Four Swans A Swimming

December on the Lake

An unusual morning, as I awoke at 8:00, a miracle to sleep in this late, the sky gray though not as threatening as yesterday.  Evie spotted four swans in the lake, two large white ones, two darker colored females as well.  I stayed up late last night, reading Julian Barnes THE SENSE OF AN ENDING.  It won the Booker Prize recently, a slight novel but compelling, wonderfully written, filled with interesting enough insights that I found myself picking up a pencil to mark passages I wanted to remember.  This has not happened in a while.

Last night was quite windy, lots of twigs and branches down in the backyard, though nothing major, but it did knock over my cairn.  It looks like I will have to get out my rake, clean up the mess as long as it does not rain.   It's much cooler today, 32 degrees with the possibility of snow tonight and this weekend, most likely flurries.  We head to Virginia on Monday, to spend Christmas with my daughter Jill Bissell and her family, something we have done for the last couple of years.  We cannot wait to see them, especially the girls, as we have not seen them since August.

Tonight, we are meeting some old acquaintances, the Heils, for dinner at Olives in the Chautauqua Suites Hotel, in Mayville.  We used to see them at Bud's, became friends, but have seen them only once or twice in the past twenty years, probably because we rarely go out to eat anymore because we enjoy our home so much.

Last night Evie made an Indian dish called Saag Panneer, a spicy spinach dish with small browned squares of paneer cheese mixed in, quite good and a different way to do spinach.  We both enjoy Indian food and are trying various recipes to see what we like.  We watched the Debate for about 45 minutes until I could take it no longer and went up to read.

Today, Evie will be making Xmas cookies for the girls to decorate; she already has some chocolate covered peanut butter/rice krispies made for Jill's husband Drew, who loves that combination.  It feels invigorating out side, cool and crispy, so we are planning a nice long walk around 11:00