Believe it or not, I am cold! I'm in a cottage on a pond in Maine (they call lakes ponds here, like "On Golden Pond") and it's lovely, though I'm not sure what to call it. When I lived in Winnipeg, we called a summer home a cottage. It was usually quite a modest place, unless it was on Lake of the Woods (Kenora, Ontario: grand places there, with wrap-around verandas, on private islands with big boathouses sleeping a half dozen or so extra guests). Further east in Ontario, summer homes are called camps; farther north, .they're cabins. I mostly call all such places the lake, unless they're on an ocean, of course, and then I don't know what to say. I have a dear friend who lives on Howe Sound at.Gibson's Landing, and I call it Virginia's place. (Hello, Virginia.)

Anyway, I'm here and I'm cold. What a surprise! I've been so hot in Toronto for the past month that I'd forgotten how not to be hot and I didn't bring warm clothes. Fortunately, my hostess and I are the same size and she will lend me something to wear. Fortunately, also, my hostess is my daughter, bless her.

She is awake now and I'm going to have coffee with her and her husband - by a fire, I think. My battery needs recharging, anyway. Anon, anon...

I slept eight hours last night! I feel younger and carefree. You see, it's worth it to go through the horrors of travel. Not that the flight was a horror. I'm the one who creates the obstacles.

Doris Lessing (1919-2013.), at one point in her illustrious career, decided to test her publishers (and fans) by submitting a new book under another name. Jane Somers was accepted and got lukewarm, not glowing, reviews. The only one who recognized her was her American publisher and he didn't tell. When Jane Somers published a second book, she received the general comment that she hadn't lived up to her original promise. Then the secret came out. The two books are published now as The DIaries of Jane Somers. I always liked them.

The heroine of the novel is a successful career woman, efficient and fastidious. She meets and helps an old woman who gradually takes over her life to the point where she loses her fastidious habits - no time or energy. What I remember best and go back to to re-read, is a sequence in the old woman's mind as she tries to cope with her day. She doesn't have the energy to clean up a spill or to tidy her place or make the bed -whatever. I'm not quite that far gone yet, not quite, but I can see the time coming.