These blogs lately are NOT great.  Apologies.  Some days are ordinary.  Still perfect bliss in paradise but ordinary perfect bliss, if you know what I mean.

Which reminds me of an Amazon book review last year By Lisa on February 5, 2016 of our book….”…….and sometime life is boring. Slow moving book, sometimes I would just put it down because I couldn’t stand it anymore. Other times it was interesting. I just kept telling myself that this was a real life story, and sometime life is boring.”

And, as painful as it was at the time, she is right.  Sometimes life is boring and slow moving.  Mind you, I am becoming more and more slow moving all the time so that may portend for a lot more boredom to come.  Hard to say…..so let’s try on yesterday.…..

By late morning we had contacted our neighbours up the coast and gotten their requests. We were headed over to the other island to pick up a few things for us and them.  They needed milk.  It was to be a quick trip. I was also gonna ‘check out’ a jeep to buy for the community.  Some of our even-slower and older area dwellers were having a hard time getting from the dock to the community centre so I was looking for a cheap 4×4 to buy as a community gift. I figured I could get one for $1000.00.  Plus we needed some lumber to make the railings for the lower deck.  That’s a bit overdue given the guest schedule.  And Sal wanted to pick up enough ‘dairy’ to tide us over til our next town trip.

So, off we go in the boat.  And the day is just beautiful.  Windy, sunny and full of life.  The trip alone was a delight.

We cart some glass recyclables from the boat to the ramp, I get the car and we load up and head out along the logging road.  Lots of traffic as the tourists come to hike the woods at the end-of-the-road trails.  All with packsacks, hiking boots, shorts, ‘swooshes’ on things and floppy hats.  They are a cute but too abundant subspecies in summer.

Can’t find the old jeep.  We look.  It’s not there.  So, we take the recyclables in.  NEW sign at the depot: NO glass.  “WE DO NOT ACCEPT GLASS.”  Which is odd, don’t you think? There are 12 separate bins.  None for glass.

So, we head to the store and they take the bottles but, in the meantime, we see friends. Twenty minutes later, we all go about our business.  I go the bookstore, “Oh, good to see you.  We’ve sold out of your book.  Can I have ten more?”  And fifteen minutes later after chatting and signing and generally ‘being a local author for the few tourist-customers in the store’, I leave.  Sal had been busy talking with another person she knew.

Went to the lumber store.  Talked politics with the owner for the time it took to buy and load 8 two-bys.  Then a few minutes with another neighbour who was next in line but in no hurry. And then off we went.  “At this rate we won’t get home today!” 

Went shopping for the less-than-two bags of groceries but that took an hour because of Paul, Gloria, Doug, Tina and Sherri.  All encountered in different parts of the tiny store.  And ten minutes later, Paul again.  He came back for more.

And then we went down the road for an ice cream cone and met Paul for a third time.

By the time we got back to our boat, we had encountered Karen and her friend as well.

Loaded, we cast off, delivered the milk to nearby people and headed over to our beach. Sal jumped off the bow of the bobbing boat, went up the ramp and sent the lower funicular into the sea.  I tied up the boat to the lowered cart, unloaded the lumber and groceries and left while Sal lifted 300 pounds by funicular up an elevation of twenty feet or so, transferred the load to the next lift and took that it all up another 80 feet.  We’d been gone almost six hours.

Like I said, ‘not great’ story-telling or even ranting but that was our day, the busy part of the day, anyway.  The rest of the day was easier.  Slower.  MORE relaxing.  That is life for us out here. That, and marveling over the cucumbers Sal has grown, feeding the Ravens, drinking wine and well, I had a nap…….

A day in the life, eh?