Can You Spot the Sex Symbol?

Hey y'all,

We're back in Halifax for the long weekend. Catching up on correspondence and bills and all that fun stuff. Actually I'm also frantically throwing together an application to the BC Arts Council. Story of my life.

We had some fun visitors this week. Walter dropped by with Anne-Marie and Sage. I have a picture of him pretending to hammer a nail into a wall, but he actually spent most of his time lying on the beach and whipper-snipping Robert Frank's lawn. Also a bunch of Geoff's relatives stopped by to examine the progress. And the fiddler Joey Beaton made a visit because he's also a Commissioner and I needed him to sign our Affidavit of Family Gifting (I won't go into what that is since it's boring).

Lynette, Simon, Mom and Dad have been a huge help. It's a full house (cottage), but everyone's doing their part. Mom's a blueberry-blackberry-picking fiend. And the moment we finish eating one meal, she's planning the next. Or hanging laundry on the clothesline. Or vacuuming our muddy tracks off the floor. Or running to the Freshmart for more groceries. Tireless, that woman.

Lynette's a lovely companion and awfully handy in the kitchen. Simon inspires Geoff and Dad to go shirtless. The other day he was wearing a small pair of red shorts and nothing else and Mom said to Lynette, "Simon is like a sex symbol." Holy that was funny. Dad and Geoff have become a real team, constantly working out problems and strategizing.

The other day, the five of us erected an enormous 12-foot wall on the second story and it was, hands down, one of the scariest moments of my life. The wall was ridiculously heavy and we had to slowly raise it in a completely controlled manner so that it wouldn't slip off the edge and crash into the field down below. We'd inch it up a little. Then a little more. Then a little more, until it was almost level. Then Geoff ran around positioning bracing. Every slight wind made me nervous, made me imagine it toppling over the side. But we got it in place and now it's majestic. I don't even want to put up the other three walls. That one just looks so beautiful on its own, stretching into the sky like that.

- Carla