Lobster Pigout with Side of Poe

Saturday delivered us to the annual Millville eggfest, in the company of the Great Nagel and pals Joshua and Danielle Shelley. We are odd couples, the Shelleys and ourselves: they are young and we are not; we are heathens, they are not; they are teetotallers, we are anything but. Strangely though, we feel great affinity with the youngsters: they like books, ideas, good conversation. I feel particular kinship with Joshua. Rather like myself, he has a wide misanthropic streak and though of tender years, is definitely already a curmudgeon. I like that about the lad.

At the eggfest I grabbed Josh’s sleeve and introduced him to local Member of Parliament Mark Eyking. Here is one of your constituents, I told Mark, but he didn’t vote for you. I was hoping to cause a squirm or two but no one batted an eye.

Bob was the star of the eggy occasion. He was warmly swarmed by any number of people, including the MP. You’d have thought Kate and Will had just wandered into the room. If only Bob could bottle that charm and retail it – think of what he could make at Wal-Mart.

Back at Bigadore we had a fire on the beach at the new swimming hole, cooked wieners and marshmallows and refrained from singing Kumbaya.

Sunday availed another opportunity for lively social intercourse. We procured ten lobsters from Kevin at the wharf and proceeded immediately to a pigout at the cabin. I am tenderly gratified by the prevalent opinion (in some local parts) that I am sine qua non when it comes to cooking and preparing lobsters. After dark, to offset all the frivolity, I read aloud all of Poe’s ‘Premature Burial’. Some might think that an odd way to entertain kith and kin; well, you just had to be there, even Jan stayed awake for most of it.

We enhanced the heritage flowers about the place. Now, in addition to John F`s Solomon-seal, day lilies and Wally`s bleeding-heart we have a scion or two another historical flower. The bloom at issue is Dianthus barbatus. Some say – the facts are in dispute – that its English name, Sweet William, honours William, Duke of Cumberland who led the British army to its smashing victory at Culloden 265 years ago. One of my ancestors, a Livingstone, is claimed as one of Bonnie Prince Charlie`s Highlanders slaughtered that grim day. Cumberland enjoys a halcyon reputation in England, a rather different one in Scotland and Scots-settled places around the world: it is long-standing fact among my Cape Breton kin that the right and proper name for D. barbatus is Stinking Billy.

July’s weather has soured a tad after a fine start, but I don’t dare complain about that – Mary will have the jewels for bookends. Besides, friend Peter—Costa Rica Peter that is – asserts I was once virulently antagonistic toward people who complain about the weather. Is this just false memory on his part or am I already well embarked on the good ship Dementia, entirely vacant of the person I once was.