Navigating
this instalment
of the
Cottage Diary:
Back and Forth... continued
(An instalment in the Diary of an Inheritance series
...being Part 4 of the 2004 segment.)
August 10, 2004 (continued)
Repeat after me: “I am no longer sixteen!”
A cottage like ours requires a certain amount of fitness and agility, and as we enter into our senior years, our lack of these qualities sometimes hits us forcefully.
For example, two or three days after we had arrived for this year’s vacation, I did a simple errand over at the landing (getting something from the car, I believe), and got back into the Jack Aubrey with all the speed and vigour of a young man. You know: step from dock onto centre seat of boat, then, remaining vertical, step down to the floor and take your place by the motor, all in one swift, fluid motion!
Right.
Boats move when you step into them! My confident, youthful step quickly turned into a bottoms-up tumble which left me sprawled breathless and in excruciating pain at the bottom of the boat.
Rolling up the leg of my jeans revealed an enormous swelling on my shin, bruised and bleeding. It hurt for days, then got ugly and infected. A month later, after daily washing and the application of antibiotic ointment, it was still visible (although itchy, rather than painful).
Heather had not fared much better. Her boat-entering skills are not good at the best of times, and the cottage presents her with many other opportunities for twisted ankles, bruised shins, and similar indignities. As we trudged over the hill on this “Back & Forth” day, we both carried several trophies of our frailty on our bodies, and – with the labour of the uphill walk now preventing us even from speaking – we were acutely conscious of the fact that age had thoroughly settled upon us.
Back (8)
Once more at the landing, we carefully entered the boat. The battery, having had a good rest, was willing to power us yet again, and we moved slowly out into the lake. Moments later, we heard my brother Tim calling to us from the opposite shore:
“Tony! The surveyors phoned! They’ll be at the gate any minute!”
Forth (9)
I turned the boat around and made for the landing again. Of course I couldn’t drive over the hill to the gate, because the fireplace installers’ truck was still blocking my car. So Heather decided to wait down by the landing while, on foot, I made my third trip of the day over the hill to the gate.
The hill which had just been reminding us we are no longer sixteen!
And as I trudged upwards, it began to rain.
Not much, just a pitter, then a patter. But I had no rain gear with me, and I did not relish standing in the forest in the rain waiting who knows how long for the surveyors’ car to pull up!
There was nothing to do but grin and bear it, so I plodded faithfully up the hill, and down the hill, and eventually came to the gate.
Nobody there yet.
So, I waited.
And waited.
It rained a little more. Mosquitoes came and had a bite (they like rain). I swatted and paced. And waited.
No surveyors. Fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, and still they didn’t come.
What if they had gone to our lake’s second access road, and were waiting all this time for me down there? Unfortunately that gate was a good distance from where I stood (at least half a mile). If I started to walk over there, the surveyors might show up at the correct gate while I was on my way!
Not for the first time did I regret allowing the fireplace installers to block my car!
Nor could I risk walking back over the hill to the landing, even though there might be news of another phone call from the surveyors, or at the least an opportunity to phone them!
So, I just stood there, in the gently falling rain, and waited. A car came along once, but it wasn’t them.
Then I heard the sound of another vehicle coming down the road, and a “Sport Utility Vehicle” full of men slowed to look at me quizzically (as I stood there looking wet).
“Est vous les arpenteurs de Madore, Tousignant?” I called out (‘are you the surveyors from Madore, Tousignant?’)
They were.
A jumbled mix of French and English followed in which it emerged that they had indeed been waiting all this time at the wrong gate, and had given up. I let them through the gate, then they made room for me in the vehicle (one of the men had to sit in the very back with all the equipment), and we drove over the hill to the landing. There we found Diana (Heather’s sister), who had come across the lake having borrowed the keys to the fireplace installers’s truck. I was instructed to move it, so the two women could get at our car, and carry out their plan of driving to Montreal.
Obediently, I moved the truck, and they left.
Back (10)
Now with nothing but trucks parked at the landing, the surveyors and I loaded all their gear into the Jack Aubrey.
Did I mention that the boat’s battery was completely run down? And that it is about a quarter mile across the lake from landing to cottage?
Hoping there might be some recovered power in the battery (after the long wait), I put the motor in the water and turned it on.
Nothing.
Envisage an aluminum boat full of men and equipment, floating aimlessly not far from shore, with the men all rearranging themselves so the white-haired old gent could take out the oars and begin to row. The surveyors found this hugely funny, and I think said some things at my expense in French.
One good thing: the rain had stopped. However, the sky remained grey and threatening. Indeed the surveyors expressed some concern that they would not be able to complete their work. Evidently they are technicians, in the employ of the actual registered surveyors, and it is in their contract that if it rains, they don't have to slog through dripping forests. Besides it might damage the equipment.
The new fireplace
Forth (11)
The fireplace installers had completed their work. While the surveyors unloaded the boat, I was given a quick primer in how to use my new, state-of-the-art heater. Indeed it looked really nice (a month later it proved its worth many times over when I returned to the cottage on my sabbatical!).
I turned to the survey team to give them their instructions, and the fireplace guys began carrying their tools and gear down to the boat.
The surveyors headed off into the woods, and once more I got into the Jack Aubrey. I didn’t bother to try the motor. Out came the oars, and for the eleventh time this day I made the trip across the lake. Then, riding with Mark and Steve in their truck, I made my fourth trip to the gate, unlocked it, waved goodbye, re-locked the gate, and then trudged wearily back over the hill to the landing.
Back (12)
Stroke... stroke... stroke... stroke... I rowed the boat the quarter mile across to the cottage as the rain began once more.
The surveyor team could be heard calling to one another and crashing about in the woods, so I went to them and observed the planting of the stakes which will delineate our property for many years to come. It was raining steadily now, but still comparatively dry under the forest canopy. They worked quickly and efficiently, and ran laughing into my cabin with all their precious gear just as the heavens opened. The work they had come to do was finished on time.
I offered coffee and food, and they sat around my table for a while chatting amiably in French and English. There was no way any of us wished to cross the lake in what was now happening outside. A wall of water poured down upon the lake, interspersed with thunder and lightning. Go out in an open boat in that? No way!
Forth (13)
But, multilingual conversation among strangers has a way of petering out, and soon we were checking outside to see if the trip to the landing was safe. Finally, with expensive equipment wrapped in plastic, and my own poncho loaned to the youngest team member (who had not brought rain gear), we set out on the lake. The thunder was only a distant rumble, but the rain was still coming down pretty vigorously as I started the quarter mile row one more time. Soon I was soaked to the skin. One of the men bailed water while I struggled at the oars.
Over the hill, unlock the gate, wave goodbye, lock the gate and walk like a shell-shocked trench weary infantryman back up the steep incline, down to the landing, and into the boat one last time.
Back (14)
The last journey across to the cottage was slow and painful and wet, but otherwise uneventful. When Heather and Diana returned from Montreal later on, they came across in Diana’s boat. I did not stir.
Next: Last Night at the Lake... for now – click here to continue.