A cabin in the woods

Another long break between blogs. It’s the new normal, and that’s all there is to it. Let’s just move on, shall we? When last we left your humble blogger she had settled into a borrowed cabin in a national park. There were abundant groceries, a significant but manageable list of small home reno projects to complete, a lot of videos downloaded for evening viewing, and a host of places to run, hike and kayak in the cooling autumn weather. All of this centred around that lovely cabin that was occupied by me and me alone. It was, in short, perfect.

First I should clarify, especially for UK-based Astute Go Stay Work Play Live Readers, that I’m not talking about a log cabin hewn by hand from local timber and set on an outcrop of Canadian Shield surrounded by nothing but trees for miles, and with only beavers and the haunting cry of the loon for company. Despite any of your romantic notions of the vast Canadian forests, I was not trapping my own food, hauling water from the lake, or washing in an icy waterfall with a loaded rifle nearby to ward off curious brown bears. Apologies for bursting your bubble. Places like that exist here, sure. But most cabins (or cottages) cluster in neighbourhoods or long roads surrounding a lake, with power, plumbing and other useful amenities like ice cream and mini golf and gift shops selling anything/everything with a maple leaf on it.

Here’s what my immediate surroundings looked like. 

It’s a cluster of about 500 tiny houses set onto five parallel streets running down to the lake. This used to be a campground filled with temporary structures that had to be hauled away each winter and replaced each spring, like glorified ice fishing huts. They’ve gradually become permanent, and now many are new, fully modern homes with granite counter tops and cathedral ceilings (which I think is not really in the spirit of things, but as usual no one asked me). Happily, there are still some original cabins that barely cover 200 square feet and don’t even have indoor plumbing. (“The Lucky Nickel” would be spacious and well-equipped in comparison.) Residents of those cabins simply use the many toilet blocks and shower facilities dotted around the neighbourhood.

I know it looks much like a typical residential street. But here’s here’s what’s at the end of that street:

A wide clear lake, generously equipped with docks for diving from or for launching yourself in a canoe or kayak for an afternoon of adventure.

And here’s what’s a few minute’s walk from the other end of the street:

A hiking trail through a marsh, with floating boardwalks and resident beavers.

That was my home for about five weeks. The cabin is owned by some of my oldest and closest friends, who five years ago had an extension put onto it to accommodate their growing kids and their desire for indoor plumbing. The extension is very sympathetic, and the cabin itself is just big enough, and has just enough of the mod cons you might need, but maintains a cozy feeling that is most definitely perfectly in tune with the surroundings, with not a granite countertop in sight. However, the builder who did the extension was not a mad fiend for finish work, so five years on there were still windows missing trim and tiny bedrooms without baseboard (skirting board) and a general sense of unfinished-ness that was starting to get a bit wearying for my lovely and generous friends.

Which is how a perfectly synchronous arrangement evolved wherein I got to live in the cabin and have some much needed alone time in an idyllic setting. And while there, I could spend a bit of time each day gradually finishing up all the little things that needed doing. I also hasten to add that my friends would not stop pointing out that I was very very welcome to stay in the cabin even if all I did was lounge around and eat bon bons while floating on the lake. But this is the kind of work I find genuinely enjoyable, and being able to do a favour for them while they were similarly doing me a big favour just made everything better.

So it was that I pitched up with a car full of tools and spent a day or so getting myself set up and making a big list of everything to be done.

First I made this workbench to hang off the deck so I had somewhere right outside the door to put the saw. And I made those little sticky-up bits of 2x4 (4x2) clamped to the railing to support the ends of long stock while cutting. 

Days generally went like this: Wake up in the upstairs bedroom surrounded by giant windows and trees, do some yoga, have breakfast, and then get out the tools and start work on the day’s project. One day it might be adding framing and trim to a downstairs bedroom window. Or hanging a window blind. Or installing some baseboard. 

Once it was transforming this sad little nook/shelf, set between the studs in a wall...

… into this. Which was super satisfying.

Of course I also had a break mid-morning for coffee and a toasted cinnamon bun from the local bakery and a few minutes with the cryptic crossword. And I stopped for lunch too. And I was usually wrapping up in the late afternoon with plenty of time for a run through the woods before settling in for a little pandemic habit I’ve developed called “Non-Fiction Hour” which involves settling into a comfy chair after a run and a shower but before supper, with a small bowl of snacks, a cold drink, and a good book (generally non-fiction but exceptions can be allowed on a case-by-case basis). In a fit of Canadiana, I made it through Pierre Burton’s book on the Great Depression and then managed a solid start on “Merchants of Doubt”, which was a bit out of date and hard going but had some interesting stuff to say. 

