20 June 2014: Friday ... A Gorgeous Day ... Sherry subbed for Pamela ... Home Depot for Draino & kitchen bags ... Skeesha's arrival ... dinner at the Farmhouse

The Farmhouse Restaurant at Loch Nairn, a favorite haunt of ours on an irregular basis. Bruno, the waiter, was there (I'd forgotten his name, unfortunately) but did not serve us. Lisa served us, our waitress and at the end of our wonderful meal I'd promised to share some of my Old Fashioned Strawberry Shortcake but did not. I owe her. It was absolutely fantastically decadent (which was the name of Doug's chocolate dessert).


Reading-glasses positioned prior to dinner. 


Showing off pics from home in Georgia.


Group selfie after dinner. 

9 May 2014: Friday ... Mt. Cuba Center lunch break w/Katia ... Liz & Frank's Mother's Day flowers ... English yew w/docent Dick Cloud ...

Mom gives Liz a Thank You call for the flowers in the background.

An English Yew plant is a beautiful growth. There are two at Mt. Cuba, anniversary gifts to the Copelands from some 80 years ago. They are youngsters but are huge. Our docent guide, Dick Cloud, said they live 100s of years and were used by individuals to fashion strong and long bows for launching arrows. Hard to imagine as the plant's limbs are twisted and short but some have length, so, with age, I imagine, there could be large enough boughs to work up a weapon the height of a 6-foot person.

This English yew is a lot larger than the one at Mt. Cuba.

27 April 2014: Sunday ... GLORIOUS Day ... Sonya DuCote Dubois' birthday ... Wildflower Celebration at Mt. Cuba Center (A First!) w/Katia ... Two French speakers ... 1st entry to LP database (Toscanini Overtures ... NBC Symphony) ...

What a glorious Sunday and Wildflower Celebration at Mt. Cuba Center, my first real visit to the horticultural nirvana. Such an Eden near Hockessin off Barley Mill Road, not far from the Ashland Nature Center.

Photo by Katia Sol-Church -- She posted a group of photos on her FB page
from the Wildflower Celebration and they were lovely. She has a good eye.

Thankfully, Katia, agreed to spend the day with me and got there. I arrived with Dancer and I learned, to my chagrin, that dogs were not allowed, at least not on the bus, so I had to leave the green parking expanse and take my darling dog home. Did not take long and I was back and got on the bus and walked the trail to the man-made ponds (by the philanthropic Copeland-DuPont family) to find my favorite French geneticist seated on a bench. 

A lot of wonderful interactions with involved people, both employees and volunteers at Mt. Cuba Center. Of particular note were individuals, one named Penny Pleasance and the other a gentleman making delicious pop corn in a huge, gas-heated kettle drum, perhaps bronze, who engaged Katia in focused conversation. They talked wines as he is planning to start a vineyard with his father in New Jersey. They have the grape vines and the land. I did not get his name but like Penny, he spoke conversational French with a superb accent. Such a lovely meeting of serendipity and delightful coincidence.

                                 I did get Dancer on a walk later in the day, after the Wildflower

  Celebration, and this sunset photo at Delcastle Recreation Center.

  

8 January 2014: Wednesday ... it's been a month since dad's passing ... Linda comes for a visit ... the hospital bed is "Nirvana" ... Mark & Sarah celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary ... Elvis Presley's birthday ...

"One month of an eternity gone, at least the portion that will take up my life, since the

snowy day my father passed. Days, weeks, months, years ... time is that ever-present

 marker and all we can do is wonder about that brown fur collar and how it matches, so

invitingly, the hair of a young mother. Thinking of you dad on this chill day with warm

thoughts."  My Facebook post this morning. 



So nice to have Linda Lucero come over to visit. She brought flowers and a radiating smile and mom truly enjoyed her visit this mid-morning, after her workout in the gym up by Hockessin. Yesterday, according to a rare FB post of hers, she enjoyed a Zumba class. I asked, rather amusingly, that we needed to see the video. Mom shares a lot with people she has just met and she did the same with Linda. She can be forthright with her questions -- how did your husband die? (he had frontal lobe dementia which went quickly and caused a lost of speech but he recognized his wife until the end -- he was a longtime professor of geology at University of Delaware.).