Observations from the cottage and my life…

Pet Peeves, Cottage Style…

I love being a cottage owner.  Spending time at the cottage energizes and revitalizes me.  Spending so much time outside has reconnected me to the outdoorsy girl that I was as a child.  I love reading my book on the rock, listening to the water slosh against the shore and watching my hummingbirds fight for time at the feeder.  It refreshes me and restores me, enabling me to face the challenges of life when I am away from the cottage.  My cottage experience is all about the downtime; relaxing, taking in the nature around me, breathing fresh air, cooling off in the river and spending precious, stress-free time with family and friends.

I understand that not everyone has the same view of cottage life.  I can accept that others find their ‘zen’ in a different way.  While I appreciate that others are not like me, it frustrates me when their cottage fun disrupts my own.

Case in point…each summer we have different groups renting the cottage next door, weekly.  These groups usually come in on Friday evening and leave mid-day the following Friday unless they’ve just rented the cottage for the weekend.  For the most part, these temporary cottagers are respectful of the cottagers around them.  Sometimes, though, we get the opposite.

Anyone who knows us well has likely heard about our first morning at our cottage.  Seems like a long time ago now.  The story illustrates the negatives with having a rental cottage next door.  For weeks after we signed the deal to purchase our cottage, Kevin and I had talked about how excited we were to enjoy our first cup of coffee, on our own dock, on the first morning after we took possession.  We had talked about it so much that expectations were high!

Moving day came and went and we, with the help of our kids and their friends, lugged all of our stuff down the hill.  By that night, we all fell into bed, exhausted. We didn’t hear our rental neighbours move in next door.

Bright and early Saturday morning, I nudged Kevin and we both got up.  It was 7 a.m.  I got the coffee ready and we headed out, ready to start the day from our new dock.  Two steps out the back door and we heard splashing followed closely by lots of loud, foul language. Shocked, we proceeded to the dock and found a stranger sitting on the end of it.  We looked at each other.

Soaking wet and swearing, our stranger stood and approached Kevin, apologizing.  Our stranger was likely 6 feet tall, clothed from head to toe in black leather and metal spikes.  He had jet black hair, jet black eyeliner that was now dripping down his face and tall black leather boots.  He had a hoop piercing his nose and his upper lip.  This was not the wildlife we had hoped to encounter on our first cottage morning!  Keep in mind that at this point we did not know that the cottage next door was a rental.  We thought we were meeting our new neighbours!

The stranger proceeded to tell us that he and his punk band were renting the cottage next door.  I asked politely if we would have ever heard of his band, thinking it was very unlikely given that I listened to our local country station.

Our stranger went on to explain that the guys in his band had all met while being tested at a ‘clinic’ in Toronto.  Apparently, they had all dated the same girl and chances were that she had shared something bad with all of them!

As we stood, mouths open, eyes wide, listening to our new friend, he proceeded to begin pulling soaking wet stuff out of the pockets of his leather pants, cellphone included, which he promptly threw into the river after some more colourful language.  That was about the time that the stranger’s bandmates came around the corner of our cottage, in search of their leader.  It was an eclectic group!  All similarly dressed and all speaking the same vulgar language.

Our first week in the cottage was not quite as peaceful as we had anticipated.  We had front row seats to drunken, stoned, belligerent and destructful behaviour.  I can’t imagine the damage that the rental cottage had inside.  While we were trying to enjoy our first campfire that night, we were privy to public urination, cursing and much vomiting.  While stoned and drunk the band decided to try and climb the tv antenna on their rental cottage…it did not turn out well… they ended up in a heap on the ground and the antenna ended up ripped from the side of the cottage.

Suffice it to say, it was an interesting week!

Going back to work the following week, Kevin told his co-worker’s about the excitement at the cottage.  It was quiet at the office that Monday, so they decided to ‘google’ the band.    They were surprised to find out that the ‘stranger’ we had met on that first morning, had been non-other than the self-proclaimed, illegitimate son of one of the Beatles!

