The Last Rose of Summer

Crisp cool late fall day with winter-blue skies and a brisk breeze that called us to leave the confines of the house and set forth.

We drove to Woods Hole, first stopping at Silver Stand beach to watch a para-sailor and a big group of seagulls who were just hanging out.

On to Woods Hole. The ancient drawbridge in the middle of downtown creaked up to let a sailboat pass. The crew, a man and a woman were togged out in down jackets with baseball caps. Looked to me like a cold sail with the wind whipping your face until your eyes watered. I recalled such a sail many years ago, 6 adults on a sailboat in Buzzard's Bay in mid-November. The coast guard actually stopped us to conduct a quote "life preserver check" unquote. We always thought it was a pretext to determine if we were drug runners, but we were just cold and suburban and offered the crew of the Coast Guard boat some brownies, but not the Alice B. Toklas kind.

En route to Landfall, our lunch destination we passed a rose bush that had a few blooms and beautiful pink buds. Indeed the last rose of summer.

At Landfall, we snared a table by the window with the sunlight sparkling on the harbor water and the ferries docking. We both had the broiled seafood plate with swordfish, shrimp and scallops, which was very fine, as was the Pinot Grigio. The placemat had a lovely quote by Joseph Conrad about "landfall," and I hope that sailors and landlubbers alike take the time to read it.

The Cape is nice this time of yeat with no wait for a table and just the locals around. The fall colors are still good, with plenty of deep red and yellow among the brown. I've never seen so many leaves this late in the season.

Back home with a stop by the supermarket to pick up Thanksgiving supplies. I'm making a pie with apples and dried cherries macerated in Scotch. From scratch crust for this occasion. Drooling slightly just thinking about it.

My Gather entry is an humiliating bust so there is plenty of sucking it up going on right now. So what else is new?

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