Sylvia's Journal

The planned flight to Bar Harbor was cancelled. We were sitting in a trough between two weather systems, one coming up from the south-west and hurricane Bill breathing down our necks from the south-east. When in doubt, you learn in pilot training, don’t go, especially if you have your right arm in a sling. In hindsight we could have gone. Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day. It is only now that the weather has turned: it’s windy and raining.

I used the gained hours of the morning to pack for my trip and clean my office, removing piles of papers from my desk and from the floor. I opened a large suitcase in the guestroom and a smaller one in our bedroom. The guestroom suitcase is slowly being filled with stuff that I want to take to Afghanistan: knitting supplies, sewing supplies, water color supplies, indispensable CVS articles and some of the goodies Reinout brought from Holland.  The small suitcase in the bedroom is for the one week trip to Ghana that starts in a few hours.

Early in the morning, too early for some, the Greek painters showed up with their countless trucks. It was a noisy and boisterous arrival punctuated by the sound of ladders being extended against walls, paint cans being opened, a few fights (in Greek) about things we could not understand and all the other noises that come along with 10 Greek painters.

To make things more interesting, the plasterer also showed up, accompanied by a helper from our contractor (another set of trucks added to the mayhem). As the letters on his truck indicated (‘Ye ole’ English’), he was from England, something that was quite obvious once he opened his mouth. He brought his own tea bags because he doesn’t trust Americans making tea. When he found out I was originally from across the Channel, and after I showed him our tea cosy, he was convinced that I could be trusted with the task.

Tessa called me on the house line to find out whether it was safe to go outside before opening the door of the barn. She had to duck under a ladder and imagine the steps hidden under paint cloth, but she and Chicha could come out. Chicha was in seventh heaven, knowing the painters from their primer days here: 10 hands to throw balls and feed her the leftovers of lunch.

At lunch time Pauline arrived with her three kids and Mayssa, both from work, bringing a delicious Lebanese lunch. Pauline is married to Alberto from Lebanon and Mayssa is Lebanese herself. Two years ago, when Axel was still in the rehab hospital and I in a wheelchair, Pauline and Alberto had brought a complete Lebanese mezze to cheer me up; it did, and I had asked for a repeat, this time with Axel and without Alberto who was, unfortunately, in Lebanon.

Having guests over and seeing small kids discover the beach drew us out of the house from the interminable chores to hang out with them in and around the water. I cheated a bit taking my sling off but it was too hot and sticky to keep it on. We stood in the water until our skin was wrinkled.

At the end of the day we introduced the city kids to how vegetable grow (not in supermarket bins). They loved discovering our garden, eating peas, beans, tomatoes straight from the vine. They delighted in seeing potatoes emerge from the dark soil, like presents in grab bag. We picked a huge patty-pan squash and a zucchini the size of a small baseball bat; Pauline had her arms full with stuff these kids usually don’t care about; now they were fighting for more. They piled into the car holding flowers and with the long Asian green beans dangling from their mouths.