Thank fully this experience has been the exception to the rule.  However, a few of our experiences have been bad enough that each friday we worry, just a little bit, about who we will encounter!

Some of our suggestions for our would-be rental neighbours …

• If you are from the city and you and your children can’t swim or have never been in a canoe, perhaps it is a bad idea to get in said canoe, in a river with a strong current, and try and learn as you go, especially with your kids in the boat. Inevitably, something falls from the canoe- people or paddles- each equally as dangerous!  We keep a long rope  and a long handled fishing net handy on our dock and have on many occasions fished people, paddles, bottles, lifejackets, etc from the water.
• Never let your canoe or kayak or paddleboat float down stream with the current before you see if you can paddle or peddle against the current! It is a long walk back and your boat will be heavy!
• If you bring your own boat to your rental cottage, be sure to drive slowly on your first trip up or down our river. It is very shallow in some areas!
• Don’t dismantle the rental cottage BBQ in the hopes of making it work ‘better’! If you don’t heed this advice- stand back when you light it and don’t put a $20 steak on a grill when the flames are shooting 6 feet high! (yes, this actually happened…it was this same group that asked us how to cook a potato in the microwave!)
• Not everyone on the river enjoys your music. Please keep it down! When I can’t hear my music and I am in my cottage with the windows closed, there is a problem!  I love music but when you have three or four cottages in a small area blasting music, it tends to irritate the neighbours!
• If you enjoy the nature experience enough to rent a cottage, please respect the nature around you – don’t throw beer bottles and cans in our river. Don’t leave food and garbage out and around the cottage. We do have bears in the area and they will visit you!
• Speaking of wildlife…please do not let your dog roam unsupervised! Our bedroom window is low and close to the ground. I woke up one morning early enough that it was still dark, hearing heavy breathing at our window… I panicked thinking it was either a bear or a pervert!  Our dog then proceeded to wake everyone up, barking at the unknown animal outside.  The culprit… a black lab! We found out later that day that he was from a rental cottage across the river!  It had swum across the river and couldn’t get back.
• Remember there are families in the cottages around you. Children like to sleep and don’t need to be awoken in the middle of the night by your screaming, your fireworks, your profanity, or your ambulance siren!  One weekend last summer, we had renters next door that worked for a plumbing company from the city.  This particular plumbing company used old ambulances as their work vehicles.  We woke to the ambulance siren and swirling red lights over and over one night, until 3am, when we finally had had enough and called the police.
• Don’t have so many drinks that you don’t know which cottage you’ve rented! You may be in for a surprise when you wonder into the neighbour’s cottage with your pillow, looking for your bed. Yes, this also happened to us – the lady that wandered into our place got a shock when she was greeted by my naked husband!  She was appreciative when he donned some clothes to escort her back to her cottage!

I don’t mean to give all cottager renters a bad rap.  We have had some great experiences!  We’ve had new neighbours who brought us some freshly caught and fried up fish.  We’ve had young  renters come over to visit us in the morning, apologizing for being too loud the night before. These are usually the people that haven’t really been all that loud in the first place!  One such group came over apologetically and offered to make us breakfast!

We’ve had the pleasure of sharing our little piece of heaven with people from all different places and backgrounds.  It is amazing how friendly people can be when you are fishing them or their children from the river!

Blink…and you are there; that birthday that just a few short years ago seemed really far away; that age that seemed so very old when you were twenty. Fifty.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and no, I am not writing this in an effort to get lots of birthday wishes, though they are nice, and yes they’ll help to make this birthday easier. It is not so much this birthday that I am having a hard time with as much as it’s about how fast these past 50 years have gone. How did I get here so quickly?

