FUN WITH GRANDDAUGHTERS
Eating at Home
Coming to Maine is a summer tradition for our granddaughters, and they eagerly anticipate the visit. This year was no exception. Certain activities are a given for the week. One is making blueberry pancakes with Grandma. Each year, they are more adept in the kitchen, and my role is now more that of an advisor. The pancakes this year were especially delicious!
A newer tradition is one dinner of clams with linguini; chef for that is our son with the clams from a local purveyor. Note, these girls also love oysters so their dad got some local ones and shucked them himself.
Out and About
Also on the agenda is a visit to Boothbay Railway Village. There is a schoolhouse and a house and other 19thcentury buildings to explore, plus the train ride around the village loop, and, of course, some time looking at the extensive model railroad exhibit. At ages 6 and 10, they still loved it.
In past years, they played miniature golf with their dad. This time, the Chief Penguin and I joined them. Dolphin Mini Golf was created thirty-odd years ago and is a fun course to play. Each hole is somehow sea-related with one shaped like a dolphin and another a whale. An ice cream hut and a small shell museum round out the offerings. The donated shell collections include shells from around the world as well as from this region.
Then there’s the annual wander through Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens stopping to play the metal drums and pipes, sitting and rowing in the canoe, and bouncing on the string bridge. We spent the most time (probably an hour total of our couple hours) in the Fairy House Village. The girls were creative and exercised their imaginations, each building a house of sticks, leaves, stones, shells, and woodland materials.
Readers All!
Both E and F, are now avid readers—such a joy to see! F is immersed in the Ivy and Bean books, while older sister E is a fan of historical novels and fantasy and is currently finishing up Chris Colfer’s Land of Stories series. I had borrowed a stack of books from the little library here and brought with me a few books for them. In addition, we all enjoyed browsing and buying at Sherman’s in Boothbay Harbor.
Other hits were a book of Little Women paper dolls, a Lego Friends set, and swimming in the cove.
We ate several meals out including two dinners at Cozy’s Dockside where the girls enthusiastically ordered cones from the ice cream treats menu.
MAINE BOOK OF THE WEEK
Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark
This is a leisurely novel about two octogenarian women, lifelong friends. It’s meant to be savored and read slowly. Polly and Agnes are women of an earlier generation, and the book takes place from 2000 to 2008. Societal expectations for women then related mostly to marriage and children. Polly Wister, is the traditional woman, married to Dick, a Penn philosophy professor, and a mother of four sons. Her friend Alice Lee is single, author of a series of children’s books that made her reputation, but secretly also the author of adult novels written under a nom de plume.
These friends winter in Haverford and Philadelphia but spend summers on the Maine coast in a family compound dating back more than 100 years founded by Alice’s great grandfather. Alice wants to preserve the open land beyond the homes as a bird sanctuary. Other owners and sons want to develop the land.
Over the years, there are secrets and conflicts, marital tension, and issues over how much one likes or doesn’t like how one’s offspring have turned out. This all plus an unjust accusation against a neighbor of the so-called “servant class” churn beneath the surface and sometimes erupt.
Add into this mix Quaker values, old money, an unrequited love, and a new friendship, and you have the ebb and flow of the enduring relationship between Alice and Polly. They are very different people and yet they share almost everything, emphasis on almost.
Both for the wonderful writing and its thoughtful exploration of the meaning of life and what kind of legacy we leave behind, it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year! (~JWFarrington)
Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved). Header photo taken at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.
