Saturday, August 29: Looking Back at a Fantastic Summer!

2014-15 was a brutal school year emotionally: while my teaching was the best it's ever been (yay!), the appreciation, support, sanity, work demands, and interpersonal work atmosphere was exhausting and draining. Nothing like working harder and more successfully than ever and having the School Board decide it's time to Take A Stand on the contract. Wow. Anyway: what a great time to have an absolutely transcendent summer. Truly. I did some school work, but not a lot; I went into school twice only, and I had a series of fantastic, fun activities that really proved that "a change is as good as a rest." I wonder if I can post a picture for each event! June 23: Andy and I went to see Keb Mo at Stone Mountain Arts Center.

What a great place, and what a great concert. 

A few days later, Nate, Andy and I had a wonderful week in Denmark with Silas and his family:

At Helsingor, Hamlet's castle, with our fabulous hosts

which we followed up with another great week in Norway with Camilla and her family!

Hiking at midnight in Molde with Camilla and Amalia

Even after we returned to the relative normalcy of Ellsworth, Maine, the fun didn't stop. We sailed the newly-restored "Fabulous" out of Sorrento Harbor: 

I went for several hikes with friends: 

On top of Dorr with Dawn and Cathi

went to the twins' first birthday, a Sea Dogs' game with Andy, Dad, and Ann, and spent three days in Rye with Julie! 

Big ice cream!

Whale watching! 

After all that, I ended my summer with a weekend in Brunswick with Ann and Sue. We added to my string of 5ks with the Topsham Veterans' Support Run: 

Post-race: matching tee shirts.

Post paddle. 

and we added Lynne for an afternoon of stand-up paddle boarding!

Back home, there was plenty of this: 

and we still have Labor Day weekend forthcoming. 

First week meetings were upbeat and cheerful, which was great––the magic continues! 

Unnatural Death: The Dawson Pedigree by Dorothy L. Sayers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a delight: I thought I'd read this one quite a bit, but discovered I'd been confusing it with another Miss Climpson story (the one where she meets with the seance people), so this was only vaguely familiar! What a pleasure to have an almost-new Wimsey. This one moves pretty fast, and has some unusual characters (I will say no more); it's fun to see Miss Climpson in her earliest stages, and Peter and Parker just beginning to set forth.

The 1969 edition is a true classic: acid green cover, tiny cramped font, and various typos/editing mistakes, including a few lines transposed on a page. Not easy to read in dim light, but certainly a vestige of a time when publishers were so sure people would read that they didn't woo their readers with attractive packages.

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