so don’t cry for me in Argentina

Sometimes there is so much to do that the only thing that makes sense is to do nothing at all.

When we realized we only had a couple of more days in Santa Rosa we made a list of things we needed to do: clean the cottage, buy a grate for the grill, visit a couple of shops, try out a restaurant we saw, write a couple of chapters for my book, work on our taxes.

So we took a couple of chairs down to the river and sat there reading a novel and sipping mate until the sun went down.

The river is shallow, and as clear as crystal. Once in a while a truck or car would ford it, even a scooter from time to time. A grandfather played in the water with his three grandchildren for over three hours, as others families and lovers came and went.

There was a cool breeze and a clear sky. We were reading, outloud, At Home In Mitford , the first in Jan Karon’s idyllic series about a Anglican priest in a North Carolina village. A little ornate for my taste, but the characters are memorable and it’s growing on me. This was so productive we did it for the next couple of days too, after Kim and Ivan arrived, until we left on Sunday.

Here are some of the highlights of our time in Santa Rosa:

* We rented a car so we could drive out into the mountains a few times.
* We bought our own mate gourd so we could sit by the river and pretend we were natives.
* I wrote 7 chapters of Becoming Santa, my book on Nicholas of Myra.
* We found a lovely tea shop and went there just about every day the last week.
* Katie made friends with a waiter at the coffee shop where we used the wifi and figured out how to get tea just the way she liked it, even though neither of them understood a word the other one was saying.

So on Sunday we drove through the valley, with majestic views on both sides, and arrived in time for me to preach a sermon for Palm Sunday at the Centro Esperanza (Center for Hope) in Carlos Paz.

Their services are on Sunday evening at 7:30. (You can see video clips here.) Kim and Ivan live only a block from the lake in Carlos Paz, and the church is right on the lake. It’s a splendid lake. Apparently Sunday is family day, and families were sitting along the shore as the sun went down.

After the service we had a birthday party for a couple of the members and took a walk by the lake. Did I mention it is a nice lake?

So don’t cry for me in Argentina.

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See more photos on flickr.