Seven days of nothing. This is what we signed up for at the beginning of the year when we arranged to stay at a friend’s cottage in Quebec in August. Seven days of no work, no stress (hopefully), nowhere to go, no to-do lists. When we booked it, we had many OMG moments in the interim, wondering if this little getaway was even going to happen. There was Covid, of course, border crossing issues and lockdowns, plus some family stuff … all of these things hovered around the periphery of our awareness for months but somehow the stars aligned and before we knew it, the time had come to pack up and GO.
The cottage is in the Val-de-Monts area; situated on a narrow river that leads to a small lake.
From the dock there’s a view of trees and clear water that flows by oh so slowly. It is the most accurate definition of ‘lazy river’ that I’ve ever seen.
(The photo above is of the lake.)
We kayaked up and down that little river many times during our stay. In some parts it’s the width of a residential street, in others you find yourself squeezing through an opening with a dock on one side, and a field of water lilies on the other. The river is shallow. In some parts you can practically lean out and touch the sand with your hand. It’s clear, too. You move among darting fish, with lake weed occasionally stroking the bottom of your kayak as you paddle over underwater forests.
One morning as I sat on the dock a great blue heron glided down the river, floating on the air as silently and effortlessly as the fish swim underneath. I blinked and it was gone.
Hummingbirds regularly zipped around the bee balm in the wild gardens around the cottage. I parked myself with a book and a beach towel right in front of the flowerbeds one afternoon so I could watch them. I could actually hear them coming. They hum and squeak! The calls of blue jays, chickadees, and nuthatches filled the skies while the sun was up, and crickets and cicadas filled up the other ends of the day.
Isn’t it interesting that it is only when we slow way down that we are able to observe the quiet and ordinary spectacle of nature around us? I saw hummingbird fights (they are territorial!), a family of blue jays chattering in a tall tree, a school of fish cutting through the water in a world of their very own. Those things happen whether we are there to witness them or not but I’m glad I was there to see it all.
Speaking of surprises in nature, Mark and I were kayaking down the river one day when we saw something we didn’t expect. He was ahead of me when I heard him shout: “It’s a pig!”
I seriously doubted my hearing: “A what?”
“A. PIG.”
“Whaaat? Did you say pig??”
“Yes! PEE – EYE – GEE… PIG!” (He honestly had to spell it out for me because my brain was not able to connect the dots.)
And he was entirely correct. By the time I caught up to Mark I saw the wide back side of a large pink pig lumbering away from a wee muddy and hoof-trodden spot along the shore. Clearly it was its watering hole!
This was pretty much the last thing I thought I’d see while kayaking in Quebec cottage country but as it turned out one of the cottages along the river was a hobby farm. (This was confirmed by subsequent sightings of chickens, geese, and one sheep.)
Ah, it was nice to get away and relax, but also nice to come home again. It’s the mark of a good holiday, don’t you think?
