New old sights, old new sights

Yesterday Andy and I walked around Jamaica Pond, a natural landmark in the heart of Boston less than a block from her home. The park was jumping: runners, walkers (us), bikers, people fishing, activists recruiting local support for peace and for Jamaica Plain neighborhood betterment, an entertainer singing and telling stories to kids, ramps being set up for a BMX bike acrobatics show... We even ran into a cousin of Ann's and Andy's who lives nearby. Here's the boathouse where a lot of the social activity was centered.

A two-hour drive yesterday afternoon brought me to the Small House on Cape Cod. This morning Rachel's mother Ann and I walked a mile or so of Nauset Beach in Orleans at high tide. The wind was strong and the surf was heavy, perhaps influenced in part by the passage of the former Hurricane Igor, now just a tropical storm far offshore. Every hundred yards or so one or two surfers would pop up in the shallows: seals that somehow were managing to feed in the murky water full of churned-up sand. I'd foolishly left both camera and phone at the house, so you''ll have to make do with this word picture.

On May 22 I showed you the hole in the sand where the Bay House used to stand, the home of Ann's, Andy's, and Margie's parents since the 1970s. This afternoon Ann and I walked next door and she showed me what has replaced the hole: a tall house built right at the brow of the slope down to the  bay where a carpet of needles once lay under towering pines. Porches and decks on the seaward side will provide spectacular views of Pleasant Bay and Chatham. The Small House is beyond the fringe of trees you see in the background.