“Not to worry, we’re still flying half a ship!” - Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
Boy, doesn’t it feel like that about 30 minutes before you head off on vacation! Hurry, rush, oh yeah, don’t forget…
We were gone to the Great White North (at least it is during the non-summer months) all last week, mooching on my friend’s generosity. Having a cabin, uhm cottage, well actually more of a pre-retirement home seven hours from where we live is a wonderful thing to have, in case you’re wondering. Because it’s so far from here and because she and her husband can’t be there all the time, she is kind enough to lend it out to friends and family whenever it’s sitting empty.
Four hours into the drive I remembered something vital. We never picked up the key. Oh crap. Oh no. Oh dear. Oh hell.
We stopped at a payphone and couldn’t get a hold of anyone. At all. Anywhere. So we continued driving. In silence. Thinking. Not speaking. Listening to our book on tape. Very. Very quietly. Ultimately, we stopped in at the nearest town and bought one of those pay-as-you-go mobile phones (yes, we are one of those families) and eventually (5.5 hours into the trip) reached our friend. There was a key hidden on the property. Oh, yes, yes, yes. That saved us from having to:
- a) break a window to get in (Hello, officer with a drawn gun on foreign island);
- b) having the key over-nighted to us on the weekend (Hello, frightfully expensive delivery man on a foreign island); and/or
- c) renting a room for an unknown number of nights (Hello, unbelievably expensive B&B operator on equally unbelievably expensive foreign island).
Danger averted, we were able to enjoy the fact that we had roped MT, their Mom and their Dad into sailing in to visit with us for a few days, which was so nice after two months of their absence. We watched silly movies, chatted, played outside, fished (the guys anyway), picked raspberries and blackberries, and finally got to see their boat. It’s pretty (and pretty cramped with 3 more people on it). Having a car that only seats 5, we were somewhat limited in what we could do, but it worked out in the end with a bit of ferrying back and forth.
After they started the sail back home, we visited a cool archaeological site, read, hung out in the village, paddled around the island, napped, went back into the village for ice cream, read some more, had breakfast at our favorite restaurant, went shopping in the village, slept in the hammock, watched a part of a local race, rode bikes, read even more, and just generally relaxed away from responsibilities and distractions of daily life. Padawan Learner even took a three hour nap one day. This does not happen. OK, he had a pretty good migraine going, but it was a nap none-the-less.
But… we’re back to the normal routine again. The contractor called today, they’re starting tomorrow on the home improvements. Time to get those plants cut back before they get destroyed. Padawan Learner’s trampoline class begins next week already. Hmm, how are we going to get out there without the car? Our normal homeschooling schedule starts up in three weeks (*cough* no progress on the timeline yet).
I hope we can get back again this fall. I miss our little island already.
