Imagine my dismay upon leaving one of our Liberal executive meetings only to find myself stuck behind the president as we descended Lakeshore Road.  Stan’s an absolutely adorable person, but he drives like an old lady.  I tailgated him down the hill, and as we turned onto Swamp Road we were stopped at a red light.

I rolled down my window, and as he has a convertible I knew he could hear me, and screamed at him “Move over.  Get off the road!”  People in nearby cars and a man on the sidewalk stared, but I continued my rant and started waving my arm indicating “get off.”

Stan had Ken the treasurer in the car with him, and he dutifully pulled over to the side so I could get ahead of him.  Free, I put the pedal to the metal and did the usual giddy spree down Swamp Road, through the first roundabout, through the next roundabout, and home within 10 minutes of leaving Alice, the vice president’s, place.

The next day I sent an e mail to Stan saying hey sorry but I like to make it between my house and Alice’s in ten minutes.  He replied no problem, and said he’s been passed by blondes in red hot rods many times.

Today my bold streak seemed to hold as I went down to the big bee hive and took out every frame, and found five heavy and full of honey, so removed those.  One replaces those with blank frames, and as usual, the last one just wouldn’t go in properly.

If you can imagine, riddling a hive filled with 80,000 angry bees as you try to get the 11^th frame into the hive box in a bee suit in the Okanagan in July is no picnic.  I finally gave up, and thought “F. it.”  Yes, I swear when near the bees and am not in any way the image of the calm beekeeper.

And the lower yard is no sea of tranquility for my poor neighbour Pat who’s so neat and tidy in his yard.  However I’ve left the alfalfa to grow wild everywhere, and the bees are having a ball with it.  The result is a field of alfalfa with the remnants of old garden beds evident in places.

But despite the wretched gardening efforts, my season’s been filled with decent bounty.  I had very dark red and lovely rhubarb, followed by sweet strawberries.  I’ve just eaten the last of my blueberries and can pick ripe figs from my little fig tree.

The poor, neglected apricot tree has fruit on it, too, so now I go down and pick a few apricots, warm, from the sun, and eat them right there.  For the first time ever I have little kiwis forming on my kiwi plant.  I’ve had that thing for at least five years and this is the first year for fruit.

And of course I eat lashings of honey and honeycomb.  Jan, Haruka and I just scrape the honeycomb right off the frames and eat it.  Good thing, as the extractor I bought last year for around $200 is a piece of junk and I can’t get the handle to turn at all this year.

Nicky frowns at the pieces of dead bees and other debris in the honeycomb and refuses to eat it, which is unfortunate, as it’s the joy of trying crazy stuff that makes life fun.

You know what they say, when the going gets tough, the tough start baking.  This morning I noticed black billowing smoke in the distance and figured this is it, another fire.  That’s what happens when there’s a province-wide emergency and you’ve been evacuated before for fire.  Your nerves go.

But it turns out a condominium burned down, and that’s what caused that huge plume of black smoke.  I feel bad for the poor people who had to be evacuated and lost all their stuff.  But in the meantime, I just had to start baking to calm my nerves.

Alice, my pal from the Liberal executive, gave me two huge zucchinis, so I made two loaves, one the normal variety with spices and the other with chocolate.  They’re currently in the oven filling the kitchen with that lovely smell of home baked goods.

And for the past while I’ve been immersing myself in Friends, starting with episode 1, and so every night I get to sing the theme song four or five times.  The dog just loves it as it really does put one in a relaxed and happy mood.

And why not, as the show began in 1994 when life was good.  Clinton and Chretien were in power, and the economy was roaring.  I got Arnie in 1995.  I have a lot of nostalgia for the 90’s.  Even the idea of a summer filled with forest fire haze was unthinkable then.

Today Nicky came by with their adorable mutt, Fuji, and he upset Louie as usual, just by his mere presence.  Louie just cannot stand that young dog, and the dog worships Louie so it’s one of those unfortunate relationships.  The little dog crouches, wagging, inches from Lou’s face, and Lou just gets up and walks away.

Nicky, Haruka and Fuji are coming for dinner tomorrow so Louie will be upset once again.  Then we’re off to the Buddhist temple for a Japanese festival and I’ll get to watch Haruka performing in her drumming group.

For more stress reduction, I have plans to make a proper Black Forest cake for my birthday party next week.  I bought Kirsch which is de rigueur, and it requires one uses ripe cherries and not the ghastly pie cherries used in some places.  That isn’t a proper Black Forest cake.

I also found a divine recipe for chicken liver pate, which I’ll make and freeze so that I can give it to mom.  She had her mouth set on it the last time I visited, and when I arrived she said where’s the pate?  I said to her she’d told me she had plenty of food in the place so I didn’t bother making it.  That was a mistake, obviously, as one always has room for pate.

Last week I made a cherry fool which is just pitted cherries cut in half and mixed with whipping cream, which I gave to Haruka to take home to Nick.  She was here with the hound from hell and I babysat him as she shopped.  God knows neither Lou nor Fuji can be left unattended as they’re too precious.

And the final stress reliever is a tablespoon or two of my very own honey, which is laden with honeycomb and supposedly very healthy.  I should be as calm as a cuke.