Drugs and Driving (Not While On Drugs) and Dolls (Because Barbie Doesn't Start with D)

 I would like to thank everyone who commented on my Cocaine Post, because it sat there commentless for a couple of days which I thought was probably because it posted on a Sunday in July, but possibly was because I had mortally offended every single one of you and you had all vowed never to darken my blog door again. 

Regarding Suzanne's parents trying to Scare her Straight: I actually don't remember getting a Drug Talk from my parents. They drank a fair bit, and they were pretty relaxed about us drinking, which I think had the effect of meaning we didn't go totally insane - not to say there weren't a few blow-out nights and a few punishing hangovers, but nothing extreme. We didn't have a curfew either - we just kind of kept in contact and they trusted us not to be total idiots. 

I confess to being a bit surprised that Steph has done any drugs - I'm not entirely sure why. 

While I'm referring to comments, which I am sometimes bad at answering because I can't figure out the best way to do it - Eve did not buy the creepy doll dress, I thought it looked adorable on her but she said she'd only really use it as a costume. 

Was there anything else? Oh, on D thinking I was pregnant for a second - AAAAAAHHHHHHH, the hilarity and horror. I would be less aghast at the prospect of a grandchild at this point than another child, and I'm just going to skip ahead to avoid feeling the feelings I probably should feel about THAT realization.

Sort of ironically, none of my close friends did any drugs - the only reason I ended up trying anything as a teenager was because of my parents' close friends' daughter who I was sort of forced to hang out with when my parents went to their house. Her crowd was way more into drugs than mine, and it was going out with her that led to my first marijuana experience and ... hold on.... okay, hot knives is also marijuana, I thought it was hash, for some reason. What the heck is hash then, and have I tried it? Oh, hash is just pot in another form, and it probably was hash between the hot knives. Anyway. 

I don't think I actually did any drugs in university, or again until after I'd had my kids and was on a girls' weekend. And then when it was nearly legal and then legal I started trying stuff, and have honestly not found a sweet spot, other than the weed pen I possibly-placebo myself with. 

For years, my friend Collette's plan when she got old was heroin and Virtual Reality, until she found out that heroin makes you itchy, and Collette breaks out in a full-body rash if poison ivy is within half a kilometer of her, so now she needs an alternate plan, or an alternate drug for her plan. 

I can't think of a graceful segue, so a propos of nothing I've mentioned so far, Eve's final driving test in the graduated licensing program we have here in Ontario is tomorrow and she is extremely nervous, not about the driving so much as about the being tested. She's a good driver - way better than any of us thought she would be based on how slow she went in a go-kart and in the golf cart at my mother-in-law's summer house. She's already done one driving test (for the G2, which follows the G1 but then goes to the G, which makes zero sense to me and I can never keep it straight). We were out parallel parking yesterday and she moaned indignantly "HOW can they make me drive on the highway and parallel park ON THE SAME DAY? Those are two completely different skill sets!" I promise I will come back and be honest about whether she passed or not - one of the suggestions we saw about how to be less nervous for the test was "keep it a secret" but, well, we are bad secret-keepers, so agony or ecstasy shall be trumpeted equally.

Angus is only home for one more week, so I am trying to maximize my time with him. Last night we watched Dune, and today when I got home from driving with Eve he was getting ready to walk to Starbucks so I went with him and we had a really great talk about his thesis and his professors and his past few years away. The three of us went to see Mission Impossible (part one, wtf) last week and Wednesday we're going to have lunch on a patio, which will be a celebration or a consolation meal, I guess.

And yesterday Eve and I went with Jody (HI JODY) and Jackson (HI JACKSON) to The Barbie Movie! Eve said we had to wear pink. So we did. 

She Don't Lie, She Don't Lie, She Don't Lie

At the first Bluesfest show we were at, we were telling Zarah and Sophie about how Eve's friend Davis was proud of being one of the few students she knew who didn't succumb to the cocaine mini-epidemic at McGill in first year. Just for context, McGill is in Montreal, and there are a lot of wealthy international students who attend. Zarah confessed that, in addition to being too poor, one of the reasons she'd never wanted to try cocaine is that she knew she'd love it.

Honestly, I'd never thought about it, but HELL YEAH ME TOO. I wouldn't need as much sleep. I'd be able to get up early. I'd have more energy for work. My house would probably be a lot cleaner. Is it an appetite suppressant? *googles* HOT DAMN, who really needs a septum anyway. I have never seen or been offered cocaine, to be clear, even when I was hanging with the druggie crowd. In my husband's company's heyday, they were so desperate for line workers that some people were employed for more than one shift under different names, and there was apparently a lot of coke-snorting going on in the bathrooms (see? more energy for work!)

Last summer when Zarah and Sophie came, Zarah brought her pot stash and we sat out in the backyard with the girls - Sophie hadn't ever smoked, Eve had a few times. We had my weed pen and Zarah rolled a joint and we lit the pretty citronella candle Zarah brought me and it was a beautiful day. Sophie never managed to get high (I didn't either the first time), Zarah was happy, Eve got mellow, and I can never tell until I'm tripping balls, but it was fun. We all hit the weed pen really hard, so I was surprised that it still hadn't run out just before they got here this year (I don't use it all that often, obviously).

The day we went downtown was hot and humid and we walked a lot. By the time we went to check out the new store in the Rideau Center we were all tired and sweaty and our feet hurt (or maybe that's just me). One by one we all left the store to go sit on the benches where the husbands wait (this is an enormous generalization that Eve made, but it amused me). Zarah came out after she paid and sat down with us and we tried to decide if we should do more stuff, and I said not unless we could get a drink and some cocaine first. We came home instead.

At the Pitbull show, he would occasionally go backstage and leave the DJ to fill in the space. Eve said he either had to take a knee every time he did a few dance steps instead of just rapping and slapping his dancers' asses, or possibly he was doing cocaine. But then he came out and gave a mini-lecture about drugs, so maybe he was just re-hydrating, or maybe he's a massive hypocrite, who can say.

Before Pitbull we were going to meet our friends at the restaurant, and Sophie said she was having a bit of anxiety about going downtown and then going to the show, and I was too, to I took out the weed pen and Sophie and Eve and I took a couple of puffs - it's half CBD so it was just for a very mild, possibly placebo-ish, anti-anxiety effect. The next night after they left, I sucked on it before bed and only one little light strip blinked, meaning it was empty.

It was kind of a nice full-circle moment. 

In conclusion, stay in school kids, say no to drugs say yes to life, don't fry your brain over-easy, just say cocaine. I mean no. 

Summertime Visit Continued OR WHAT THE HECK, SUZANNE

Were you all following along in our last installment wherein Engie complimented my skin (thank-you, sweet Engie, there is no secret unless you count being oily and fat) and Suzanne basically accused me of abandoning my daughter during a tornado? Lol, jk, I adore Suzanne, but to be very very clear, by the time we left Eve at home to go downtown, the tornadoes (gotta love when multiple tornadoes are now part of the summer vernacular) were long blown away, and Eve was in no danger of being in Oz by the time we returned home.

So Friday we weren't going to Bluesfest and the forecast was refreshingly clear of catastrophic weather events, so we went down to the market to shop and eat. There's an adorable little shop called Milk that we love and always visit when Zarah and Sophie are here, owned by two sisters and featuring cute sustainable clothing and fun stickers, pins, jewelry and socks. The owners are really fun and they totally let us make our daughters try everything on and run around the store showing it, along with reading all the sweary stickers at full volume.

Eve grabbed this dress and said "ooh cool, this will give me a creepy doll vibe"

Eve and I bought Crocs flip-flops for camping - my feet were absolutely shredded by the end of last time, and Eve couldn't find traditional crocs in the right size, and we figured out we could buy the same size flip-flops and were enchanted by the ridiculous twinning possibilities. 

We had lunch on a patio and also went to the paper place we love - Eve was on the hunt for the perfect journal, which she still wasn't able to find, but it's a fun place to wander around anyway, even if I did manage to resist the Frida Kahlo wrapping paper book Zarah waved seductively in front of me.

Friday we went for a walk and then went to meet friends for dinner before Pitbull. This led to my first time taking Ottawa transit in many, many years, due to getting a car and being too much of a zero-sense-of-direction-having wuss to take transit usually. We drove down to our parking lot and parked, then walked to the LRT station halfway down the hill we walk down to to get to Lebreton Flats, where Bluesfest happens.

It was surprisingly easy and efficient (surprising because Ottawa transit is notoriously um, not great). 

