Dear Susan,

We had a most relaxing time. God is it important to get away, even briefly. I’m going to post a pic or two and it’ll look like all we did was bar hop, and while that is not a bad thing, we didn’t drink all that much. For instance, we drove to Cooleens in Woolwich searching for musical entertainment, but the band, Goldirocks, got lost and arrived too late for us.

The town was virtually shuttered, which maybe shouldn’t have been, but was, a surprise. We had three restaurants to choose from. We rejected out of hand, Chinese/Coastal Fare, gave up on, you need reservations but here’s a table right by the door(if hyphens are needed, you add ëem), and settled for a Cheers-like restaurant with multiple screens showing the Steelers Jets game.
Sitting at the bar were mostly Patriotsí fans, which meant a crowd largely cheering for the Jets. However, the lone Steeler-hatted employee was the most vociferous. Until the last interception. The food was better than good, which was also a surprise. I had fish and chips with a taste bud caressing gin (no cheapo Seagrams) and tonic. Diane’s rice pilaf was so fine, she failed to save room for a broiled sea scallop or two. Sacrilegious, if you know Diane.

Diane also noticed how much friendlier everyone was than back home, and I refused to agree, despite all the evidence, until, finally, on our way back we stopped at a health foods store in Portsmouth. There, a Matthew-aged girl at the register apologized for the moments she spent talking to a pierced, tattooed , leather dressed, eyebrow shaved boy about a CD she so desperately wanted to give her boyfriend. Kasabian, she told us – a UK group named after Manson’s driver. Also, she looked at me and asked how I was doing in a way that young people never seem to engage us older folks.

We did our usual bookstore browsing/buying. Diane bagged four good ones: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, Where You Once Belonged, by Kent Haruf, Amsterdam by Ian McEwan and Ann Tyler’s The Amateur Marriage. While she was collecting, I was content to skim Dana Sawyer’s Aldous Huxley:A Biography. Particularly the chapter describing his meeting with Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Andrew Weil. Diane devours books like a Great White, small fish and spare tires. The Life of Pi will keep me busy because all I have the energy for these days is the Globe crossword. In the bathtub.
Which was the only thing lacking in our suite at the Admiralís Quarters Inn. No bathtub, but a view to kill for, spacious rooms with a gas stove in the bedroom and a solarium to hang in with its own stove, a plush couch, magazines, gumdrops, cookies and always fresh hot coffee. We heard there were others at the Inn, but we met only one other person, and that was at breakfast. He had driven up to attend to his aging mother-in-law. She is nintey-eight, infirm, living alone and needing the Boothbay equivalent of Concord Park. He said she would never go willingly, that sheíd have to be carried bodily. I told him it worked for us.
Diane reading ; the photographer voyeuring.