule, no tasks. We woke up when we were rested, read so many books we could have stocked a small library. We ate when we were hungry, jumped into the shallow bay when we were too warm.

We spent copious amounts of time reading, moving, sloth-like, from deck chair to couch to muskoka chair. In the early afternoon, when the sun was high in the sky, we'd jump into the bay to cool off, then lay in the sun to dry, then move to lounge in the shade. Meals were prepared by whoever was feeling energetic, and we ate well. Our week started with healthy snacks like veggies and fruit, but had degenerated to chips and dip by the end.

Saturday dinner

There may have also been some drinking.
Margarita Bucket
Maybe.
Drinks on the Rocks

Thursday, we designated as 'Town Day', and we ventured into Gravenhurst and Bracebridge, somehow stumbling into used book stores in both towns.

Antique Shop Books

There was some knitting, but no finishing. I have joined in on the Mystery Stole project, but it hasn't really taken off for me, as I'm more used to knitting that I can do while watching tv or talking. The laceweight wool and teeny little beads were particularly poorly suited to knitting by the bay in the Muskoka chairs, so I am still on Chart A. (Fifth time's the charm, right? Cause that's how many times I've restarted. So far.) There was Trivial Pursuit, and some cribbage, and some watching of Torchwood on a laptop. (Stick to Doctor Who. Really.)

The cottage was wonderful, amazing, peaceful, calming, fulfilling, enlightening, rejuvenating, invigorating. I didn't know how much I needed this time to refocus and recharge.

Now I have to go to bed. I didn't have my midafternoon nap on the dock today, and I'm beat. More pics soon - I have to stretch every bit of blog fodder I've got!


3 comments:

Scot Gillespie said...

Do you remember losing Timothy and turning into Gravenhurst on our way to the Navs Retreat many, many moons ago? No cell phones, none of us in the car knew how far away the camp was or where to turn for it ... but somehow we met up with them an hour or so up the road.

Anonymous said...

I love the trail of margaritas across the rocks. Sort of like luminaria, only yummier.

What a great week!

Anonymous said...

Welcome back to the city and the smog. That sounds like my sort of holiday. Where is my holiday? I seem to have lost it, darn it! (I don't know that I'm getting one this year :( )
Margarita luminaria, that's a good one!