I made them pose like this for my friends who make fun of me for being afraid of public transit (look, I lived in Toronto, I took the subway daily and hardly ever got lost, I've just lost the habit).

Our friends made the reservation and we coincidentally ended up at the same place I had had lunch with my friend Janis the week before on our yearly market date.

I like it because the food is good, but also it's so pretty you feel fancy even if you just have the tacos.

I mean look, I took this photo of Sophie with her mocktail and it looks like it should be in a resort brochure.

Then we got back on the LRT. We accidentally sat in the 'inclusive seating', but the car was empty so we didn't have to move, and spent some time trying to figure out what all the icons for people who should be given preference meant.

The blind guy with the dog and the woman with the cane were easy enough, but the second one looked to me like someone with two heads. I mean, yeah, I would give the dude preferential seating because clearly he's got some stuff going on. Zarah stood up and looked more closely and figured out that it was someone carrying a baby in a backpack. Fair enough, but I think the illustration could use some work.

It was Saturday and Bluesfest was sold out for Pitbull, and the moment we walked in the gates I was a bit tense because oh, the humanity. The mostly young, mostly drunk, very excited and boisterous humanity. We managed to find a place to put our chairs and then Zarah and Sophie and I went to the bathroom and oh lord, that was an adventure all on its own (a young girl did say she really liked my dress, so there was that). Eve was pretty tense by the time I got back, but then the show started and even though the lawn chair section was more crowded than usual there was plenty of breathing room, and we made friends with the people beside us it was a really fun show.

And the next day Zarah and Sophie went home, and Eve and I did some non-traumatizing highway driving and took Lucy for a walk and then Eve had a friend over to watch Too Hot to Handle (if nothing else does, this should convince you that I don't alter facts to make my family look better on this blog), and I accidentally took a three-hour nap, got up for two hours and fell asleep again. In other words, it was a really great week. 

Summertime and the Bloggin' is Breezy

 Sometimes I don't blog because the week is too bad, and sometimes I don't blog because the week is too good. Happily, this is the latter (that means the second one. Get it? I am so funny).

Zarah and I have been friends since undergrad - she moved into a house in third year with my future husband, so she can pretty much take credit for our entire relationship. She's been coming here with the kids in the summer since Sophie was a baby and Eve and Alex (Sophie's brother) would fight over whose Sophie she was ("MY Sophie!" "No, MYY Sophie!") It would be the three kids or four, depending on Angus's baseball schedule.

We bought them matching shirts for as long as we could pull it off.

Actually, last year Zarah sent Alex to Lululemon and told him to buy himself something he liked and buy the same thing for Angus, so we're still pulling it off.

For years we would do a museum or two every trip,

Children's Museum

Museum of Nature

Agriculture Museum


(Look how YOUNG we are)

along with walking, cooking, playing in the sandbox, putting on plays, and going to bookstores. 

This was after a particularly horrendous play, in which many people got shot, possibly (and justifiably) for overacting

 At some point the kids confessed that they could take a break on the museums,so we pivoted to getting ice cream every day, which worked well for everyone, along with hiking, baking, go-karting, mini-golf, pedicures and going to bookstores.













Now they're practically all lactose intolerant, so a few years back we switched to Bluesfest, after I started going again and taking Eve and we both realized we loved it, despite hating crowds and loud noises and outdoor bathrooms. Oh wait, we ate a ton of grilled cheese sandwiches the first few years, so they must not all have been lactose intolerant yet. Anyway. Also a lot of eating, going downtown for gelato/sorbet, and going to bookstores.













So Alex hasn't been able to come the last couple of years because of school or work, and Sophie is in university in BC now and might not come home next summer, so last week was bittersweet but still awesome.

I am not the greatest with normal houseguests, but these houseguests don't care if I stay up late and sleep late, and they unload my dishwasher and walk my dog while I'm still sleeping, showering or wandering around in a daze, and we have a blast even if we're just grocery shopping or sitting around the kitchen table, and it's always the best, loudest, funniest, talkingest week.

So Zarah and Sophie got here Wednesday, and were going to see the Foo Fighters at Bluesfest that night as part of their pick-3 package. Eve and I weren't going to go because we had seen the Foo Fighters at Bluesfest a few years ago and it's always sold out and very crowded, which pushes our comfort level. I knew, thought that once Zarah and Sophie were here there was a good chance we would decide to go just to hang out with them, and we did. Zarah drove so I didn't have driving anxiety, and we got practically the last spot in my special parking lot (see last post), and had a really good time.



