Hit The Road, Jack.

Ok so none of us are called Jack, but hit the road is what we did. Up to the Saint-Sauveur area, an hour's drive northwest-ish of Montreal we took our very grown-up looking hire car:

Which was driven expertly by Marianna, who had never driven an automatic before, but who had luckily driven on the other side of the road. Just look at her sitting on the left of the car! It's madness! :

The house belongs to a family friend of Jonny's, who lets it out most of the year but at the moment has no tenants, so incredibly kindly offered it to us for the weekend. And who are we to turn down a weekend by the lake? I didn't really know what to expect when we got there, but whatever cottage/chalet/shack I had conjured up in my mind was definitely not it.Wanna see?

Neat, huh? The recurring theme of conversation amongst the four of us when we set our bags down, after squealing with delight, was 'OH MY GOSH THIS IS SO ROMANTIC CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW ROMANTIC IT WOULD BE TO HAVE CHRISTMAS HERE'. It was super lovely. But outside the house was just as divine/typically Canadian:

As perfect as the house was, we wanted to get out and about and have some outdoorsy adventures. Late the next morning, after a probably very dangerous detour through the woods around the side of the lake, we found the boats moored on a jetty that we were looking for. Jonny and Marianna took a canoe, and Emma and I went for a pedalo.

Boating on a lake that looked like this....

made me look like this:

Upon disembarking from our boats, tragedy struck. I shan't say what happened as I think the person in question is still fairly unhappy about the event, but suffice to say it started off being very funny, but quickly descended into non-hilarity.
That afternoon, Emma and Jonny headed up to the pool:

whilst Marianna napped to the sound of country music, and I read a trashy thriller that was so bad/good I ingested it in one day. I'd brought a ripping yarn with me: 'The Problems of Modernity: Adorno and Benjamin', but unfortunately those lads were no match for 'No Time for Goodbye' by Linton Barclay, and instead of being read, found itself being photographed by Emma in locations such as the fridge or the toaster. Happy times.
That evening, we had plans to watch Showgirls which was foiled by the fact that the DVD and the DVD player were different regions. Buuuuuh. So we resigned ourselves to the hot tub. I'm not putting up photos from that on here because, although I have no dignity on FB, I would like to keep this blog a rank-free zone.
The next day, we all went up to the pool and Marianna and I played tennis whilst Jonny and Emma reclined. We were definitely giving Roger Federer and Andy Murray a run for their money, especially when we rejoiced at getting a rally of 16 shots going. Epic.
After copious amounts of Cheetos, with a heavy heart we packed up our stuff [minus Marianna's adapter and Jonny's towel and a few cloves of garlic] and set off back to Montreal.
Before long, the buildings were looking less like this:

and more like this:

and in no time at all, we were home.

It was a wonderful, wonderful weekend and I'm so glad we got the opportunity to spend time in such a beautiful house in a beautiful part of the world, with such excellent company :)
xx