Home, finally, after two days spent mostly driving. The boy is installed in his room, we played lots of cards with my father, and I now have 30 ears of his corn to steam and shuck and freeze. But I came home tired, and it was lovely to find Tom making a good dinner, which was still good even though the power went off in the middle of the cooking, and we ended up spending the evening standing around candles in the kitchen shucking and eating raw mahogany clams with lemon and horseradish instead of the cooked ones he'd planned . . . not at all a disappointment as the clams turned out to be superb on the half-shell. In Harmony we could still cook without power but had no water. Here we have water but no stove. Adjustments must be made.

Anyway I'm glad to be here. The boy is glad to be back at school. Rain is moving in today. I'm fretting about the Bahamas and the hurricane path, of course, but so are you. I have a headache and a stuffy allergy-ridden nose, but I also have a hot cup of coffee and a quiet sofa. It feels as if autumn is underway, and I'm glad.