After circling Howell’s Mere this morning, we managed to identify an accessible public space between two houses where a boat could be taken on and off the lake, so after swimming the younger generation went off to the Activity Hub to see about hiring one. The first I knew of its arrival at our house was a commotion on the lower terrace, where they’d moored the 2-person canoe recommended by the Hub staff to a little set of steps, and were using these, and the tiny platform at the bottom, to get themselves in and out of the boat. And here I must put up my hands and admit that I was wrong and L was right: it’s perfectly possible to do this, and everything is fine. Leastwise, none of them has managed to drown themselves yet.
Shortly after the canoe arrived, so did L’s friend Bon, who only lives a half-hour drive away, and had managed to squeeze a couple of hours into her hectic schedule this afternoon to zoom over and see us. We’ve known Bon for over twenty years now, and throughout that time she and L have been firm friends. I love this photo because even though they’re now successful career women in their mid-thirties, with husbands and a couple of children each, and somehow finding time between career and family commitments to work in the voluntary sector as well, it’s clear that at heart they’re still the same mad teenage girls they were two decades ago.
R: L2, C10, D76.
