Even the dog didn’t sleep all night
The dog doesn’t like sleeping in strange rooms. I know this, after a restless couple of hours of listening to the polyrhythms of four paws worth of claws on wooden floors. In resignation, I went forth into the foggy dark of an Island night, and I put the dog in the van. Out of sight, out of mind. And then I slept until sunrise.
We’re in a cottage with a bridge view, if the haze lifts, and we’ve seen a trained precision team of high speed lawn mowers reduce acres of grassland to a lawn, and then leave in a convoy for who knows where. When you are in a new place, you watch whatever show is presented in the centre ring. No boats, though. The ocean is just there, with that amazing single horizon line that is absent in the city.
The siren call of the city. By noontime we were on the road to a feast of cheap burgers and root beer before two thirds of the crew went to the opening of the new Harry Potter flick. Not the first screening, as that happened around midnight, but certainly the first presentation for the muggles of the world. I, on the other hand, headed off to campus where I voluntarily paid for 45 minutes of metered parking and then spent 145 minutes visiting the library. Turns out that I know an unusual percentage of the librarians, even after thirty years of non-student status.
I ran across the person who taught me how to lay out a newspaper. She had moved to the other side of the world after graduation, and it was only by chance that I heard she had come back to the shelter of the campus library. Is there such a thing as a prodigal librarian? Anyhow, it was neat to recall some of the moments that could have seen us arrested for treason or some similar crime against the state. Yes, even small school newspapers can anger the big wigs from time to time.
Our family meal was in a new seafood restaurant on University Avenue, Brit’s Fish N Chips. The quality was decent, and the quantity was bountiful. We ordered a family meal which included side dishes of mushy peas, a single dinner roll, gravy and curried coleslaw. The presentation on a very large platter was a first for me, and we didn’t come close to clearing the pile. If you have to feed a small army, this might be the shop for you.
I played a Neil Gaiman short story for the others this evening (the only audio book I have at hand). I don’t think it was an expected writing style.
