Beach House Bliss

Cottages come in many varieties, sizes, and situations.

Ever since I can remember, my family had a vacation cottage on Long Island -- first a tiny bungalow in a little town called St. James, where we spent entire blissful, endless summers when I was growing up (no TV, not even hot water!), and then a waterside cottage 'way out on the North Fork of the Island.

That little house grew, and grew again, and yet again, until finally it became my parents' retirement home. Now it is empty almost all of the time. We filled it this weekend, Howard and I, with our daughters Anne and Alida, and Alida's boyfriend Josh.

I'm linking to Mary's Mosaic Monday at Little Red House, and
Show Off Your Cottage Monday at The House In The Roses.
Visit both blogs, and enjoy!

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It's very late on Sunday night, and I'm sleepy, so I'm just posting some mosaics of our weekend.
Click -- or double click -- on the pictures to enlarge them if you wish.

First, random pictures outside the house -- most taken by Anne,
who like her mother prefers being behind the camera to being in front of it.

Yes, Anne and I are in that middle bottom picture -- sort of!
And if Dion looks quite fluffy, it's because he got a surprise dunking in the utility tub,
after coming home with majorly muddy feet from a morning walk along the dirt right-of-way with Alida and Josh.

Howard brought out two kites -- a Spider Man and a Barbie. Boys and Girls.
Turns out the boys flew both kites -- Howard graciously taking the Barbie one --
while Annie took pictures, and Alida found an old grass skirt in the attic and wore it as a mermaid wig.

At one of the beaches a few miles away, on Long Island Sound, Josh tried to teach Alida to skip stones.
He got as many as 5 skips from a single stone. Alida got lots of plops.

It was 3 lovely days -- beautiful weather, amazing food, and some funny and pretty darned nifty thrifty bargains at the big yard sale sponsored on the Green at the Cutchogue Museum Houses, and at an estate sale. Now that was fun!

Pictures and more tomorrow.
Only cloud -- I think I left my favorite down bed pillow behind.
Oh well, that just means we'll have to go back next weekend!

Tomorrow I will give my Dad a report on his beloved beach house.
He does not understand why we bother to visit, when the boats are no longer there.

And speaking of eating . . . some of our weekend food came from a herd of darling goats at
Catapano Farm in Southold. We love their cheese. They loved my linen pants.

P.S. My apologies to the South Fork of Long Island; in Friday's post I kidded about its being nouveau riche. Just teasing. The South Fork, much larger and more famous than the North, is stunningly beautiful with some of the loveliest villages you will ever see. But the North Fork does enjoy a good joke now and again about the movie-star-and-money reputation of the Hamptons across the Bay.

At our favorite fish store hangs a sign:

On the South Fork, it's Sushi.
On the North Fork, it's Bait.

Go visit! -- Cass