No beach time until the tourists go home and parking at the beach is free again. But I walked yesterday in South Cemetery in Portsmouth and today on my way home from the Nottingham Farmers' Market, I stopped and talked to my up-the-hill neighbor. She pointed out that there's a path around her five acre field that I'm welcome to use -- and she'll walk with me. She also showed me where the mound of well composted goat manure is so I can start schlepping it down the hill to use in the restoration of the flower bed on the deck side of the house (that was destroyed when they dug up the buried fuel tank in 2011).

I've also got to check out (meaning just go and walk it!) the Nottingham Woods Trail just down the road from me off from the soccer field. I was reminded Thursday morning that my knees REALLY object to my walking on pavement. So the gravel part of the road (avoiding the killer paved hill directly outside my driveway) is an option, along with the trail, the field path, and cemeteries (which I used to spend so much time in but haven't had the time for way too many years). And the beach, of course, when it becomes ours again.

Today I got a lot of stuff rearranged in the cellar to make life easier for the plumber on Wednesday. Also culled more metal to sell and bagged some more trash. The nice thing is I can actually SEE the difference I'm making. I really need to post an ad for the fermenter on Craig's List; I already have a digital photo of it somewhere, I think.

Friday night I got reintroduced to a couple of Tom's editors from the Portsmouth Herald back in the '90s. They're no longer at the Herald (and at least one of them is no longer in an editorial position), but they both were very encouraging of my writing projects and agree that Tom's antiques columns coupled with the antiques-as-investments articles he wrote for a financial newsletter would make a good book with minimal editing.

I think I need to go eat something before it gets too late and go empty the kitchen compost before it gets much darker. Then I have to go upstairs, shower the cellar grunge off myself and rip out the strips between quilt squares so they'll be ready to block before Tuesday morning.

Linn