For the last several years I have been fortunate to rent a camp on a small lake.  It’s not any lake, it’s the lake where my grandparents owned a camp for decades.  I grew up in and on this lake.  The lake is small, less than a mile long.  Its water is clean, provided by springs deep within the lake.  One’s initial experience swimming in this lake is an adventure as one encounters the springs while gliding through the water.  Those springs provide COLD water.

Due to the fact I grew up swimming there, it’s not an effort for me to get into the water.  I laugh at my friends who prefer water temperatures of 80 degrees or more before they will deign to go swimming.  There is usually a week or two during July when the water temp approaches 80 but for the most part the lake hovers between 70-74 degrees.  It’s refreshing.

My kayak resides at the lake.  Many others canoe, sail or windsurf.  Being in the water is the most relaxing activity I know.  The second is reading.  Nothing brings me the pleasure of these two activities and I can’t imagine my summer without the lake.

Enjoy the view.  You’re sitting on the dock with me and seeing what I see.  But in my imagination those woods across the lake contain an abandoned abbey, a group of buildings that hold a prominent place in The Quarry’s Child.