I wrote these words a year ago today, in the visitor log for our cottage on the Big Lake (the keeping of the log/diary goes back to 1938, although the place existed long, long before then.)
We planning to leave here later that day, but the terrible event in London, which we learnt from CNN and NPR and MSNBC, sent me scurrying back home to the Lodge as quickly as possible. Once there, we frantically phoned our London friends and acquaintances. Another reason for the change of location: our satellite dish receives BBC America (the cottage cable system does not), and upon arriving, I was glued to it.
Fifty-four people had died that morning. The bus explosion happened in Tavistock Square, so very near where I'd recently stayed, on my own, for easy access to the British Library, while my husband was working in Liverpool. I'd passed in and out of Russell Square tube station, never guessing that only weeks later it would become a hellish place.
This anniversary of the bombings is skewed--backwards, in fact. Today we arrived at the cottage. But our thoughts are with London today just as much as they were twelve months ago.
We brought several bunches of flowers with us, as usual.
Lola on the dock--she didn't go swimming today, but everyone else did.
Ruth's after dinner nap. A long and busy day!
Today I send out virtual roses to all who died a year ago today, those who are bereft, the injured, and those who care for them.
Rose of the Day
Jacques Cartier. There's a lot of confusion about this lovely specimen.
Some rosarians believe it's the same as Marchesa Boccella. It's variously described as a Portland (that's what I call it) or a damask perpetual or a hybrid perpetual. One of my most reliable rose gurus, Peter Beales, describes it as a cross between Slater's Crimson China and the Autumn Damask, both rebloomers. But to me it screams Portland rose, and it has gallica attributes. Not that I care, I can love it without knowing its precise parentage.
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