The Great Outdoors

 

Yesterday was a day to be outside, a day of mid-70s temps and downright dramatic winds. When you put aside the knowledge that those winds were blowing in a sledgehammer heat wave, you could really enjoy it.

So, before the 90s arrived, I got myself out for a little gardening. Much of it was just an excuse to be outside. Knockout roses are basically a bush and don’t need to be dead-headed but I did it anyway, if only to tidy away the spent flowers.

         I plucked a few weeds, scuffled up the ground with my weeding hoe (I’m too bone lazy to ever haul and lay mulch again), watered people, and planted two newbies.

I put in a small addition of lavender in one bed and nestled a sister Mango Coral Bell plant to keep another one company.

Please note how stunning my white Astilbe is, there in the background.

 

In keeping with the outdoor theme, My Guy and I went out for Linner. For some, this is the meal in the late afternoon so you can lounge over a cocktail, dine, and get home when it’s still light out, with the bonus that no one needs to cook later. Yesterday, our timing ran a bit earlier and it was a hefty late lunch.

We’d planned to sit outside at the semi-new restaurant in the center of our small town, but hadn’t factored in the almost 40 per hour gusts of Friday. Still, we drove by and the people on the patio weren’t clutching the tables or hanging onto the poles of the awning to avoid flying away, so we decided to risk it.

I’m so glad we did. With a firm grip on our napkins, it was completely doable.

Just as in my books, which all use my town as a template, the center of town has a hairdresser on one corner, the Village Store across the street, and a gas station on another corner. The restaurant sits across from the station and as you eat you can enjoy the ak-ak-ak-ak-ak of the owner tightening lug nuts on someone’s tire. 

        

 

 But the small park with its Civil War statue sits between the restaurant and the store,
so you still are given lots of green. Townies walking and bicycling down Main and through the park provide people-watching entertainment.

    

      A good beer (Alligash White – a Belgian-style wheat with notes of citrus ) and a plate full of shrimp scampi and life was complete.

  

        Although, why – WHY?!  do restaurants always force you to stick you hands in your meal to pull the tail off of your shrimp?