Our compliments to Iga

mainly sunny, cool, temps 20

As you can see, our weather is wildly unpredictable. Scorching and tropical one day, sweater weather the next. Had a bath this afternoon it was so cool.

Went to exercise. It really does feel great - except when I'm actually doing it. Then did some mailings, then lunch with Joan Rose, her husband Edward and a few other guests. Joan, a wonderful cook, has decided she's not cooking anything anymore (she was quite ill this past winter and doesn't have the heart for it anymore). Now she gets everything already cooked from the Sutton IGA - the grocery store, and tells everyone she has a Chef named Iga.

Since we're in exercise class together, which is the peacetime equivilant of a foxhole, she told Michael and me the truth.

Not doing any writing today, but a few ideas have come up - lying fallow is not such a bad thing, especially if it's in a bubble bath. But Michael kidded me this morning, after he'd saved what I wrote yesterday on his 'stick'. I always advise new writers to stop that days writing where you know what you're going to do next.

Seems yesterday, for reasons that totally escape me, I ended the days writing in the very middle of a word. Oliv

I was either writing about olives, or Olivier or Oliveena or maybe I was writing a sonnet: O live with me...

I'm sure it's obvious.

Am off now to try to finish the column for the Globe and Mail. Tomorrow we head in to Montreal to try to find the Canadian federal tax office that can stamp my German publishers form.

Don't ask. Missed the delivery of the espresso maker while we were enjoying Iga's creations with madame Rose. Next time they can try is Friday. The joys of living in the country. Still, best not to start complaining about a lack of an espresso maker. that's when the gods, quite rightly, give you something real to worry about.

Be well - talk tomorrow.