Gone Swimming

Summer cottages in North America are a very different entity from what they are in England. A cottage here is a cabin you go to, for weekends or often weeks at a time, often hugging the edge of a lake, where city dwellers can escape the heat and humidity and frolic in cool, deep lakes and wander pine-scented trails. Not all cottages are made alike, and they range from the deeply primitive to the most luxurious, but for the most part they are a delicious escape and often redolent of a past age, and a more innocent and childlike existence.

It's the slap of a wooden screen door, bare feet and limbs, sunshine, watermelon, swimming, backgammon, roasting marshmallows, conversations over breakfast that carry into the day, picking wild blueberries, baking a pie with those blueberries, canoeing, the call of the loon (the bird, not the family member), stargazing, hiking, jigsaw puzzles, melting brie in the sun, napping and laughter.

Happy Summer everyone, I'll be back in 10 days.



Photo by D.