A very wise man (yes, Kevin I am talking about you!) this week told me that it is a good thing that the time has gone quickly. After my initial shock and the look I gave him that plainly said, “You are nuts”, he went on to explain. “It’s a sign that you are enjoying your life. A sign that things are good and you are happy. Nobody who is miserable wishes that time would slow down for them”. Hmmm… very true… a wise man, indeed. All of which is fine and dandy except that I still feel like I was twenty yesterday!

I remember back in grade school- yes, I can remember that far back- being taught about time. Our teacher had us do personal time-lines. We plotted our lives on a simple linear graph. All of our life experiences, to that date, became notches along that straight line. This morning as I am thinking about time and the passage of it, I couldn’t help but wonder what my time-line looks like now. It certainly hasn’t been a straight line! I think of all the milestones passed, all of the happy occasions- weddings and births; all of the sad events- deaths and disappointments. I realize how blessed I am. On my time line, there have been more of the happy and less of the sad.

In my continued discussion with Kevin about the passage of time, he questioned me. “You do realize, that time hasn’t actually gone fast? Time is time- it is not fast or slow. It just is.” To which, I gave him my ‘I’m not a total idiot’ eye-roll. Of course I realize that my time has not gone faster than anyone else’s. “However”, I philosophized, “My perception is my reality. To me, especially today, I feel time passing very quickly”.

You cannot think about and analyze time without thinking about and analyzing missed opportunities and the correctness of the decisions you’ve made along the way. I’ve decided that my time line won’t measure my mistakes-realistically, there likely isn’t enough space! Instead, my timeline will record the lessons I’ve learned along the way. Many times I’ve made several mistakes before said lesson was learned!

Time is defined in the Oxford dictionary as “the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole”. A few observations about this definition:

Indefinite– yeah, right! I know, through experience, that my time will not be indefinite. I’ve been to too many funerals to believe that.

Continued progress– I hope so! I hope that throughout this new phase of my life I will continue to progress; to learn new things, to have new experiences and to see new places. At this juncture of my life, I have lots of plans. I want to learn to play the guitar. I want to take some art lessons. I want to finish the two books I have started. Kevin and I have lots of places left on our bucket list of travel destinations. I want to spend quality time with my Sister. There are people I have yet to meet and maybe someday grandchildren to know and to love. There are a few years left of work and I hope to make a contribution there and enjoy it at the same time. There are disappointments and mistakes I have yet to make and big lessons I have yet to learn.

According to Oxford, time includes your past, your present and your future. I can’t do anything about my past, except to maybe accept it and move on. My present, I do have control over; not so much the stuff swirling and happening around me, but my reaction to it. That is one of those hard-faught lessons I’ve learned from many, many mistakes. I can’t control what you or anyone else does or says but I can control how I let it affect me. Of course, I am not a master at this yet! It is something I hope to improve upon in my future.

Regarded as a Whole-My life, my time-line, my past, present and future is my ‘whole’.  This ‘whole’ is not all there is, however. I said above that my life is not indefinite. This is true. I will, one day, hopefully a long time from now, die. What I hope will be indefinite, is the essence of me. I hope I will live on in the memories of my children and god-willing, someday, my grandchildren. Maybe even a few of these words that I have written over the years, will linger. I hope, in this way, my time-line will go on for a very long time, maybe off of this page and onto the next.

So, tomorrow I am 50. I will work hard to embrace it, even celebrate it. Like my wise man said, “Time is time- it is not fast or slow. It just is.” As I’ve said many times in the past few weeks…’age is just a number’. It doesn’t define me. Somehow, fifty seems way younger and healthier to me now than it did when I was twenty and twenty year olds seem way younger, too. Go figure…

I have a stuffed heart that hangs from the rear view mirror in my car that has the caption “Dream Big”. It is a happy meal toy that I picked up on one of my trips through the McDonald’s drive through! It seems silly to keep it hanging in the car but I’ve left it there because it helps to remind me of the importance of dreams.

I am approaching a milestone birthday in a few weeks…the big 5-0! I’ve started to re-evaluate things. This afternoon while driving in the car during my lunch break, and no, I wasn’t going to McDonalds, I noticed my Dream Big stuffy and I started to think.

