While the teachers went back to school I was driving to the Cape, over the Sagamore Bridge blasting the radio and singing to Charlie on the MTA, I don’t know why but it was playing on the radio and it spoke to me!! If you’re my generation and from Boston, you would probably remember that song by the Kingston Trio!! Not much traffic on Thursday before Labor Day!!And then off to lunch with my good friends!!  Sitting with me on the left is Eileen, behind her is Susan and behind me is Cathy.  We became friends when our children were performing at the Harwich Junior Theatre and we were helping to make and serve refreshments and sewing costumes for the shows they were in.  Through our children, we bonded and have been friends for 30 years!!

The next day my new neighbor, who is my sister-in-law Patty, and I walked to Harwichport for shopping and lunch…We came across this etched in the sidewalk…so true!!!Then out to dinner with Don and Patty at the Red Cottage Restaurant in Dennis…great for breakfast if you can get near the place, so we went in the evening, a lot easier to get a table…The next day Victor and I went on a bike ride with our good friends Claire and Tom…We have been friends for almost 40 years…We lived next door to each other when our children were growing up…they babysat for us when we were looking for a cottage on the Cape and we ended up buying down the street from them, which has been beyond wonderful for 30 years!!!We biked on the Cape Cod Rail Trail, which provides the most spectacular views of marshes, cranberry bogs, ocean, ponds and woodlands, not to mention some of The Cape’s best restaurants and ice cream stands along the way and a few hidden away beaches…A beautiful view of Namskaket Creek and ecosystem…A peek at a pond that we stopped at to rest our weary legs along the way…Another picturesque pond on the rail trail…After an afternoon of biking, Victor and I had Tom, Claire, Patty and Don over for dinner…Claire brought her scrumptious scallops wrapped in bacon for an appetizer…For dinner, Victor and I made Bouillabaisse or Fish Stew…you can find the recipe from my post “Cottage Dining and Fish Stew.”  Instead of cooking on top of the stove, we put it all in a disposable aluminum pan, covered it with foil and cooked it on the grill until the shellfish are opened and all the fish is cooked!!  A simple salad with a crusty french bread and you have a delicious seaside dinner…Now a Handy Tip…It was getting dark as we were finishing our meal, all of sudden Victor disappeared into the cottage and came out with an empty wine bottle!  He turned the flashlight on his phone, laid it on the table with the bottle on top…and there you have a portable table light…Well, we didn’t stop there…I remembered we had an empty fish bottle, we put it on top of my phone flashlight and there we had two lovely wine table lanterns on a dark night to finish a fun dinner with special friends!!❤️

🏖

As I go into fall, I have sweet memories of summer with family and friends…it looks like my whole summer was filled with fun and bliss but the reality is, the care of my mom is getting more difficult by the week, her dementia is progressing, decisions of changes in her care have to be made and it is heart-wrenching…  My family and friends are keeping me sane, I am ever grateful for their listening ears and comforting advice…

“I get by with a little help from my friends❤️”

The Beatles

🍂🍁🍂