Down at Turning Tide Cottage, we are looking at various ways to improve our energy efficiency for next winter. We also have to do some pretty serious fixing-up after the most recent storm, when one of our retaining walls began to give way, and if we don't fix it soon, we won't be able to so much as go down to the root cellar to replace the wheelbarrow or reset the circuit breaker. But it is a job nobody much wants to do, and one we can't really afford to have done, so one day in the very near future, we will have to put on our laundry day clothes and go down there and dig out the slide.

Summer arrived at Turning Tide Cottage on Saturday, and like every really nice first day of summery weather, I tended to overdo it.
One tends to forget, from year to year, that one has pale Irish skin and it tends to burn. I am sure that I had some sunscreen somewhere that would have done the trick, but I neglected to put it on. I also neglected to put on a hat, although I have some nice summer chapeaux that might also serve as Kentucky Derby wear, which also occurred on Saturday, and I even had some mint growing in my herb beds that I could have used to make Juleps, if I had had any whiskey and I had been so inclined, but I was not.
I believe in small celebrations.