When I was younger my big dream was to have a big family, a big house, financial security, a big career and a nice car. ‘Dreaming big’ back then meant striving for stuff.

My big family vision turned into a neat little family of four. When I was a young mother with two small children under three and a husband that had to travel for work, my family seemed huge and overwhelming at times! Over the years, my small family has given me big joy, big worries, lots of support and most of all, contentment.

I never did get my big house. I remember when the kids were young and we had just purchased our first home, which incidentally is the same house Kevin and I live in now, I overheard one of my relatives saying that our “little house was perfect for our little family”. At the time, I was insulted and embarrassed by the remark. It reminded me that the house didn’t fit with my ‘dream big’ vision for my family home.  Back then, I was much more conscious of what people thought of me. I smile when I think it about it now. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that our little house has been perfect for our little family. In fact, the house does not seem so small now. Our little house is bursting with the memories that we’ve built along the way. In fact, since the kids have now grown and left the nest, the house seems much too big!

When I dreamt of financial security way back then, it looked something like this; a huge bank balance, designer clothes, expensive cars and lots of spending money. Well, our bank balance has never been ‘huge’ but we have been lucky enough to keep a roof over our heads and food on our table. We’ve enjoyed our life. It wasn’t always easy and we struggled. We lost count of the number of times, in the early days, that we consolidated our debts at the bank. We worked hard and we worked together for the good of our family. We’ve rarely had designer clothes unless you count the odd pair of brand name jeans (are levis still fashionable?) and nike running shoes. We’ve been lucky enough to afford a few new cars along the way. We’ve never had lots of spending money. We have had a much worked and fine-tuned budget and a weekly cash allowance. We’ve made it work.

No, I didn’t end up being the high–powered, important, marketing executive that I once dreamed of. I am not famous for the job I do. However, for the most part, I’ve enjoyed the work that I’ve done throughout my work life; fork truck driver, child care provider, marketing director, financial planner’s associate. The times I’ve been unhappy in my work, I’ve been grateful to have a husband that has supported me in changing jobs. I’ve had the pleasure of building relationships with clients and feeling like I’ve made a difference on occasion. Being high-powered and important is over rated. My much smaller career has allowed me to spend valuable time with my family and my friends. My much smaller career has helped provide for our small family. I am proud of the contribution that I have made.

I guess at this stage of my life I’ve begun to realize, life isn’t about the big stuff. It is about the small moments along the way; the small hand of your child reaching for you, the first turn of the key in the keyhole to your new home, the first dollar you saved, the small gesture of gratitude you receive for a job well done, the first small bud of the first flower breaking through the earth in your garden in the spring, the whisper of the wind in your hair, the knowing smile you share with your spouse.

It’s okay to ‘Dream Big’ but make sure you measure and treasure the small things along the way. You will begin to realize that your life is not that small after all.

One of my greatest cottage pleasures is our traditional night time campfire.  Some of my  favourite family moments have taken place while sitting around that fire; roasting  and toasting; listening to good music and having lively family discussions.

This past weekend, what would normally have been another fun family campfire, turned into the stuff that nightmares are made of.

The night started out like many others with good food, great company and a beautiful summer evening.  Shortly after dinner, we lit the campfire that had been thoughtfully constructed earlier in the day. Drinks were served. Snacks came out. Stories and laughter began. The night was cool with a sky full of stars.  There was a gentle breeze off the river.  The fire warmed us.  We sat around it for a few hours enjoying each other’s company; kids, dogs, adults.

Toward the end of the evening, the unthinkable, unimaginable, happened.  My Aunt, after having said her goodnights to everyone, turned to make her way to the cottage.  Unfortunately, she didn’t make it that far. Having caught her foot on an upturned brick, she tumbled, head first into the campfire! What happened next is a blur of activity fraught with anxiety and panic.  My brother in law, acted swiftly and grabbed my aunt immediately out of the fire. My sister ran to get wet towels and first aid supplies.  I dialed 911 and my husband ran up the hill to watch for the paramedics.

