For the fourth morning in a row this week we were up early and on the road. This morning for example we were traveling no later than 7:20 a.m. to get to a meeting in Stittsville at 8:05 a.m. Each of the meetings has involved important medical, dental, orthodontic, legal or estate planning matters. Because each of the meetings involved advisory professionals we were naturally inclined to be prompt or even overly punctual. For people like us who are unaccustomed to time tables and pressing exigencies, these meetings weighed heavily upon us.  As a result we responded to the pressure in dynamic ways and of course we are at last pleased to have accomplished all that we set out to do.

The spirited ways in which we expressed ourselves primarily include moderate travel and indulgent dining.  One would have thought that after having repeated this behaviour each day of our scheduled meetings we would have exhausted the need or desire.  But apparently not so.  At least today’s outing coincided with our traditional habit of venturing abroad when our cleaning lady attends the apartment for her routine make-over.  Nonetheless today we added a variant by first going to the Golf Club for lunch, something we would normally not have done when we vacating the apartment for our cleaning lady as we usually just plan to have a late lunch or early dinner in Kingston for example. Accordingly after our very satisfying hamburger and onion rings/French fries at the Golf Club, we telephoned the Ivy Lea Club to book an early dinner at 5:00 p.m.

Because we arrived on the Ivy Lea Parkway around 3:00 p.m. we contrived to kill time by going to Gananoque for a coffee.  As luck would have it we found a parking space almost directly across the street from the café. And after having drunk our fortifying Espresso and lemonade we sat in the shade of a large tree on a bench on the street in front of the café and watched the world go by.  Gananoque was distinctly showing signs of festivity in preparation for Canada Day tomorrow.  A “Farmers’ Market” was getting in full swing on the spacious lawn in front of the Town Hall.  Tourists were filtering up and down the sidewalks.  Half-ton trucks pulling watercraft abounded.

We were quite astonished to discover that the Ivy Lea Club was comparatively quiet, at least the restaurant (though the boaters and cottagers were prolific). We were probably the first patrons to be seated in the breezeway of the dining room overlooking the marina.

The evening experience was a delight!  The view in particular was especially pleasing and dovetailed nicely with the maritime theme of the menu. We ended having a main course of halibut with lobster sauce.  This was of course after the charcuterie and Niçoise salad. In the tradition of the Ivy Lea Club we finished with sticky toffee pudding soaked in hot butterscotch sauce.

Though we had dined early it was approaching 7:00 p.m. before we stood up from table to leave.  The Summer Solstice naturally assured an easy drive home along the “back roads”.  The bucolic fields were unimaginably beautiful. The quaint small-town historic architecture was also shown to considerable advantage, manicured lawns, lazing cattle and horses in surrounding paddocks.