Dinner on the dock

I was having a bad day. Hubby kindly took me out for dinner. This is my favourite spot. It's beside the water, we can watch life go by us, plus the birds. You never know who you will see.



It's a great spot for watching boats and boaters, and fisherpeeps. They often have fishing tournaments here.

Docktales! What is at your dock?

Docks are important to cottage life.  I wrote a post illustrating with photos about boathouses, last March. CBC features a show on the long weekend in August, and this struck a chord for me.

DOCKS

You jump off of it. Lots of critters use our docks. We park at the dock. Beavers may chew it.
We tie things to it. We fish off of it. For those who have boat access only cottages, it is crucial.

Fishing, with my dad,  on the dock
–circa 1965.

Fishing off the dock (where we would swim!)

Jumping off of the dock

  They tie up airplanes at the dock

Critters on the dock

–both two- and four-footed critters, large and small, in all seasons!

 

There are large and purposeful public and private docks

Islands need docks!

Then there is Andrew Cumming who has a 9 m (14') monster on his Lake Muskoka dock! You can see this monster on Baxter Island. (SEE MAP: Just to the left of the "E" in Eilean Gowan Island.) He seems quite proud of it, despite some controversy.   Cumming's been handing out press releases about his sculpture and doing interviews. I wouldn't want to see the monster in the fog! It doesn't seem to fit in with the peace, tranquility and beauty of cottage country. But that is just me, and my memories of cottaging in 1960 - 2010 in Muskoka! Cottaging sure has changed over my lifetime.

Treated like a princess

In my world I am a princess.
A Muskoka princess.

That is how Brian treats me. Every morning he brings me my coffee as I work on my blog, or contact family and friends via computer.
Meantime, since we are still showing the house, he cleans, washes, and tidies and straightens. You see, the deal is: I make dinner, he tidies up. As I explained previously, I am a clutter monster, he is a neat freak. I take care of outside work, he does the inside.

And, no, he doesn't have a brother!

We were married on our lakeshore, Aug. 22/2002, and honeymooned one night in Cranberry Cove, then returned to the cottage for the week. He brings me flowers weekly, and treats, on special occasions and for no occasion.

But I am not the only Muskoka princess to be here!
Here is a princess. You don't need a million dollar yacht to be a princess! Not with a handsome volunteer firefighter steering your craft!
Every princess needs a dog, and hers is right there!

But still, I don't think this princess is the one I heard about.

My daughter looked like a princess for her wedding, but this is not the princess in question, either.

I have a rumour to spread. I was talking to a friend. Someone, having a garage sale, where we have our storage locker. She was sitting out, waiting for customers on Saturday. While she sat there, a black SUV showed up and two men climbed out. One of them asked if she owned the place. She laughed, and said, no.
He explained that he wanted to bring his wife in, she is a princess, and she was coming in by helicopter. They wanted to land in the open area here in the storage locker compound. They gave them the phone number of the owners. Later that day, volunteer firefighter crews were called to ensure safety in the area and, sure enough, the princess arrived in our small town in a yellow helicopter. So they say.

I've been searching for princesses. Victoria, crown Princess of Sweden is on her honeymoon. Married June 19th...to her personal trainer. No guff! Now, this is a YouTube video of the wedding, from someone who bravely stood outside and watched! Could it have been her?

Swedish Crown PrincessVictoria weds fitness ... 19 Jun 2010 news.bbc.co.uk

But it cannot be the newlyweds, there was much speculation on where they were going on their honeymoon:

Betting sites dream up odds ahead of Swedish royal wedding

Now, Miss Lopez says they are in Tahiti. Back to square one.

In fact, there are princesses everywhere. The queen, of course, is staying at the Royal York Hotel. (Which had a power outage today!)

The 150th Queen's Plate was run at Woodbine, in Toronto on Saturday. That would have been the right timing, for arrival Saturday afternoon. More research.  The Queen attended this year, amid much pomp and circumstance, and mild mockery of her hat, maybe a princess had attended and was now on vacation here?

Oops, but working on my blog post, I discovered people who considered themselves Kings of the Lake. Bad manners...

Fishing right in front of our home, where we swim. I asked them not to. "It's no fun getting a fish hook in your foot."

plutocracy

PRONUNCIATION: (ploo-TOK-ruh-see)
MEANING: noun:
1. Government by the wealthy.
2. A country or state governed by the wealthy people.
3. Wealthy ruling class.