Yesterday, I finished re-reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch, and I’m seriously considering starting over at page 1 and re-reading parts of it yet again. I first read this beautiful novel about 15 years ago, but it seemed many times more beautiful on this second reading – and I want to make sure I didn’t miss any of the beauty. If I took a tour of a lovely Caribbean island, I’m sure I would want to go back and re-visit it again, and I guess this book might be my “island” this summer. Last night, when I finished the final page, I immediately went to the front of the book and read the Introduction, and today I’ll start re-exploring the early chapters. I’m also thinking of ordering two or three books about the novel from Amazon. (Wouldn’t I buy a few travel books about an island I was visiting?)

* * * * *

Yesterday I took an hour-long bike ride north of Westerly on Boombridge Road. There are a few decent hills out that way, so I was able to get a good workout. At one point, as I was cresting a fairly steep hill and trying to catch my breath, some friends pulled up alongside in their car. They waved and said hello, but I’m afraid I could barely gasp out a return greeting. Later, resting in the shade of some trees by a farm, I called them on my cellphone and we laughed about our bike/car meeting on a hilltop.

* * * * *

In the evening I had dinner with some good friends at a Thai restaurant by the train station. We met in the park, where their 2-year-old grand-daughter enjoyed herself in the cooling evening air, and then we walked to the restaurant, where we spent a friendly hour or so in welcoming surroundings.