The Spring House in Winchester Center

 There are few places on earth I would rather be than at our house in the country. We have owned this house since before we were married. In fact it was the Thanksgiving after my father died which spawned the purchase of our first major piece of property. Not wanting to dwell on my father’s death the previous April, my small extended family of Bobbie and Ferd, my brother and his fiancé and Jim and I all decided we would find a neutral location to celebrate Thanksgiving. Becky, my soon-to-be sister in-law, and Don were coming from Massachusetts. Jim and I were in New York and Bobbie and Ferd were in Chicago. We decided to meet in Western Connecticut at the Boulders Inn in New Preston. They had a good restaurant, we could sightsee a bit around Connecticut and ignore the still sore loss of my father. It was a lovely, if bittersweet, weekend and reminded me completely of how much I loved Northampton and the area around Smith when I was in school.  Jim and I returned from the Thanksgiving weekend and decided we needed a weekend retreat.