Miraculously, and thankfully, my Aunt came out of this with only a broken wrist and some serious bumps and bruises.  She was not burned except for a small area on one hand and on her cheek, thanks to the quick actions of my brother in law.  Her fall was ten days ago and I cannot get the sights, sounds and emotions of that evening out of my head.

What usually happens after any accident is an analysis of what went wrong.  I’ll rehash it now in the hopes that it will help prevent you from having the same thing, or something worse, happen to you or someone you love.

With the clarity of hindsight, we now realize, to our horror, that we  are to blame for the accident.  The bricks around our fire pit were uneven, making for unsure footing and a trip hazard waiting to happen.  This caused my Aunt to fall and for that I am so very sorry.

As I was called 911 that night, in utter panic, I remember stumbling over the questions that the dispatcher was asking me.  I also remember thinking that I was very greatful that my cellphone worked.  Like a lot of cottages, we do not have a land line phone.  We rely on our cell phones.  Last year, we had a cellphone contract through a carrier whose coverage was lousy at our cottage.  This year, thankfully, we had switched to a carrier using Bell cell towers and the coverage is good. My frantic 911 call went through immediately.

Among the many questions asked on my call to the 911 dispatch was of course, “What is your address?”  Since it is my cottage, I knew the answer, even in my panicked state! The dispatcher also asked me for the nearest main intersection close to us.  As I was telling the dispatcher where we were, I couldn’t help but think, “What if I wasn’t the one having to make this call?”  Would one of our visitors know what to say?

The paramedics arrived quickly, within 20 minutes, and were amazing with us and with my Aunt.  By the time they had arrived my Aunt was mobilized and being looked after by my very capable sister, who incidentally had just finished a first aid course the week before.

Our cottage property is lovely, but it is also at the bottom of a hill.  We have a rustic, rocked pathway that winds down through trees to the front door of the cottage.  The fire pit is on the far side of the cottage. What is lovely and rustic in the bright daylight turns into a dark,and dangerous path when it is not properly lit at night.

The paramedics stabilized my aunt’s noticeably broken wrist and then loaded her on a lift chair to carry her up the hill.  We had every light on that we had.  The path, regularly lit by solar lights was still way to dark for the paramedics, who had never been there before. It made it hard for them to maneuver my aunt up the hill. Unfortunately, in the panic, we couldn’t find our good flashlights!

They eventually did get up the hill without incident and all ended well.  My Aunt is now safely at home sporting some dark bruises and a big ugly, heavy, cast.

The lessons we learned…

*Always be aware of your surroundings and make visitors award of hazards! Take a look around your cottage for anything that could cause injury and rectify it.  We had a look at our fire pit and had to do some re-designing of the brickwork. Remember when you are analysing your surroundings that quite often it is dark outside when others are walking around!

*Always have a working phone.  I can’t imagine how much more panicked the situation would have been with a phone that didn’t work!

*Always have a fully stocked first aid kit and if you are lucky a first aid provider, like my sister, who took charge of the situation and helped to calm and stabilize my aunt.

*Always have your 911 address posted so that visitors are aware of where they are.  I’ve now printed our 911 address and framed it at 4 different locations in our cottage.  At both front and back doors, in the Bunkie, and inside the first aid kit.

*Always have and be able to find your flashlights!  I’ve now invested in 4 new, large, bright yellow flashlights.  I’ve placed them on hooks under the framed 911 addresses at both doors and in the Bunkie. They are labelled, “Emergency Flashlights. DO NOT REMOVE”. Hopefully they won’t be lost the next time we need them in an emergency.

I wish that I had done these things prior to last weekend!  Please learn from my mistakes and my experience. Cottage on, and Stay Safe!