A Girl...

Day 1.5

Where were we? Oh yes, here:

So, Mel (Simon's sister) and Kilo (her new husband) live in a cottage on a farm. As in their mailing address is actually "The Cottage, Dodge Farm, City, ZIP." Now, if you think that "cottage on the farm" = slideshows full of artistically off-center photographs of barn doors and tin roofs, perhaps with a wide-angle horse snout thrown in for good measure, well, give yourself fifty gold stars, a pat on the back, a hearty congratulations, and a crunchy carrot fresh from the garden.

That blonde beauty's name is something like Tarka, and as soon as we got out of the rental car in front of the cottage, he trotted right over to greet us. Every morning, I'd check in on him and his donkey pal from our second-story window, and although he mostly just stood in the yard flicking his tail under the sun or huddled in the paddock flicking his tail full of rain, Simon's mom said she woke up one morning at sunrise to find him galloping merrily between fences, all the way from the willow tree to the bushes where I saw a bunny disappear to one day and a dozen pheasants emerge from another.

The property is studded with apple trees, and Mel and Kilo grow several varieties of tomatoes, and they even cross-pollinated their own cornstalks by rubbing the vegetable's sexy bits together. The path that leads to the gazebo (in which we almost slept) was partially blocked off with pots and pots and more pots of homegrown herbs that later rode in the back of the groom's car to the wedding reception site, where they were gussied with gold ribbon and used as fragrant centerpieces and guest favors.

Two of Kilo's favorite pasttimes are birdwatching in the backyard and wild mushroom hunting in the woods past their gate, and Mel collects cookbooks specializing in farm-ish meals and, to make room for our air mattress, she had to shove aside about ten bags full of yarn, which she knits into all kinds of things on big wooden needles. The cottage is mostly full of the landlord's old-timey carved wood furniture and oil paintings of springer spaniels mid-hunt and pale male children sporting starched white frocks and shiny curls. But the thing about Mel and Kilo is that neither one of them is Country with a capital C. You have never seen a girl wear three-inch platform shoes like Mel, and Kilo, well, you've seen Kilo. He was kind enough to leave a picture of himself in a place where it could watch over us while we slept. Thanks, mate.

For the five days the cottage was our home, it was the best kind of home to come home to: full of family and friends and good food (those burritos! gosh!) and internet access and music and a blowdrier and views that sparkle in the sun...no, rain...no, sun...no, rain...Even on the night Simon and I arrived home after an exhausting day of travel on unmarked country roads to find the house empty, no key under the mat, and everybody at a nameless tapas restaurant in town with no cell phone access (just a little bitter), the cottage was still the best kind of home to come home to because we spent part of the three hours before everyone got home standing in the driveway looking at the Milky Way with Tarka stamping somewhere off in the dark.

Some shots from our first few days at the cottage, mostly spent trying to stay awake, trying to digest burrito, or trying to get on the internet to check email.