The Urban Cottage Weekend

I don't have a cottage.  I can't afford one and I'm not lucky enough to have one in the family.  I love visiting Ontario's beautiful lakes and enjoying cottage life.  Even a drive that passes through cottage country, freshens my wish list and tints my mood a little green with envy.  However, what many people say and I may have to agree, owning a cottage isn't all it's made up to be.  You have a second home to maintain and tackling the traffic really taints the whole experience.  I recently heard from one Muskoka regular, that he avoids the lakes on the weekend, because of the chaos on the water with the boom in powerboat action.


So, I decided that we'd have an urban cottage weekend.  Of course, we don't have a beautiful (but cold) lake on our doorstep, but there are many things we can simulate in the city that can give us the feel of cottage life.  My daughter wrote up our rules (version 2) and posted it on the fridge.  We managed to do most of the things on the list, including roasting marshmallows (in our living room fireplace) !  And funnily enough, the city on Sunday and holiday morning was quite quiet, maybe quieter that cottage country !

Although not specifically on the list, I avoided checking my Blackberry all weekend and didn't check email, blogs, Facebook and Twitter at all.  Although I felt a little disconnected from the world (isn't that one of the things you enjoy from being at the cottage), the odd feeling was that time slowed down.  I wasn't always distracted by an incoming email and social posts and neve had to say - just a minute, while I check something !  I managed to get outside a lot  and enjoy the glorious weather, which unfortunately limited the time to play one of my favourite games, but we did enjoy some movies and I had lots of time to read.