Windsor Cottage Chronicles

I went quiet for a bit because I swore I wouldn’t write about concrete again. If you’ve ever seen Peppa Pig , you may remember Daddy Pig’s favorite overdue library book: The Wonderful World of Concrete , which he discreetly used to read his collection of girlie magazines. When he actually read the book out loud, he reliably put the entire family to sleep. I didn’t want my blog to have the same effect. But neighbors have been asking what the holdup is. So, here we are. Concrete again (we've been told). Our first real construction crisis hit when the nights turned freezing and the local concrete company couldn’t fit us in until what felt like the next Ice Age. Because of our tricky access, getting a concrete truck in would require closing down Lake Avenue, special rigging and a special pump truck, with a very long hose on supports or swung over the house into the wall molds. Translation: slow, expensive, and scheduled perilously close to deep winter. So the team decided to do it t...

Right now, the world feels a bit surreal. Just a week ago, I was in leafy-green England celebrating life — playing Rat-A-Tat-Cat with the grandsons (a game that reveals far too much about one’s poker face), helping build electrical kits that miraculously didn’t electrocute anyone, and cheering at swim practice and soccer under bright floodlights. The nine-year-old’s moves had me seeing Beckham-in-training, while the seven-year-old’s piano practice had me seeing… patience-in-training.     Now I’m back at Lake Sunapee, where the wind howls under both sun and moon, the temperature dips below freezing, and the lake is as moody as I am before coffee. But oh, the progress! You may not think this is sexy but I do! The hole is dug, the footings are in, and we’re waiting on the elusive concrete truck. Once it arrives and the curing time is done, we’ll have a foundation — both literally and spiritually.  Getting to this point wasn’t easy. Rain and runoff turned our exc...