How to grind the coffee beans quietly as to not to wake my husband who is still sleeping upstairs in our cottage bedroom? We’ve haven’t been here since summer so I decide to explore the property first and sit with my java afterwards. It’s been a damp fall, unlike the dry summer – a geranium along the driveway is still a brilliant red, matching the Virginia creeper winding over the deck rail, framing my view of the quiet lake. Alongside that a glorious yellow dahlia has bowed its heavy blossom to the ground. I snip it from the stem to shelter it’s perfect beauty from the changing weather.
My husband comes out to start the heavy work of pulling in the dock, a job that always brings me back to summertime memories. It was a full season. We celebrated forty years of married bliss (and almost bliss) at a surprise party hosted by his parents in their Vancouver Island home. Afterwards we revelled in family lake time. We had a crew of family members lounging on the dock, watching out for our granddaughters barreling past us to dive into the lake splashing and calling out. I wander down to the shoreline, and remember the saddest part of our summer – how we lost our next door neighbour to illness and then sat vigil in the evenings trying to offer some comfort to his mourning wife. He was a good man full of adventure, with an easy laugh. His spirit is with me as I look across at the opposite shore, at its golden yellows and greens reflected in the smooth water. His memory will always be part of lake life.
It was a hot dry August and half way through it we left the lake for one of our happiest times – our eldest son married his sweetheart in a small town in Portugal. There was a stop in Paris on the way to Portugal. (I watch a sparrow flit from a tall evergreen to the cherry tree and decide I need to write about the magic of Paris separately – about how I’d promised my young granddaughters I’d take them there when the oldest turned twelve, and with the wedding in Europe I kept my promise a year late.)
We travelled from the wonders of Paris to Povoa de Varzim, Portugal and along with family and friends celebrated in ways familiar and new – walking on cobblestone paths to an ancient church where the singing in Portuguese was acoustically brilliant. We were fed piles of savory fare through the early morning preparations right until the music and dancing stopped at two am. It was touching to be surrounded by the love and goodwill emanating from the bride and groom while joining our family with another. From the lavender fields and olive trees, to the incredible soft sand beaches, to the pretty tiled homes, and the dreamy delicious pasteis de nata (custards tarts), we were entranced by Portugal.
Folks often ask if we ‘close’ the cottage for winter. We do occasionally come up for cozy winter weekends – so we don’t close up as much as we prepare for another season and the long wait until spring. The two of us lean the table against a wall so it’s protected from where the winter snow will drift and pile up. And I think of how we’ve sat with company long into summer nights after BQ dinners. I bring in the hummingbird feeders – the tiny birds we liked to watch dart about have retreated now. We pull the canoe and kayak high up on shore in anticipation of the high waters of late spring and the return of days of swimming and waterplay on floaties shaped like serpents and unicorns.
A breeze stirs the trees and I watch leaves flutter to the ground through the golden trees. It’s hard not to sigh. There will be many months of winter before it is warm enough to swim again, but the autumn colours marking the changing seasons hold the promise of that.
Text Me, Love Mom 