Here We Are: Ultimate Croquet

We are in New Brunswick now, at the Marshall cottage on Bay du Vin. This is the landscape of Brendan’s childhood summers – ocean, beach, campfires and Ultimate Croquet. This year’s game of Ultimate Croquet was a much-anticipated event – Brendan had been planning it since before we arrived. The timing of such a game has to be calculated just right, as the beach is in play and the tide can have a significant effect on the level of difficulty. There was much discussion this year about the optimal time to play, but we finally set up the wickets yesterday evening after the babies went to bed (two other couples were with us, one of which has a 13-month-old). Ultimate Croquet is much less straightforward than regular croquet. In fact, the whole purpose of Ultimate Croquet is to be the least straightforward possible. Wickets are set up in ruts on the road, over a mangled mess of tree roots, among rocks on the beach, on sandbars surrounded by the rising tide, etc. One person often lags behind quite significantly, getting tripped up on every possible obstacle, or just having the misfortune of a bad croquet swing. Yesterday that person was me. I did well at the end, though (when I was the last person still playing). In my zeal to reach the finish line, I made a couple good shots and proclaimed that if I hadn’t been so far behind at first, I likely would not have lost. I didn’t realize this was funny until everyone else laughed. I suppose it was rather like saying, “if I weren’t last, I wouldn’t have lost!” Oh well. Someone has to come in last!

Besides playing Ultimate Croquet, we’ve been spending our cottage time catching up with friends and family, eating good food, swimming, and enjoying some well-earned naps. It’s nice to be on holiday.

A few photos from our time in New Brunswick so far: