… Breakfast. Elk Forge is one of those names that tells you in a small way about how the mind works. From the moment we reserved the Baltimore Suite here, I’ve had trouble remembering the name Elk Forge, while Longwood Gardens or Red Fox Inn or Seven Gables or Green Gables are all easy, though they’re a bit more complicated. Elk Forge’s two simple monosyllabic words have tended to elude me, and I think it’s because my mind fails to find a connection between an elk and a forge. Foxes come in red, and gardens may feature long woods, but what an elk and a forge are doing together I have no idea.

Plus I think I’m registering my uncertainty about the nature of those words as they’re put together. Two nouns (though forge also can be a verb). Is elk an adjective of some sort here? Are they two self-standing nouns? Nor have I ever before encountered those words together. So novelty, muddy usage, and lack of relationship, UD figures, are all scheming here to throw her off…

There’s a mild chill in the air, and a certain drippiness left over from last night’s storm, but the Elk Forge balcony is a pleasant place to watch the sun come up. There’s good tea in the “too Victorian” (Mr UD’s description) tearoom behind me (white woods and rattans, with ferny potted plants and – UD will agree – tchotchkes a mile a minute), but no one’s refilled the hot water canister yet, so UD will be patient… There’s a none too healthy oak center stage here. At its feet pond water purls over goldfish, and beside it three sort of pointless trellis arches lean toward the creek walk.

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Sun went in and it got a bit too cold out there, so I’m now in the tearoom, where naturally Pachelbel’s Canon in D is being piped in… It’s version 12,491, with recurrent piano “in imbecile symbiosis” with a violin. Water falls from an interior lovebird fountain directly to UD’s left and… You get the picture… Calming to the point of valium… And who’s complaining? Not I.