OFF WE GO!

Having worked 5 days a week all summer, I am DELIGHTED to inform you that I now have 3 weeks holidays! WHAT A WONDROUS FEELING! I think, being 39, delight is always tempered with the awareness that hope and disappointment go together. Still!! The girls are off to Camp Erin, a special camp for grieving children, 2 nights overnight. Bens and I shall backpack up to the Pacific Crest Trail and camp between Surprise Lake and Glacier Lake. I am excited! Bens isn't - he is a kindly husband, to come and do things which I really want to do and he doesnt. Next week, the four of us shall hike in to Boardman Lake, which all my family except my dear sisters, R, S, K, A & B, and my dear nephews E, S, R, D & Z have visited - Sam rode a log boat there, and we always think of him when there is a log floating - nobody else has ever been able to stay standing up!!!!!!!!

It was raining this morning, after a hot, sunny week, and the weather forecast was abysmal, Puddleglummish, Eeyoresque, saying how summer was over, fall leaves here, no more sunshine. I was so mad at Seattle. Pacific Northwesterners love to talk about how the short summer is over so quickly. I think, in a funny kind of way, they like to be gloomy about their weather.

Now I'm excited again and it's stopped raining!