Taking a break in July

I'm writing this on a huge screened-in balcony overlooking Lake MacGregor near Ottawa. Cara and Elaina had a serious fire at their cottage and found this place as a substitute summer home for 2012. Enormous balcony over the water. Looking through mature trees at the sun on the lake. Like my own Tom Thomson. Loon sounds on the lake.

So, to recap, Paul and Noreen came for ten days and I squeezed 7 full days of work out of Paul, or rather I couldn't have stopped him working if I'd tried. He is a master with a jigsaw. He planes like a professional musician. And I fired staples into his cutting jobs.The last day was a bit of an effort and we nearly gave up on one very difficult electrical box, but we succeeded. You can see from the photos. Four walls and no funeral.

Basically it leaves the floor in the master bedroom and bathroom and walls in the two living areas... And, of course, the outside wall and the screened-in porch. Maybe I'll try to get him back next year to build something else. I just think he wants to cut wood.

And then we left to help Chris and Adrienne Elliott to pack up their Baie d'Urfé home and fly back to England. First mistake was to make the trip back to Quebec in one day, a sixteen hour drive. Deborah was not happy and the next day passed slowly as we tried to adjust to the strain of being confined for those 16 hours. Never again: two days it is.

Then we got on with helping Chris and Adrienne and their move, with wrapping everything up, selling things, giving lots away, deciding not to take the god Pan from the garden in the container so he ended up in our garden wondering why he'd been left out. Helping Danny Anderson move a bed over to his Sainte-Anne flat behind the town hall. Making supper, drinking wine, trying to tie up the odds and ends of 40 years of life lived in this place.

It was all very sad, really, and when we finally got them and their last bags to the airport and hugged and said goodbye we'll see you in England good luck don't worry about Pan no one wants a 400 pound Pan in his garden, it was a very emotional send off and we were glad to come here to Cara's verandah and chill out in our very own Tom Thomson.

I would never go back to live in England, even Surrey England. What would happen to Pan?