A warm evening leaves me a little groggy from lack of sleep and I wake early Monday morning to the sounds of a chainsaw droning and hacking away across the bay of the lake. I discover later from Joanne that one of the cottagers is building a log house of their dreams. But it is Monday, and a work day after all.

I wander upstairs in my pj’s to find that Joanne has already made a pot of coffee. I pour a generous cup, root through the fridge for CREAM! (I must be on vacation) and head out to the beautiful deck high in the trees above the bay and looking down Blackdonald Lake. Truman Capote’s grippingly written ‘In Cold Blood” is my Muskoka Chair companion for the next couple of days and I enjoy the morning coolness, my coffee and the morning birds. Joanne soon joins me and we chat and drink coffee until well after 10:30, when Adrienne creeps up the stairs still asleep, all of us craning our necks to try and see how far the log cabin has progressed.

From Left: Good Morning! Can't you hear the chainsaw?

For the next three days we swim, snooze, bake, eat, read in the boat house, swim, eat, snooze, eat, bake, and eat.


Summer at the cottage


From left: The Boathouse inside and out, Joanne and Ruby


From left: Ruby and Adrienne in the lake, Relaxing in the boathouse, Ruby and Owen

Joanne and I have a cocktail back on the deck where we started our day and watch the sun set over the rolling hills to the west. We play some games and plan our dinner as the early evening encroaches. A canoe with two intrepid paddlers breaks the still bay below us.

Sunset paddlers

As the darkness envelopes the cottage we notice the wind picking up and the phone rings from Toronto. A huge storm is heading our way we are told, having already pulled down trees and power lines in the city as it makes its way east. We look out at the ever-brightening sky; a long band of spectacular and aggressive lightning slowly but certainly heading our way.

My resignation became effective immediately.

I find myself with an additional two weeks of free time to hang out and enjoy the summer so I jump at the chance to take some time for myself at John's cousin Jim and Joanne’s cottage. John is in Vancouver for business until Wednesday afternoon and I have organized Katie Spencley to look after Sophia and Sydney for the four days we will be away. Katie will also look after the kitties when we leave for Las Vegas Thursday evening for 4 days with our friends Peggy and Martin. But more on that later.

Off I go.

The drive is blissfully un-eventful. Everyone is heading back to the city as I pull out of 50L on schedule at 11:00 am. It is a 4 to 4.5 hour drive east and then north to Blackdonald Lake and the Madawaska Highlands beckon me on for some swimming and reading and catching up with Joanne and her daughter Adrienne, their chocolate lab, Ruby and their handsome, foundling cat, Owen. I make a quick stop for gas and food at one of the rest stops an hour before I head north at Napanee. The line-ups are littered with families and their squawking kids, cranky and crotchety; their summer vacations either just beginning or just ending.

I head north to Kaladar and then beyond Bon Echo taking the right hand turn at Griffith that will take me another half hour beyond to Chimo Road and the cottage. The pines and lakes of the Canadian Shield play out in front of me as Billy Joel serenades the scenery. I make up time on the seemingly uninhabited road. The occasional small towns of the Ottawa Valley bring me back down to the speed-limit and I pass hawkers in their road-side stalls, overflowing baskets of local wild blueberries and home baking filling their shelves.

I arrive just in time to share some sweet seasonal cherries with Jim before he takes William, their son, back to the city for work and summer school on Monday. I share a beer with Joanne on the front porch of the cottage while the beautiful, warm summer sun starts to redden the pines and maples, creating a beautiful red-orange dappled mosaic.


Sunset at Blackdonald Lake

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