Cottage time

Your faithful correspondent will be offline for a few days - going to Monique's cottage tomorrow till Friday night. She doesn't have the internet, and I don't post from my phone. Can't believe I'm actually getting out of town - the first time I've gone more than a few blocks from my house, except across town to Anna's, since March 13. Soon driving three hours north.

Speaking of Anna's - today I went to swim in Sunnyside pool with her and the boys. There's all kinds of protocol now, of course, including time-limited 45 minute swims; they have to leave and line up again, so she goes usually for two sessions. Her boys are like seals, like fish, like marine mammals, Ben especially, at just five, doing a powerful breast stroke underwater with no goggles. A marvel. And then - our annual tradition - I took them and their friend Imani to the restaurant on the boardwalk by the beach. They're driving to Nova Scotia next week and I won't see them for a month!

Last night I watched a doc about Maria Montessori and her ground-breaking innovations in the education of children - an amazing woman. They showed her at seventy, and I thought, that's the way seventy used to look - thick solid body, grey bun, glasses, classic grandma. But that is not, I repeat not, what seventy looks like any more. It looks like a grey-haired grandma in Sunnyside pool, laughing as her grandsons cavort.

It's a wonderful time. The book is at last on its way into the world; I posted a pic of the cover on the Creative Nonfiction FB page - on Mondays we are allowed to do a bit of hustling - and 70 people have liked it so far. I find the speed of that astonishing. My attempt at zucchini sex, plunging the male pistils into the female flowers, has produced two big zucchinis. And on Saturday morning, my son is arriving with everything for a very small garden party to celebrate this old bag's 70th.

Got to go pack - flipflops, sundress, b'suit. Rosé and cucumber salad made with my garden cukes. Robin upstairs will be holding the fort. My shoulders are lifting. A bientôt, mes amis.