Last Sunday, we drove up to Lenox, MA, for another concert by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. We first heard a rousing performance of a wild and mystifying Aaron Copland piece, performed admirably by the students attending the Tanglewood Music Center for the summer. We watched through our binoculars, and it was fun to see the seriousness and enthusiasm on the faces of the young musicians. The second part of the program was a performance by the BSO of Beethoven's 9th symphony, a performance which almost blew the top off the shed. I think we were both shaking a bit when it was all over.
Then we drove up to Claremont, NH, where we enjoyed a comfortable night at the Common Man Inn. In the morning, we had a down-home breakfast at a small, cozy cafe near the hotel, and then spent the morning seeing some of the sights around Claremont and Lebanon. One of my favorite parts of the morning was just driving along the lovely country roads, seeing the rolling fields and pastures with an occasional glimpses of streams and rivers, including the quiet and majestic Connecticut. We stopped at one of Cia's favorite places, a large veggie and fruit stand near where she used to live. I purchased some white peaches, which turned out to be some of the best peaches I can recall. We had lunch on the Dartmouth College green, enjoying the beautiful sights of the campus surrounding us. Later, we visited one of Cia's old friends, Judith Pettingill, who happens to be quite an accomplished artist. I very much enjoyed looking at her paintings as we sat in her small but impressive home. We capped off the day with dinner with another good friend of Cia's, Shawn Donovan. We ate at a delightful restaurant in downtown Lebanon, and talked a mile-a-minute about all kinds of things as we ate.
On Tuesday, we enjoyed a full day with Aaron, cruising some roads I hadn't seen before, visiting a museum in Lebanon, lunching together at the college bookstore (a favorite place of mine), and then seeing an excellent movie about Sherlock Holmes in his elder years. I found the movie fairly complex and hard to follow, but later, Cia straightened me out on some of the major points. As always, it was fun being with cheerful, considerate Aaron.
On Wednesday morning, we had a heartening meeting with our financial advisor, and then we had a pleasant, almost restful drive back to Mystic. Happy to be home, but happy, too, that we got to take this wonderful four day holiday.