 It helps that we mostly do what Eve calls 'old people Bluesfest' now - take lawn chairs and don't bother going in the smushy crowd closest to the stage. There are a few bands I would still do this for, but none of them were here this year.

Sophie and Eve were prepared to guard our little patch



But we sat in roughly the same area every night and the crowd was super friendly and fun.





Thursday we were doing coffee and bookstore before going to Bluesfest that night. Now, some weather background: we have had two tornados in the past five or so years that knocked out our power for three days (first one) and knocked down our fence (second one). For a while after that I was on extreme edge every time there was a tornado watch, to the point where Matt was slightly exasperated, and nothing ever happened. One might say that I then overcorrected.



Our phones did broadcast an emergency alert while we were in the Starbucks drive-through, but it only said to take cover if threatening weather approached, and nothing looked that threatening, and we weren't the only car out, so we blithely drove to Indigo and wandered around in a book-happy stupor. Then we headed over to the library because I had a book to return and a hold to pick up. As we got near the library we started to see trees blown down and garbage scattered everywhere and started to think that maybe we had chosen poorly. Eve said "dad just asked if we have power. Do I tell him we're not home?" (to be clear, I am not making light of the fact that some people sustained house damage and lost power, just the fact that we were so mind-bogglingly oblivious).

We got home and the phone alerts went off AGAIN, and we watched some scary videos of funnel clouds very nearby and looked around at each other sheepishly, and then got ready and went downtown (minus Eve, who wasn't feeling up to it) and watched Mumford and Sons in cloudless perfect summer weather. It was a strange day.

To be continued

Bluesfesting While Anxious Redux

 Thanks so much for the helpful answers to the blogging questions. I have a bit of a visual processing problem when reading columns or reading on a computer, so I have a fear that people will look at my giant blocks of text and feel dread and distaste. Most of your blogs are formatted so the blocks are narrower, which is easier for me, but for wider ones I just have to go more slowly. 

I only blog on my computer, unless I am away during NaBloPoMo and haven't had time to schedule posts, in which case I might do very short posts or just a picture and post from my phone. I generally read blogs on my computer too, unless I am somewhere waiting for something and bored, in which case I might read some on my phone, but I can't figure out how to comment that way and reading a blog post and not commenting on it seems like something without something (redacted, all I could think of was sex stuff).

Regarding Engie's comment on the driving post, "Ha ha ha! I don't know why, but the idea of you panicking, but trying to stay calm while Eve is doing the same sort of makes me chuckle. Like, why can't we just be honest that we're freaking out? I mean, not in a dangerous sort of drive the car off the side of the road way, but in a "um, whoops, I made a mistake and now you're driving in worse conditions than I had planned" sort of way?" : I agree, it's funny in retrospect. But I wasn't trying to look calm to cover up my mistake, I was trying not to visibly freak out because I knew that would freak her out, and absolutely risk having the car driven off the side of the road - after we were safely out of it I freely told everyone what a stupid mistake it was and how much it freaked me out. 

Tonight was our first night at Bluesfest (this post is about the first time I took Eve to Bluesfest, eight whole years ago. We've kind of gotten into a routine, so while I'm still a little nervous setting out the first time, it's usually much better. This year was the first time most of the lineup wasn't that attractive to us, and we almost didn't buy full festival passes, but we wanted to go at least three times and that costs just as much as the early bird full passes, so I got them, but we weren't going until tonight, the fourth night. It often starts very soon after school ends and I find the idea of going to five to seven nights of concerts exhausting as well as exhilarating, so I thought that the festival starting a little later and planning not to go as often might result in me being a little more chill.

I was so wrong. Like really stupidly, embarrassingly wrong.

The little seniors center that I found that first year that does parking in their lot as a fundraiser is no longer the hidden gem it was back then. Also, I usually bought a pass for the whole festival there too, which meant we had a spot reserved for us no matter when we got there. This year we weren't going enough to warrant getting a full pass, which meant we'd be gambling on whether there was a spot, which meant we were right back to the uncertainty about where to park, which somehow got so big in my mind that I was on the verge of not being able to go, which is super dumb, but try telling that to my limbic system.

