Two months is really a long time to be a houseguest. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it when I called my sister this past winter and told her I was coming to visit for the summer. And although the dog and I slipped away for almost two weeks to do a tour of coastal Nova Scotia, we were underfoot (Eliot more than me) for a long time.
I had planned to ‘do’ the Gaspé Peninsula on my way east but plans changed. So I decided to leave a bit early to have time to see that part of Quebec.
But a little detour en-route.
When I was heading east I had stayed a night with Joan and Steve in Ottawa. At the time they were about to leave for Prince Edward Island to spend the summer at the family cottage on the Montague River. So on Monday I caught an afternoon ferry to P.E.I.
It was a scorching hot afternoon and one of the guys on the deck told me I couldn’t stay in the van. I told him it was much too warm to leave Eliot in the car so he told me to take him with me. We encountered a couple of other dogs so perhaps Northumberland Ferries bends their rules a little during extremely hot weather.
Unfortunately the only shade and seats were at one end of the ferry where a guitarist/singer was performing for the tourists. His idea of pitch was somewhat approximate and I wanted to tell him that he had a volume on his guitar turned up too loud. I could hardly understand a word he was singing.
I had an uneventful drive up to Montague. I had visited this cottage before but the intervening time can be measured in decades. I did remember that I had to go over the bridge on the Montague River and then make a right turn heading down the river. However, I had neglected to enquire as to the address and all landmarks were either gone or had changed significantly. (Montague now has its own SuperStore for heavens sake.) I ended up calling Joan and it turned out I was only a couple of laneways away.
It was lovely to sit on the much renovated cottage deck, sip a beer and look out over the Montague River. Joan informed me that we were invited out to dinner. The cousins (of which, Joan has many) were getting together a short ride upriver for dinner at Sandra and Hughie’s.
It was a fabulous dinner. We started out on the lawn where S.&H. served a big pot of mussels followed by a big pot of corn on the cob. After that we went indoors for the rest of the meal. A salad, then a delicious quiche with garden vegetables followed by a blueberry crisp and a peach flan.
Besides all he good food, it was one of funniest evenings I have had in some time. There was a serious discussion of potato varieties (these are islanders, after all). Many embarrassing stories were dragged out and told again. My favourite involved Anne White and a certain Christmas reindeer that was stolen from Stephen Harper’s (not THAT Stephen Harper) lawn just before Christmas and placed on another lawn from which it again disappeared. Mr. Harper was NOT amused. Anne confessed that for her it was still a most embarrassing incident and she was at first reluctant to retell the tale but when her sister, Sandra, started to tell it she had to butt in as Sandra was apparently getting details wrong.
Cousins Sinclair, Anne, Joan, Sandra and her husband Hughie. Everyone was very impressed with Eliot who was on best behaviour. And Eliot seemed particularly fond of Sinclair during the evening. And when he showed up next morning, Eliot was right there.
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