It's the Solstice and what are we doing? Stacking our two plus cords of almond, walnut, and locust firewood for the coming winter. We're rich I tells ya, rich. We bought it early because it was on sale (2 cords unstacked $750), and we were given some because Grandpa Walt can't stand the thought of his underweight heir freezing his wee baws off.
It is nearly 100 degrees today.
Having burnt firewood since moving here in '98, I can tell that this is good stuff. It's dry, split, and comes in different shapes and sizes. We've got enough that I can keep a fire going 24/7 if I want.
It being close to the end of June, my thoughts turn to our annual holiday. We're going to Europe. It'll be 2 nights Amsterdam, 4 nights Brussels (for the Belgian Beer Weekend, baby!), 6 nights Paris, and 4 nights in Banyuls (on the Spanish border, Mediterranean side) with Paul and Sheila Doherty. Paul and Sheila are retired English friends whom we met in Hong Kong. They are the parents of Mark, one of our Hong Kong gang. We had the miles for all of us to fly free. Matt REALLY DID NOT want to do the Ride Across Iowa (you cycle through all these small towns and town folk feed you food sold from their front porches), so he lobbied for finally getting to the Beer Festival.
Considering that I will probably be on my ass for a fair bit of this early winter recouping from whatever surgery is coming, Europe will be a bit of a last hurrah for 2007. Stinky cheese and and tripe and geuze and lambics here I come! I'm hoping to pick up the last William Boyd novel for the trip.
The hostels, flats, and hotels are booked (Jesus God, Amsterdam is expensive. Our double room in a houseboat hostel is running 120 euros). The true sign that we've hit middle age and middle class is that I bought travel insurance. Bloody hell. End of an era.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment