I waited as long as I could for the perfect opportunity to sit and read my first book of the winter. Heavy rains were predicted. No outside projects could possibly get done. I watched the clock for a reasonable time to pour a glass of wine and settled in with one of my favourite authors, Louise Penny, and a visit with Inspector Gamache in Paris.

It was, as it always is with Penny’s books, like visiting with old friends, catching up with the latest news during the middle of a murder investigation or two. I scheduled a day and a half in my surprisingly open calendar.

None of the promised rains have appeared but the smokey skies are beginning to clear. We had hoped for maybe 80 mms of rain before the end of the month but every day “they” change the forecast and it looks like it will be less and less. Friggin’ weather forecasters can’t be trusted. I have six or seven apps on my phone and none are the same and none are ever reliably accurate. But it was too late to reschedule my date with Inspector Gamache.

E has been working, when you think about it, non stop since we started the renovation in 2017. I don’t think he has read a book in forever. Although there are tons of little things to still do around here, the house and bunkie are basically finished. You would think all of our friends would be pulling out a rocking chair for E and pouring him a beer. But no..

Anyone who has stopped in over the summer, and I mean all eight of them, have asked E what his next project is. Can’t he take a couple of years off, before he builds the greenhouse, rewires the garden fence, installs a propane shed or replaces the roof on the studio? Must there always be a project? Can’t he spend the next year or two with his feet up and a subscription to a cryptic crossword puzzle site? What is it with our friends on the island who can’t imagine each other without a project d’jour?

It is because the projects, the work, the challenges, are why a lot of us are here and we all know that if we aren’t in the middle of one we are thinking about the next one. It is a common trait in people who choose to live or vacation off grid.

Unfortunately, as it often turns out, I read the book too fast and finished it at 1 pm. Although the rains never came, I had already committed to staying in my jammies all day reading. I couldn’t possibly reschedule ‘cause, unlike a lot of the people around me, I have no issue staring out the window doing nothing for

half a day