1991
Brimley Michigan July 12 10:10 AM
We are one week less a day at the cottage.
Joanna and Rachel are sleeping in the cottage. They were up until midnight
playing scrabble. I have just come from a bike ride on my touring bike. “Grandma
you are not going to ride on that are you” and a stroll through the cemetery to
make sure that the “Angel family” has made it through the winter. They have!
John has gone for a combined walk/ jog,
combined because he pulled a muscle or strained the arch in one foot.
It is beautiful here this morning, cloudy
with a threat of a showers, but beautiful. Gray blue water, gray blue sky, a
streak of green dark across, and in the other arm of the bay, a salty anchored
beyond the point of land like a toy ship in the distance. Only the water
lapping, somewhere far off the sound of a motorboat, and an oar being banged. There
are small boat fishermen in the distance in the river. There are birds in the
trees behind and at the sides of the cottage. It is so peaceful here!
Steven
was out from Saturday when we moved out until Wednesday night when he had to go
in to work. He and John are the complete campers. They relax and enjoy. Michael
York and his friend Jeremy Rebek were out overnight Michael his usual restless
go-go self! The stereo turned up,
playing his guitar, playing beach bat Ball, playing horseshoes, on the bikes
over to the state park, go- go- go never stops.
Dave Vena, John's friend came over from his
trailer at the state park with his wife and children one evening, and we had a
bonfire on the beach, music and song and marshmallows. Mary Jane has been in
and out and in. Brendon and his friends Jason and Pat came out last evening for
a swim in the deep water across the bay. It is so shallow in front of the
cottage that they find it torture to walk into the refreshingly cool cold
water. It was good to see him.
The water is deeper this year and the
sandbars are gone except when the tide goes out, only once so far. I haven't
seen the Heron but the sandpipers and the gulls and the terns are here. The
swallows come in the evening from where they nest under the bridge under the
Waiski River. There are flocks of blackbirds every
now and then, and chirrups and cries from the birds I cannot see long enough to
recognize. The tree foliage is so thick here!
I visited next-door to see Maddie Donnelly,
Peter the landlord's mother in her neat solid little cottage. She is a feisty
84 and when I asked her how she was feeling she answered smiling “well I'm here,
what more can I ask for.” She has glaucoma and a growing cataract and angina so
she is legally blind. She is not supposed to drive. Her car is parked on the
back lawn and she will not have it otherwise. “If I have an emergency I can
always get to Peter's place a short drive away at the highway” and every
afternoon late just before supper time, she does drive just out the back
cottage lane a few yards on the road to an old friend's cottage, and to quote
her “we have a drink and nibbles and then I come home.”
Suzanne has been on 3 to 11, but is coming
out today for the weekend I think. Perhaps she will have to go in to cut the
grass her standard summer getaway. Suzanne and Mary Jane have had a difference.
Suzanne is wrong this time and lashed out in her headstrong hurting way, but
cannot bring herself to apologize. I have stated my opinion unasked for, and
will now zip my lips. She is uncomfortable about the situation perhaps guilty
but stubborn.
Christina is working at Cambrian Spring Company bottling water. She hasn't been out. She has just returned from a jaunt to
Winnipeg with friends to a folk festival. Wilf has been out once, he is not at
ease here, although he made quite an effort and only yelled at the children
once. He is keeping busy in town. I was in yesterday for a few hours to go to a
historic site board meeting and to get him some groceries, and take him to pick up
his summer suit to be altered he has lost 40 pounds since last summer. He has
his days organized, he is doing his walking regularly but has gone way off his
diet. Even a blast from Dr. Ianni has had little effect, not even the reminder
that he will either have a heart attack or a stroke. He is thinking of buying a
bicycle. I cautioned him to think it over because of his tunnel vision from
glaucoma but he says that will not bother him. He must miss the car dreadfully
and when I am home I am his chauffeur. I
need and want this break!
Comment of
the month so far.
I can't recall how the subject came up but, Michael
York" Grandma when you are 102 and a vegetable, you'll be (and he hunched
over and wobbled as if with a cane, and sucked his cheeks in to look gaunt)
somewhere and we will come to visit you.
Grandma. "Michael when I am 102 I'll be sitting
on the edge of a fluffy cloud watching your antics. I wagged my finger at him
"And you'd better be good!” The look on his face was priceless! I forgot
for a moment that the 14 year old tough guy is such a spook. He's not too sure
about me on a cloud watching him!
There is a
small plane flying over and looking up, I can see its shadow reflected on the
low cloud cover. There is a breeze! I have a good book! Just finished “Wintermere”
by Paula Bills and “Herald of Joy” is the sequel. Set in the 17th century
England Civil War with Roundheads, Cavaliers. An excellent historical novel!
I hear a car
door. Suzanne and Mary Jane are due out today.It is Jim McIntyre's 65th
birthday. They have a cottage on the North Shore of the St. Mary's a few miles
across and east of us.
