1/3/02
Last New Year's Eve, Tom and I spent the evening with a few friends at our apartment in Toronto. The dance clubs we frequented would be more crowded noisy, and smokey making dancing less than enjoyable - so we danced at home. This year, however, we decided to ring out the old by ourselves at the cottage.
The forecast was for well below freezing but only light snow on Sunday. Driving required no strong concentration till we were about 2 hours NE of Toronto. Light snow was falling and the secondary road we turned onto hadn't been plowed since probably the night before. While Tom is an experienced and careful driver, he likes to speed on the open road. However, in unfavorable road conditions, he is all caution. While I on that Sunday morning was a little nervous each time we approached a curve or hill top, it was not because of Tom's driving, but rather not knowing where an approaching car might be; no headlights cast a warning in the dim daylight. That last hour of driving was at a slow quiet pace - only an occasional comment between us on the beauty of the almost completely deserted roadways. Once we'd completed the last, sometimes troublesome hill (4 boxes of sand strategically placed along its rise) before entering the Park, we could relax and take notice of what changes were present since our departure less than 2 weeks before - a few freshly downed tree with sawed limbs, a few cars parked off the main road at the tops of driveways or minor roads marking the presence of others, and numerous snowmobile tracks alongside and on the main road.
As we changed into our snow boots in the car after pulling into the driveway, we joked about steeling ourselves to brave the cold of the cottage. And cold it was, again - mercury not above the thermometer reservoir and water frozen in the buckets! But warming the cottage was now a routine and we were eating a dinner of leftover Xmas capon and stuffing with squash, broccoli, and cranberry-raisin sauce within 2 hours in a balmy 60F kitchen while the thermometer outside still registered -4C. (Yes, we are bilingual thermally.)
Our time was a mix of old and new - all of it enjoyable. While our Scrabble game Sunday evening wasn't one of our best, the batch of oatbran-rye muffins we made were even better than the ones we concocted the first time on Xmas morning. (Recipe) Monday afternoon we ventured outside where I had my first experience on snowshoes. Papa, Mama, and Baby snowshoes have hung on the hall wall for years, remnants of happy outings from Tom's first marriage over 30 years ago; now we were finally making them part of our life. Although the snow wasn't deep enough to necessitate their use, the snowshoes did make it more adventuresome traipsing through the untrod snow of neighboring properties and wooded areas. We even ventured out onto the frozen lake for a short distance. It was a challenge not stepping on my own much enlarged "feet" as we trudged up and down inclines, around and over saplings, avoiding boulders, logs, and steps. My only fall came as we approached our driveway, ready to call our frozen fun to an end. But I quickly righted myself, brushed off the snow and finished the trek gracefully.
Tuesday afternoon we again took off into the snow-covered "wilds" upon snowshoes. I felt a veteran now and with the minor strap adjustments Tom had made the evening before, I found my "clown feet" a bit easier to handle. The sparkling white snow just looked a bit different when viewed while standing on snowshoes. And the sheets of icicles formed over the granite rock face just off our dock was a sight to behold from the surface of the frozen lake. We enjoyed the spectacular view as we finished a trek on "our" lake which we started around the point from our property. It was a beautiful view and my only regret was that I'd used the last of my film the day before. "There will be many more winters", said Tom as he broke off two large icicles. Like two children we playfully dueled, breaking our "swords" almost immediately, laughing with pure delight.
Taking the snowshoes off there at the dock, I exclaimed that this was a perfect ending to our last cottage visit of the year, and possibly the season.
As we finished our last meal at the cottage later that day - New Years Day - and sipped the last of the wine we'd actually started Xmas Day, Tom said, "I think it was auspicious that we fell in love at the end of the millenium and started the new one together. This millenium is ours; everything before was pre-history." How very true....what more can I say.
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