Tuesday, April 9, 2013 – Centreville (that’s a long way from Florida!):

            Well, if anyone is reading this, I guess you thought I would be writing this in sunny Florida, right?   Uh, uh…wrong…still in Maryland.  We did have plane reservations to fly back to Cocoa (Orlando) today, but Bob came down with some horrific cold, and we thought it would be very wise to cancel our reservations and fly back next week.  So the suitcases are packed and ready to go by the back door, the refrigerator is completely cleaned out (and that means NO food), the mail and paper have been stopped and the plants over watered.  The cat is thoroughly confused because she knows something’s up when she sees the suitcases, and her cat box and cat dish bowls are completely cleaned up, but we are still here.  The only item on our “leaving to do list” was give kitty her little blue pill, but when we woke up this morning (actually Bob was up most of the night), I thought I might not need to give it to her; so instead of a staggering around, half-asleep cat, she has been wide awake and wondering what is going on.

            To have a radical change like this occur in our plans completely discombobulates me.  It has taken me a whole day to re-adjust to staying here for another week.  I suppose you could say that all things happen for a reason, and if that’s so, then the “reason” Bob got sick, and we delayed our return to Florida was our mail.  I realized that I would have to go to the post office and ask to change the date of the hold I had requested, and when they went to give me today’s mail, they discovered that they had started to hold someone else’s mail instead of ours.  So I guess this was a blessing in disguise.  After that was cleared up, I went on to the grocery store to stock up for another week.  I still don’t want to think about re-provisioning the boat when we get back!

            The weather here has been cold with hardly any signs of spring for the entire two weeks we have been home except for yesterday and today when summer decided it was time to shove the “non-spring” out of the way and make an appearance.  Last year, by this time in the middle of April all the trees were in full bloom and the spring flowers were already gone.  I remember a friend bemoaning the fact that another friend was going to get married in June and all the flowers would be gone, but I reassured her that the weather was so early that there would be chrysanthemums in July!  However, this year, the trees hardly have any blossoms yet, and the flowers that have bloomed have done so out of spite.  I suppose that if the temperatures that have prevailed since yesterday continue, everything will pop out at once.

            There was a beautiful sunrise out on the Corsica River this morning, with a soft pink and yellow hue breaking the horizon, and the water resembled a looking glass pond, completely flat without a ripple, with a perfect reflection of the opposite shore.  The warm air was so still with only the sound of the hungry osprey breaking the solitude as they fished for breakfast – this reminded me why living here is so special.  I think when we get back to our boat, we may travel home a little faster than we had planned.  We’ve been away for a long time, and there are so many things we need to do here that we enjoy.

            We are keeping in touch with friends who traveled the ICW also, and they are on their way back to Maryland now.  They have promised to keep in touch with us and let us know the “lay of the land” as to which marks have been changed and the shallow spots we have to watch out for. 

            I don’t think I will write again until we get to Florida, which, if all goes well, will be next Tuesday.  Wish us luck!

            Oh, by the way, on our way home two weeks ago, the cat did fine and no one suspected her of being a panther.  I was a little worried though, as she didn’t eat her breakfast that morning, and consequently, didn’t get her little blue pill; so she was very much aware of the goings on at the airport, but she did fine.  The TSA agents were all women who liked cats, so after they determined that we weren’t hiding explosives anywhere on our person or the cat, they hurried to get the cat carrier out of the scanner, so I could get Lucy safely back inside.  It was a totally different experience than before!

            We’ll see what happens in another week!