two weeks ago and I came home today, Sunday, the 29th. PEI is Prince Edward Island, Canada. It’s an island off the northern shores of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It’s one of the provinces of Canada, and a beautiful place it is to visit in the summer or fall. My husband’s family were PEIslanders and he inherited acres and an old house. Now we also have a new cottage.

It all takes money and care to keep them clean and useful. My late husband used to like to come up to PEI as often in the summer as he could, and spend as much time there as possible.  I thought of him often these past two weeks, remembering how he liked to read.

In early days, years ago, he tried to write there. It seemed to him a simple idea–to  sit down and write somewhere where it was quiet. But two little kids, and their mother often thought otherwise. If I was stuck in the kitchen for too many days, I’d nag him to take  us out for dinner. There weren’t many places to eat as there are now. We’d often have to drive a considerable distance for a hot cooked meal. And Bernie would be thinking of his writing, left unfinished on his desk.

He finally did write a novel after he retired, but he made very little, if any, attempt to sell it. He seemed to be happy to have written it. At the time, we belonged to a writer’s group. I found them very helpful in shaping and strengthening my book about my parents, Going All the Way Round: The Diary of a Reluctant Caregiver. Bernie got plenty of advice, too, but he was more interested in reading than writing.

It’s very easy to read books instead of writing them. I do it myself these days. Reading is seductive; writing is work. It’s lonely and you can’t tell if it’s any good without some helpful friends. Writing a blog is all I do these days.