Day 12.233: Not quite right

After I published yesterday's blog post I headed back to work and was there until around 5 am when I came home. I was back there after two or three hours of sleep at around 10 am and stayed until 5 pm.

There was a reason - not necessarily a good one, but hopefully nothing too bad in the end.

Anyway, lack of sleep can make you feel like something is a little...off. Like the looks people were giving Exile #4 and and me as we walked around Fort Williams park last weekend.


I have no idea why.

Day 12.232: Poetry slam

After having just a few words on the fridge door for quite a while, the whole box of magnetic poetry words appeared this week and now we have some short poems and also a few disturbing phrases appearing:

Day 12.231: Back to school - 3, 4

It was a short school week for Exile #3 and Exile #4. Both of them were in for just today to get to grips with their schedules and meet their teachers as a senior (12th grade) and a sophomore (10th grade) respectively.

A last first day of school for Exile #3 and so begins a year of "lasts".

Day 12.230: River estuary

I'm rather partial to this view - looking upstream from the parking lot at Camp Ellis.

Especially on an evening like this one (Sunday).

Day 12.229: River works

...or does it?

The water in this part of the river is lower than we've ever seen it - but it's not the effect of a drought:

The disruption to the flow of water is related to some work going on just upstream where they are making a channel to allow migrating fish to circumvent the weirs.

Day 12.228: Fort Williams

On our way home from the party on Saturday afternoon, the four of us who were not working, stopped off for a visit to Fort Williams Park. The main aim was to visit the gardens while they were still in summer-mode and they did not disappoint. We also walked to the lighthouse and along the cliff walk and down to the fortification on the other side of the beach.

Day 12.227: Exile #2's Sunday Column #262

Exile #2 writes...

It’s been a party weekend. Exile #3 slept over at a friend’s on Friday night to celebrate her birthday. Yesterday, the rest of us went to a fun summer BBQ and this afternoon, E5N1 got to splash about in sprinklers at another birthday party. In between, we’ve tried to squeeze as much as we can out of these last few summer vacation days. The girls are back in school on Thursday, and E5N1 joins them the following Tuesday.

Although we were all pretty tired after dinner, we couldn’t quite resist the lovely evening and so we went for a short but sweet clamber on the breakwater in Camp Ellis.

Day 12.226: Timber Point and some dance

We had a fun and full day today, but let's first catch up on what we did yesterday. After our food-truck lunch, we had a quick walk at Timber Point, where the rose-hip hedgerows, monarch butterflies and signs were all - dare-I-say - on point.

After that it was on to see what Exile #3 and the rest of this year's student company had been working on all week. Two choreographed numbers and a new improvisation framework. They all did great - including the two new company members:

We look forward to seeing them perform them for real once the school-year gets underway.

Day 12.225: Brick Store Museum

Since I had the day off work, the first outing was to take Exile #3 to the last day of her week of dance, shortly followed by taking Exile #4 to work. After that the three remaining ones went to Kennebunk, where the street planting is stunning:

Our main destination was the Brick Store Museum - named for its building which was once a dry goods store built - unusually - of bricks. The temporary exhibit is an examination of "cute" in all its connotations:

E5N1 also looked up the prices of his favorite oil paintings, but decided not to buy any:

We followed our museum with wonderfully tasty barbecue from this food truck:

and then walk and a dance performance, but I'll save those for another day.

Day 12.224: Last Thursday of summer

...only in the sense of the Music in the Parking Lot evenings came to an end today with the Pepperell Square Trio:

Exile #4 came with us..

and loved that I was taking photographs of her:

Day 12.223: Summer Camp Kid?

Here's Exile #2 sporting one of her birthday presents from earlier in the summer. I decided since she's a US citizen now, she should really start rocking the graphic t-shirts and since she didn't actually go to summer camp as a child, what better than this one?

Day 12.222: Dancing again

Exile #3 is doing her week of intensive dance at the moment - rehearsing new choreography with this year's incarnation of the student dance company. They have been having fun - but are all a bit sore coming back to this much dancing at the end of the summer.

Day 12.221: Puzzling

Exile #4 recently confessed to us that one of her summer activities was doing a jigsaw puzzle alone on her desk in her room. The rest of us may have been denied any part in that, but E5N1 and Exile #2 recently spent a couple of days solving this rather excellent Pokemon one that E5N1 bought himself on a summer shopping trip:

Day 12.220: Exile #2's Sunday Column #261

Exile #2 writes...

Amazingly, the girls only have a matter of days left to work at their summer jobs. Exile #3 worked today, but she has the next few days off for an intensive dance week with her junior dance company. They will be learning the foundations of their choreography for the coming year, then we’ll get a sneak preview on Friday afternoon.

Exile #4 wasn’t on duty today, but she spent some time setting herself up for the year ahead, disappearing outside with a deckchair and one of her English texts in the afternoon.

E5N1, meanwhile, had fun bouncing on trampolines at a friend’s birthday party. Can’t be bad!

Day 12.219: Wedding tea

We all had a day out together - to celebrate the wedding of friends from church - it was an Anglo-American affair including a trans-Atlantic livestream so we were thrilled to be there and to help out where we could. The girls were busy helping serve the afternoon-tea when I took this - our duties were earlier and later in the proceedings.

Here they are in a still from a video I took of them during the silent disco:

Day 12.218: Beach at dusk

After dinner, we decided there was just time for a quick walk on the beach. Exile #3 was still at work and Exile #4 chose to stay home, but this is how it looked for those of us who did go:

Day 12.217: Saco River Jazz Ensemble

We managed to persuade E5N1 to join us at Thursday night music in the parking lot today. It almost exactly coincided with the duration of Exile #4's karate class and Exile #3 was at work, but the three of us enjoyed some big band music with the Saco River Jazz Ensemble:

Day 12.216: Life-changing...seriously!

This is our new coffee maker at work:

The pot is a vacuum flask and there is no hot plate. Genius - the coffee stays hot without cooking itself to bitter oblivion and we can't accidentally leave it on overnight and cook the coffee to the glass.

Seriously life-changing.

Day 12.215: Beautiful Main Street

A summer's day in Saco, Maine.

Day 12.214: The boys of the neighborhood...

...are out playing together:

It's not exactly what we had in mind when we sent them to play outside.

Day 12.213: Exile #2's Sunday Column #260

Exile #2 writes...

Poor Exile #3 spent her day at home, feeling a little under the weather, but the rest of us popped out for lunch after church, to a local cafe that has recently been revamped. Exile #4 and I had tasty empanadas and juices that had been whipped into a froth with ice - very nice. Exile #1 and E5N1 went for hot dogs with a Latin American twist.

We went home after that to keep Exile #3 company, and we watched the Detective Pikachu movie together. It was almost as light and frothy as our drinks had been but it was sweet, funny, and full of Pokémon, which pleased the fan in the house.

Day 12.212: Beach trip

With the girls safely off to their workplaces, the three of us remaining packed up some lunch and went to the beach. There was sandcastle building and swimming - although it was very cold in the water:

and - after lunch - a short walk down the beach to see Exile #3 and to sample some of her frozen wares (raspberry sorbet in mine and E5N1's case):