Occasional alternate activities for non-fiction hour include: continuing to bash away at the crossword or drawing something either on the iPad or in my actual sketchbook.

Like this, which I was absurdly pleased with. Enough so that I made a frame for it from scrap wood and left it as a gift for the cabin. I call it “The View From Upstairs”.

And of course sometimes I just took the day off. Especially on days when the lake was calm and the sun was out. One notable Tuesday in late September it was unseasonably warm and sunny and I made it all the way across the lake on what turned out to be an epic 8km paddle that lasted all afternoon, with a few stops to linger on various shorelines for a photo op.

Warm, sun-browned and happy.

And even better, Karen managed to come visit for a few days and we hiked and kayaked and drank red wine and watched cheesy movies and roasted a chicken on the BBQ.

We also took Non-Fiction Hour snacks to a whole new level with blood orange gin & tonic, assorted crackers and cheese, hummus, hot pepper jelly, chip dip, cherry tomatoes, smoked oysters, pretzel chunks and ripple chips. Because that’s how we roll.

And we tried paddle boarding.

Paddle Boarding is an activity whose appeal I’d never understood. And now, having tried it, I still don’t. Why would you want to stand up on something that unstable? It’s just awkward and uncomfortable. I seemed to end up frozen in a hunched position, afraid to shift in the slightest. Also you’re constantly having to switch what side you’re paddling on to stay straight. I did find it interesting to try out some yoga moves on the paddle board, but only because that was challenging and on a hot day it was fun to end up in the water after a wobbly triangle pose went wrong. But paddle boarding as a pleasant means of propelling yourself across the water? No thank you.

Paddle boarding aside, living at the cabin was, without a doubt, the best month I’ve had since this whole disastrous pandemic thing started. Granted that’s an unprecedentedly low bar to clear, but it really was excellent. Then gradually the weather cooled off, and the real world started to intrude. And one morning I woke up to an email about a job. An actual job on a big show. I know I mentioned that the show I was working on in London in March was trying to start up again. This was not that. This was the Abu Dhabi National Day show, which Astute Go Stay Work Play Live Readers will recall from 2015. And 2018. And 2019. Pandemic or no, a show would go on. Smaller audience. Smaller cast. Smaller staff. Socially distanced and bubbled and sanitised to within an inch of its life. But it would go on. And they wanted me. So after consulting with family and friends and colleagues and hearing about how they proposed to do a large show in the middle of a surging pandemic, I took the job. Because as nice as the cabin was, I haven’t had a pay cheque since February and six weeks of work at international rates will go a long way to keeping me going until something else emerges.

So my last couple weeks at the cabin were marked by mornings spent on the phone with colleagues in London and Abu Dhabi, catching up on everything that happens when you’re several time zones behind the rest of the show. And since my internet access was via a hotspot on my phone, there was an awful lot of additional expensive Canadian mobile data used. And a lot of logistics to sort out. And there were still some things to finish on the cabin. 

By the time thanksgiving arrived, the list was done and my friends arrived for a last weekend at the cabin before closing it up for the winter. They were appropriately thrilled at the improvements, which was gratifying. And we made an excellent dinner for thanksgiving and played games and watched movies. And most importantly, I got to just hang out with my good friends in a way that hasn’t been possible for ages. And we even got a few last moments of kayaking in, though the wind whipped up the lake to such a froth that we had to abandon that plan on the last morning after the kayaks were swamped with waves before we could even leave the dock (or in my case, before I could even get in). 

Not optimal kayaking conditions.

I stuck it out at the cabin for a couple more days after my friends left, but by that time my head and my heart just weren’t in it anymore. My brain was bubbling with work, the internet constraints at the cabin became untenable, and they moved my flight date up to allow for a longer quarantine time in Abu Dhabi. The writing was on the wall, so I gave in, packed everything up and shut down the cabin.

As I write this closing paragraph, I'm quarantined in a hotel room in Abu Dhabi after an international odyssey that definitely deserves a blog post all its own. It's bizarre to be back, and the giant steel mesh bracelet bolted to my arm monitoring my position at all times is heavy and disconcerting, but I'm grateful for the work and it's actually nice to have a bit of time to settle in and get used to this all again. I think the biggest immediate challenge is going to be the combination of not running added to three ridiculously generous room service meals a day. I already feel like I've consumed my bodyweight in pita bread and hummus. Luckily for you, there's an excellent chance you'll get at least one more post from me before work gets crazy. It's the little things, right?