Monday, 16 March 2015
On March 16th, the day after Allan got home from the Sylvia Beach Hotel, the crabbers at the gear shed next door were tarping down their pots for the season.
During the time I was gone to the Sylvia Beach Hotel, Allan had (bless him!) done some of the gardening work. On March 16th, he finished the Big Pop Out in Long Beach, a task completion that had been eluding us.
March 16: before
after, rugosa roses controlled (for now) all along the fence and a weed infested kinnickinick removed
before and after…impressive!
his load of debris
species tulips in the big pop out
Thursday, 19th March 2015
(You can read about Allan’s March 18th boating trip in yesterday’s post.)
On March 19th, he tackled the dreaded weeding of the Bolstadt Beach Approach blocks-long garden and felt discouraged by how long it took him to accomplish this much; it’s a horribly hard job:
before
Three hours later. I personally think that is pretty fast and efficient.
I arrived back from the Sylvia Beach Hotel in the early evening and I have to admit that after my five quiet bookish days, we watched a two hour episode of Survivor in the evening. The cats were ever so pleased to see me…when they woke up.
Smokey and Mary
I opened my birthday package from Montana Mary; she had given me SIXTY presents, or tried to (she wrote that she may have lost count) including each individual piece chocolate from two fine chocolatiers (one from Wyoming and one from Bozeman, Montana).
presents from Montana Mary
from Chatelaine Chocolate
Mary says “both are owned by charming people who produce marvelous confections!” (A couple of days later, I got another little package from her, some “chocolate” seeds from Chocolate flower farms: chocolate colored nasturtiums and chocolate cherry tomatoes.)
Allan made delicious muffins from the flour.
Before I’d gone on my trip, Allan had given me a set of books relating to my Green Lake neighbourhood Seattle childhood. Of course, I had been too immersed in the Sylvia Beach Hotel room journals to read them. They still awaited my perusal.
My old friend Shaz, now an Oregonian but who once lived by the bay where years ago I had made a garden for her, sent art supplies:
inspirational
Friday, 20 March 2015
view from our north windows
On my first full day back, I was ever so pleased at torrents of rain because it gave me the opportunity to download and start processing all the photos from my stay at the Sylvia Beach Hotel. The cats had been so glad to see me last night and sat right by me.
Smokey and Mary
In the evening, we were joined at the Cove Restaurant by Carol and J9 and Kathleen for a belated celebration of my 60th birthday, since I had spent my birthday itself with Carol at the Sylvia Beach Hotel. Bill and Susie of the Boreas Inn stopped by but could not stay as they were checking in some guests that evening. I took my new camera to dinner; not a good choice, as the old camera known as Spot, which takes bad outdoor photos, is the one that takes good indoor ones. As we drove north in the rainy dark through Long Beach, I could see deadheads (dead flowers, not lounging hippies) in the planters and felt some small urgency about work.
Allan’s photo: We had a table right by the fire.
Carol and Kathleen at dinner
an appetizer of five “prawns solo”, the perfect number for our group
Carol’s bahn mi sandwich, my steak salad
presents!
From J9: Catnip Murders art print by an Astoria artist; from Kathleen: Harper Lee in large print and my favourite tea (Earl Grey) and some Nestle’s Crunch and peanut butter cups. The candy is a shoutout to our fun time at Halloween, when she helped us give out candy and learned my favourites from the Halloween mixed chocolates bag. From Susie: a pretty little purse with some fancy lip balm inside and a date to take us out to lunch on Sunday!
from Allan, a Hello Kitty gardening set! for one of my plant tables
It had been an extravagant birthday week (and was not quite over, with the lunch date with Susie and Bill coming up). However, the weather was due to change and I seriously had to get back to work.
Leave a Reply