About halfway through the day Eve came down to where I was reading on the couch to talk about her anxiety over her driving test, which I met with my anxiety about getting to Bluesfest, and we talked and ate some peas from the pod and then I gave us both a brisk little pep talk and she went outside to read and I made pasta salad. 

In the end, my lovely husband offered to drop us off and we could transit or Uber home. He dropped us off near the place we usually park, which did still have spots, so I felt dumb and also relieved. We saw Tegan and Sara for the second time, and they were as wonderful as the last time - both the music and the funny banter -and we saw some friends and shared some french fries and had a wonderful time, and now I think I'll be okay going back. It's not a victory in terms of conquering the anxiety altogether, but I did manage to get myself there (with a little help), so I guess I'll take it. When we walked back up the hill to get an Uber (because the streets immediately around are all closed) we ran into a nice woman with an adorable black dog who came up to us to be petted while she warned him not to jump, and after he didn't jump on us he ran back to her and sat down so prettily and expectantly, like when my friend's son was pushing a littler kid on the swings and yelled "hey mom, look how nice I'm being!" so she could give him a treat. So that was a perfect evening-ender.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Can I ask a couple of blog questions? Do you usually read blog on your phone, or computer? And do you feel like you need to add pictures to a post, or not really? Aside from the posts where I'm doing a photo-essay kind of thing, I always feel like blocks of text are too visually dull and need photos to break them up - for my blog, but I don't really notice that on other blogs. And recently I'm having issues with my pictures disappearing (not actually disappearing, but being a blank frame with that stupid little square in the top left corner) from posts, which makes the posts look really stupid when I'm talking about a photo that's no longer there. 

This also reminds me that I always think I should probably switch to Wordpress from Blogger, but I also think I should switch to a local independent pharmacy from the super busy Shoppers Drug Mart with the often-crappy customer service, and then I get home and my indignation subsides and I forget/can't be arsed to actually do it. And I hate change. And I'm bad at technology. 

Anyway. Want to hear a funny story about me scarring my daughter for life? So here in Canada (maybe just here in Ontario?) we have a graduated licensing system for driving a car. First you do a written test and if you pass you have your G1, and can drive with a licensed driver above a certain age with you and not on a highway and not between midnight and six a.m or something (I'm not looking any of this up and it's entirely possible I'm confusing some of it with Gremlins). Then you do a driving test and have your G2 and can drive unaccompanied but I think you can't have any blood alcohol content at all. Then you do the final test and have you full G license and Bob's your uncle.

Eve is a perfectly fine driver  - considering the speed (or lack thereof) she used to drive a go-kart, she's an almost surprisingly fine driver - and is also very anxious about driving. During Covid, the drive-test centers here in Ottawa and anywhere in a four-radius closed and then were insanely busy for a while. Because of this, she ended up taking her G2 test in a small town almost two hours away, which was honestly just as well - the Ottawa one is a tiny bit gnarly to get in and out of and I thought this would be good for her anxiety.

It was, although she was still so shaky when she started out that her foot was jarring the gas pedal and made the whole car shake. I was so nervous waiting that I texted Jody (HI JODY) and she called me and talked to me until Eve drove back into the parking lot totally unnoticed by me and came bounding up to me cheerfully and we went to the Dairy Queen around the corner at ten a.m. to celebrate.

So then she went away to university with this time limit for her to get her full license before she had to start over. I think technically she has until next July, but that would be cutting it close, so we booked it for this summer, another smaller town about an hour away called Brockville. This is the town where Matt's Nana and Grandpa lived in a retirement home for the last few years of their lives, and we visited them quite often. It's also a town with a really great fish and chips place called Don's. So today we road-tripped with Marianna and Jackson (the summer school study partners) to Brockville for Eve to get some highway driving in, scope out the town and incidentally maybe end up at Don's around lunchtime. 

It all went fabulously, as opposed to our last driving adventure, which was me suggesting that Eve drive from her doctor's appointment about ten minutes west of our house (I think,  hahaha, I actually have no idea, just go with it), to a brewery about fifteen minutes east of our house so I could pick up some beer for our friend's birthday. She was amenable, and we started out with the GPS sending us a different way than I thought it would. Then I realized we were going on the highway. She said "am I going on the highway?" I said "yep", but I thought it would be fine because it was a nice peaceful twinned highway, which she has driven on before.

And it was. But then my GPS lagged and we missed the exit that would have taken us sweetly and peacefully from the nice twinned highway to the brewery. 

