Today has been a very pretty day, but still on the chilly side. Fred and I decided it was time for us to get out of the house, so we drove down to Peacham for lunch at the Peacham Cafe. That is such a pleasant space. Next time we'll go upstairs - the loft area looked inviting, but there were people who seemed to be in a meeting up there today, so we opted for the ground level. Good food - and we brought home a chicken pot pie for later this weekend.

From Peacham, we drove down through West Barnet and got on the throughway back to St. Johnsbury to do some errands there. Now back home and having had my cup of tea, I'm ready to get back to work!

Andy Rudin sent a link to Camilla's obituary that appeared today in the Times-Argus. It is the same as I posted yesterday, but I've posted the link in case you didn't see that.

We have lost three dear people from our lives within the last few days. This set me to  thinking about the old adage that deaths come in threes. I won't pretend that I'm totally devoid of superstition and the three thing never enters my mind. I had a mother who totally believed it and who would not sit at a table with 12 other people (very bad luck), got a little frantic if a wild bird flew against the window (a sign someone was going to die) and who knew absolutely that the Christmas cactus she inherited that her mother brought from Scotland, was an indicator of sickness or death, depending on how profusely the plant bloomed - out of season. And bloom it did - summer, spring, winter or fall, and there always seemed to be a corresponding illness or death. Big family, lots of possibilities, but we never really figured out a logical reason the darned thing kept blooming unexpectedly at whatever time of year. My mother finally put it in our windowless cellar and let it die - but not until she had rooted a slip from it, which she passed on to me many years later. That offspring of the old plant only blooms at Christmas. I still have it, scraggly as it is, and I've taken slips that are healthy, so one day I'll probably discard the old plant, but not yet. There were dozens of other superstitions shared by my mother and her six Scottish sisters - two of which read tea leaves. I remember watching the ritual after the menfolks had left the table, the sisters sat with their tea, chatting and telling stories. Then someone would say, "Jase (Scotch for Jessie) tell my fortune." The overturned cup in a saucer had to be turned carefully three times (I forget what direction, right or left!) and then everyone was quiet as Jessie peered into the cup and rotated it, sometimes pointing out specks and various arrangements. The fortune was always told with a slight Scottish burr, or if there was something dire or very exciting, full Scottish dialect. Sometimes the sisters got downright silly, but other times Jessie would put the cup down abruptly and say, "That's all I see." We all knew she had "seen" something dreadful in the soggy tea leaves and no manner of pleading would get it out of her.

Although I'll tell anyone who asks I am not really superstitious - but I can't completely discount things happening in threes, or that there are unknown forces at work sometimes, either. Can't help it. I think it's safe to say it's in my DNA.