Days of Wine and Libraries

The rental house looked perfect online. Secluded and with a beautiful pond and patio outside. We had our fingers crossed that it would be just as perfect when we arrived.

We pulled up outside and it looked just like the pictures. Whew. We left the bags in the car and went inside to explore. From the front door, we can see the back patio and the pond and head straight out. The day is warm and we wander down to the pond.

There’s a few ducks on the water, but other than some birds and a chattering squirrel, it is quiet. “Looks like a perfect patio for wine and our snacks,” you say.

We wander upstairs to check out the bedroom and bathroom. It really is exactly as it was described. You head outside to bring in our bags as I go back downstairs to see the kitchen. It definitely has a beautiful vintage feel but all of the appliances are new and shiny.T

There’s a note on the table with a bottle of wine on top of it. Curious, I head over to read it.

I’m so happy that you chose this place for your romantic getaway. My husband and I spent 53 years here before he died and it has always been filled with love. Enjoy yourselves and please feel free to read any of the books in the library. It has been our passion to collect them all. Love, Ella

Library? There had been no mention of a library in the listing. I hear you upstairs with the bags as I head back to the center hall and open the one closed door that I had assumed was a bathroom earlier. It opens to a beautiful library with books lining two walls. The third one has windows looking out to the pond and the last one has a rock fireplace.

The books are interspersed with family photos. Ella and her husband and probably their children and grandchildren at different ages. Mementoes of trips possibly are also on the shelves. But there are so many books and the perfect furniture to curl up and read.

You call to me and I call back. Entering the room, you smile and roll your eyes a bit. “I know where we’ll be spending most of the weekend.”

“Maybe not ‘most,’ but we’ll definitely be coming back here again. Did you bring the wine?”

You laugh and lift up your hands. In one is a bottle of wine and in the other, two glasses.

“You act like I don’t know you at all…”