Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Fantasy Island

Sorry I've been gone so long. It's just so hard to be inside on a summer night. My patio umbrella is strung with lights, so even when it gets dark out I can continue reading, or talking with friends or even just be there, sipping icy cold mineral water and feeling like I own the world.

Summer will do that to you.

Vacation was so much fun. If you've never had the pleasure of being the only woman in a beach house with four gay guys, I suggest you rethink your holidays.


These pictures are of a friends house in another community on Fire Island called Water Island.

It's a 45 minute walk at low tide over hard packed sand, an annual pilgrimage to check on the incredible garden and house that these two friends have been working on for 20 years.

Considering every stone and bag of dirt, plant and pillow have to be brought over by barge it is a true labor of love and obsession.

                                                      Not to mention the ironstone, or the two blenders now that I've enlarged the picture.....

Or the pottery.
I can't even bear to show you the Fu dog collection.
Back in our beach shack there were guests for lunch and guests for dinner.

Lunch is at 2:00, dinner 9ish.

Larry brought printouts of his favorite summer recipes, I prepped them, we all cooked.
(Better to be the cook, then you don't have to do the dishes.)

Everyone but me drank bottles and bottles of rose and ate carton after carton of sea salt caramel or pistachio ice cream.

I read like I was starving for words and slept like I'd been up for months.

And then I came home.

Vowing once again to bring that feeling of vacation home with me.

  

And get a little more festive in my dress.

xo J

32 comments:

  1. That sounds magical. What a wonderful description!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the orchids and the boats....great green pottery.
    Happy Holidays........

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Indeed, want to go back.Lucky New Yorkers who go every weekend.

      Delete
  3. Please consider this post to be your good deed for the day. We are going away for a long weekend with friends next week, and I am going into it now with a whole new appreciation for the experience.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. and the important info: it's better to cook than to clean up! Where are you going?

      Delete
  4. Gay, shmay....friends! I swear I can smell the wonderful sea breeze from the dock. The air is so clear, I wanna go too! My vacation isn't until September. It's been an awfully long summer waiting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But when September comes we'll all be hard at work vacation memories in the past, you'll be swanning around happy as can be.

      Where are you going?

      Delete
    2. Alaska! This involves both a train trip through Denali Park and a cruise with lots of drinks and good food. I think I need to find some expando pants! We're going with a couple of friends. I'm the only non-retired one that will have to go back to work ;-ppppppp

      Delete
  5. You were actually IN that magazine worthy house? You know how to vacation Jane - thanks for sharing with us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My pleasure. And we all wonder why they don't let it be photographed and put in a magazine, the one man is in the design field.....maybe they want to keep it private?

      Shouldn't have let me in then:-)

      Delete
  6. enjoyed your photos on IG. sounds like perfection to me. x

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm gonna hide in your luggage next year - it sounds like heaven! Glad you got a chance to get totally away and enjoy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Okay, but you better help move the suitcase......put wheels on your heels!

      Delete
  8. I'm glad you are enjoying your summer evenings--one of my favorite things.

    Fire Island is one of my favorite places on earth. When we lived in Brooklyn we used to go to Fair Harbor and Saltaire. I love no cars, red wagons, biking and that it's an easy walk from bay to ocean. Another world.

    That house is spectacular. The green pottery.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It seems to take all of two minutes after getting off the ferry to forget all the hours of travel to get there.....then again if it was easy it wouldn't be so magical, right?

      Delete
  9. Is that you in the purple hair?!?
    :-)
    Beautifully written & photographed. Thank you, Travelin' Jane.
    Diane who grew up about
    half an hour away in a bit
    more uptight 11530!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha! Maybe it will be me next time, should have shown you the boy in the bunny ears:-)

      Delete
  10. So glad you had fun, so glad you took photos, so glad you're back. xoxox.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wonderful photos. What a fabulous garden. I love the clipped knot hedge with its little obelisk in the center. Thanks for showing us!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My pleasure, wish i could have shown more, but you'd be up all night!

      Delete
  12. Glad you had a good time. The beach house looks amazing. I'm curious what the rest of the home looks like.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The rest of the house is like a movie set. I have more pictures, but really how many could I post......it's amazing.

      Delete
  13. Restorative, inspiring, fun... The perfect vacation.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Fabulous! but then you knew it would be. I hope the vacation feeling stays for ages!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Oh my...just lovely from gardens to pottery...perfection! Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hi Jane,

    Welcome back! You are right to enjoy the summer. I try doing that as well. Before we know we are stuck inside one again :-) Your holiday sounds lovely! Love that first photo with all the plants. Really pretty.

    Happy week!

    Madelief x

    ReplyDelete
  17. What a lovely summer vacation! Beautiful interiors and garden, too.

    I wonder if we might have gone to the same school, since you mentioned on my blog that you lived Judah St. in SF in the 1950s. That's when my family lived there, too--I went to Francis Scott Key Elementary, in the Annex.

    ReplyDelete