As I look back on the last few pages, I see that I have been less than diligent about updating “the news”. There may be a few reasons for this.
Last Summer was a blur of things to do and things not done at the cottage. I was so preoccupied with those two extremes that there was precious little time for much else. These pages suffered. After the Summer ended, I pretty much crashed for a while. I started with the idea that I should take few days to decompress from the work at the cottage and get back to life in the city and, after a while, sitting around became more of a habit than it should. Nothing to report on here.
Our “Spring” season started this year with an unusual warm stretch in April that seemed to foretell an earlier than usual thaw. I was mistaken. The weather turned cool and wet, and it wasn’t until May that things really started to look promising again. Throughout the “false Spring” I was looking forward to getting back to the cottage, but that didn’t happen until May 6 – precisely one day earlier than I opened last year.
The welcoming party of a pair of nesting geese was already there, and a pair of Merganser ducks showed up shortly afterward. During the night, Loons were calling across the lake and a pair of Barred Owls were chatting in the forest. A barrage of Humming birds appeared later in the week and immediately started a territorial war around the feeder. I find it reassuring that nature continues, almost on a predetermined schedule, year after year. This year was no exception.
A day prior to opening the cottage, I had a telephone consultation with an oncologist at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH to us insiders). I had been referred earlier in the year because my Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA for club members) had been rising. After an MRI and a biopsy, the Doctor was calling to confirm those test results. In short, it was good news: all of the samples had returned negative for cancer and I am being monitored to make sure that it stays that way.
Before I knew the results, I was fairly sure the tests would reveal that I had cancer. I have always thought – and I am getting more certain with age – that there is something in my future that will take my life, ready or not. If it was to be prostate cancer, then so be it. There is treatment and it is curative so I was fairly sure that it would not be terminal, yet the thought of now facing something that could significantly alter the course of my life was sobering. It’s a relief that I am cancer-free (at least for now) and a slap-in-the-face reminder of how quickly my life – and those or my contemporaries – might change.
So with all of that in mind, I head off to the cottage for a few days of planning and starting Summer projects. We (helper-mate Roy and I) are focusing on getting the kitchen set up and operating, taking down a wall to open it up to the new dining room, and finishing the new front porch. Of course, there are dozens of smaller tasks within each of those jobs, and if anything exciting happens as we toil away, you will read about it here first ! I promise.