A Tale of Two Chemists: Where is home?

Where is home?

Sunday 27 – Monday 29 September

We’ve been busy! Yesterday we drove up to our house in Sudbury to do some work in the garden. We have lots of pots filled with Canna and Cala lilies and we had promised our tenants that we would come round and tidy them up before the winter sets in. Neither the plants nor the pots (if left full) would survive being left outside in the extreme New England winter so we were keen to empty them. It turned out to be a great afternoon because we got to meet the entire Masurel family – Vianney, Dorothee and their four children, Maxime, Lise, Eulalie and Eloi. We had only met Vianney and Dorothee very briefly in the past, but not their children and it was real pleasure to spend a little time with them. We feel very fortunate to have such a lovely family staying in our house. Whilst we were there word got out that we were back visiting and several of our neighbors dropped by to say hello, which was great. Our trip up to Sudbury also allowed us to meet up with our friends Stew and Susan for a couple of hours in the morning for a walk through a local woodland reservation. Again it was lovely to see them. Before we headed back to the boat we stopped in at Costco in Waltham and bought some additional supplies for the weeks ahead. All told it was a busy day and we were ready to sit down, relax and watch the Patriots beat the Raiders. Ahhh ... happy days!

I asked Gloria whether it made her homesick visiting our house. She said that it wasn’t so much that she missed the house but seeing our neighbors made her realize how much she misses them. Which just shows you that it’s really all about the people. One of the nice things about being in East Greenwich is that we have been able to meet up with some of our family and friends. Tonight we are looking forward to having Rod and Sue over for dinner and on Saturday our friend Will arrives to join us for the journey down to New York. It will also be great having Will travelling with us next week. All of this helps us feel a little less isolated in the Covid era. In 2012 when we headed down the East Coast via the Intra Coastal Waterway we were surprised how many other boats were doing the same journey and it really enhanced the experience to meet up and interact with fellow boaters. We wonder how different it will be this year. We can rationalize that there could be more boats or fewer boats because of the pandemic, but it’s hard to imagine that the interactions will be as easy as they were on that previous trip.

Mike

East Greenwich, RI