I still thought we might be okay, because I have a terrible head for directions and we were going a way I hadn't gone before, and then suddenly I realized what was happening, and I was aghast but I pretended to be calm for Eve's sake. Because where we were going was onto the absolutely bonkers five-lane highway going west where I used to drive Angus to work out three times a week - you come in on the left and have to get over five lanes to get off at the next exit. (When we told Angus about this, his eyebrows flew up and then he absolutely guffawed, sort of sympathetically).

This was TERRIBLE. I just kept saying "it's fine, you'll be fine, just take your time." She signaled and started to move over into the next line and some asshole SPED UP into the lane and honked at her, because we were suddenly in a FUCKING NIGHTMARE, I'm surprised we both still had clothes on. 

So we didn't die, and then she still had to get over four more lanes, and then she pulled over into a Holiday Inn parking lot and I drove us home.

Possibly the funniest part was when she came to me later that night and said "okay, I have to ask, not that I don't trust you.... did you do that on purpose?" And I had to assure her that it was completely down to my incompetence, not my deceitfulness. 

On the up side, driving to Brockville was a walk in the park, and her test can't possibly be more harrowing than that beer run.

Okay. Is this post too long? Did it need a picture? Do you want to report me to the Children's Aid or the Ministry of Transportation? 

Cottage Cheese (and Whine)

There are times when I don't blog because I can't think of anything to blog about. There are other times - most times, these days - when I have a surfeit of stuff (of varying degrees of important and interest to anyone other than me) to blog about, and I just can't make myself plant my ass and move my fingers in order to actually blog it. So imma just ramble for a bit.

So I'm a school librarian, which means I'm off for the summer, and I fully realize how churlish it seems to position this as anything other than great good fortune, WHICH IT IS. But those last couple of weeks are extremely chaotic and physically demanding, since the classes are generally done and we are moving books and shelves to get the library ready for the summer, which sometimes involves summer school happening, which means we wrap all the shelves in multiple layers of dollar-store tablecloth so they don't get destroyed as they have in the past. I do this with my partner librarian, so it's fun and different, but also really hard on my hands (crippling carpal tunnel, desperately need surgery but keep putting it off because I don't want to be handless for six weeks).

So we were invited to our friends' cottage for Canada Day weekend, and there was food to prepare, and there were going to be 18 people at a cottage with one bathroom, and the water is a ten-minute steep switchback walk down the cliff (and then back up again), and we were going to hang out with Eve's friends and their moms Friday night before leaving Saturday, and it was all fun stuff that I wanted to do, and yet I was exhausted and overwhelmed and my hands were swollen and numb or aching, and I didn't necessarily want to do it NOW. But I also didn't want to say no and just sleep all weekend and then feel guilty and lame, which I totally would.

So I talked to Matt, and we decided we wouldn't rush to get there super early on Saturday, we would sleep late and get organized and get there around dinner, since we were staying until Monday. I prepared the food on Friday before we went to Marianna's, and we obviously had the most wonderful time with the friends and the moms.

 And somewhere around my third glass of sangria I exhaled and figured that everything would be okay. I just read Sarah's post about not treating a gift like a burden, which I feel every so slight pushback against, because I completely understand that these problems are first world problems (woe is me, cottaging is so stressful, how will I prepare french toast casserole for twenty, where is my fainting divan?) and I always strive to complain with perspective, but ignoring my mental state has never gone well for me, so I have to acknowledge the burden (it's me, you guys, the burden is me) while maintaining my view of the gift.

Somehow I miraculously drank just enough that I fell asleep and slept really well and not enough to be hung over. And we got up and packed (mostly Matt packed while I moved small things around and tried not to get sweaty) and we got there and of course it was amazing.

It was Michael's fiftieth birthday, so Collette made a target with multiple pictures of him on it for the pellet rifle and the slingshot.

"How lovely to sit on my deck and have a great view of people shooting me in the face", he said.

There was some paddle boarding, from tentative

to absolute baller

The septic system did briefly rebel on Sunday morning, but the weather, despite promising to be wretched, turned out perfect, so the cottage never felt overly crowded, and it was basically as fantastic as you would imagine being at a cottage with seventeen of your favourite people would be. With sun and water and board games and music and a lot of laughing and cheese - so much cheese. 

(and a turtle)

And now I feel like summer has properly begun, AND both my children are home for July.