Beaver:
Congratulations on being free of University - for a while!

I was back to my ever-so-cluttered friends' home yesterday and suggested someone else set things aside. Ralph deflected that idea in his own gentle fashion. Amazingly, the yard is only slightly cluttered and they have specific plans for that - maybe this year.Clearly the yard is higher priority than the house.

We were each able to sit down in the LR, with piles of stuff everywhere else. For me, there was no direction in which to look that was not painfully cluttered. I deliberately arrived late enough that it was time to leave for the B-day party within minutes. Someday, G's son will have an awful job on his hands.

In a marvellously uncluttered home by a lovely river on a cold rainy day about 135 people helped Hope celebrate 80 years. Amazing woman owns a catamaran in Fiji - which she visited again last year. I am slightly daunted by thinking of a trip to Whidbey(west coast) in the fall.Conversations with 4 different interesting women got me through the aft. Broke fast with 2 home made choc chip cookies which did a sugar number on me. Humous and chips I had taken saved me, and 3 shortcake (high fat to subdue the sugar). Well, that was lunch and I only had 3 T of sunflower seeds for eve snack. Had to bring in the veg plants.

I remember Hope's flat in Toronto as wonderfully uncluttered 20 years ago; I wonder...

Hand washed some socks and underwear today. Had to start a fire last night and keep it going all day - cold and grey. Threw pots, went to the tearoom for soup and a scone for lunch (trying a fast today), then to the Old Hastings Gallery and Mercantile and Lillian bought a few more small pots. We had a long chat. Then home to bring in more wood -DARN! Considered more potting but succumbed to late afternoon, care of shoulders and trying to maintain fasting since yesterday was shot.

The house is as good as it gets until things move to the next level. Constant transition.

Maggie: oldormsbyschoolhouse.ca is where I went for soup. A marvellous restored one room school to tearoom - exquisitely done. Original pressed tin ceiling and walls, oak wainscoting, lovingly stripped of paint, chalkboards, teacher's desk.... The Mercantile, across the road, was a general store.