Last semester at Trinity I got to work with a lovely lady named Patti. Patti is an EA (or Educational Assistant) and works with some of the kids who needs extra help with their school work. Because she was in my classroom every day we often got to chat about stuff, and I discovered that she and her husband Rob owned a beautiful cottage on a lake just north of Huntsville. I've written a few times about the whole cottaging phenomenon here in Toronto (and to an outsider, it really IS a phenomenon!)

Patti suggested that we come visit her at the cottage one weekend during the Summer, but what with the school break, visits from the Urens and the Robs, and all our traveling over the Summer, we never seemed to be able to find a free weekend. When school returned we tried again to organise a visit and after a few false starts we finally arranged to head up there this weekend. What a beaut spot they have!

The cottage is located on the shore of Bay Lake, a smallish lake about 15 minutes north of Huntsville, which is the northern end of the Muskoka region. It's a funny time of year at the moment, because it's way too cold for swimming and watersports (you can tell it's too cold when the lake has a crust of ice across it!) but it's too early for winter sports because the snow has not yet started to fall. It's that in-between time of year when there's not a lot of active stuff to do. However, we actually thought it was pretty good to just be doing nothing for a change. We enjoyed good food, good conversation and good company.

It wasn't all just laziness... We did go for a walk out the end of the peninsula, we walked down to the lakeshore to stand on the frozen edge of the water, we rode around on the quadrunner, and we chased chipmunks across the yard. The kids played snooker, or some variation of it, while the adults chatted. It was a nice weekend for just kicking back and relaxing.

We eventually said our goodbyes to Patti and Rob before heading back south along highways 11 and 400, back to Oakville. I'm really glad we finally managed to pick a weekend because we thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks Patti and Rob for a lovely weekend, and amazing ribs!