Cottage Moments #4

Hmmm… while looking back in my blog to see whether I had written about this before, I realized that my entries jump from December 2005 to August 2006. Now I know I didn’t spend eight months not blogging. After checking I realized that blogger didn’t actually eat my entries, they’re still there, but they don’t show up on the blog. March 2006? April, May ? Pfft. Maybe it’s Blogger’s way of telling me I should recycle posts - though lordy how I loathe recycled posts. Or maybe Blogger is just screwing around with me and the posts’ll show up tomorrow… Whatever, Blogger obviously hates me.


Imagine, if you will, a more innocent time. A time of new cottages by a tiny lake (pond?). A time of new friends; a time before septic tanks went wonky. (That's a pic of the lake from our balcony)

A sunny day. Jazz and Mr. J off to visit neighbours across the lake. As they walk along, they pass by another neighbor’s place. These friends told the Jazzers to feel free to borrow the pedal boat whenever they wanted.

Hmmm. Hot day, hot walk or hot day leisurely pedal across the lake? Not a terribly difficult choice when you come right down to it.

Once on the dock, a question is posed. Which pedal boat to choose? There are two. A flimsy looking yellow one and a far more substantial white one. Into the yellow we climb. As we start the great crossing it seems to me that the rudder doesn’t work too well and, being the great sailor that I am, I suggest changing to the more solid looking white pedal boat “because you know if we can’t steer this thing it might be hard to get anywhere. I don’t want to be stuck going in circles in the middle of the lake”.

Mr. Jazz, wanting to keep the Jazzer happy, acquiesces.

Into the white boat we climb. And we’re off. Pedal pedal pedal to the other side of the lake for a lovely lunch, where rosé was drunk and a good time was had by all.

Eventually though, as all good things must end, we were obliged to leave. So down to the dock we go to untie the pedal boat. And in we climb. And off we pedal. To the middle of the lake.

Mr. Jazz – Are you pedalling or what?

Jazz – Of course I am. I’m even pedalling quite hard.

Mr. Jazz – We don’t seem to be advancing much.

Jazz – What are you talking about we’re adv… actually, we’re not are we?

Mr. Jazz – Nope, we aren’t.

Jazz (looking down to where the front end of the boat seems to be tilting down) – JUMP! We’re sinking!!!!

And into the water we went. Because the pedal boat? It was, indeed, sinking. Thankfully the poor thing, in losing our combined weight was able to keep itself above water until we pushed it across the damn lake. To the other side. Where we tied it up to the dock. Ankle deep in lake sludge. Seriously, is there anything more repulsive than lake bottom sludge? A concoction of mud, dead plants, frog and fish poo with most probably some slimy dead animal mixed in for good measure. Ugh. Reason 203,478 why I prefer pools to lakes. But I digress, as usual.

Why did this happen? Could the disaster have been averted?

Indeed it could have, had the Jazzer just listened to Mr. J and went with Lada rather than the Cadillac, which, as it turns out, had been fished out of the lake from whence it had rested for many a year and “repaired” by our friend and neighbour – who as it happens almost died laughing at the whole story, ‘cause he has quite the sense of humour our C does, yes, yes. Truth be told, when we caught our breath after pushing the behemoth across the damn lake, we found it pretty funny too.