Miniature golf, redux

I had not played miniature golf since the summer of 1984, when I was in Scotland with the ten-year-old boy who would grow up to be Bella’s father. That summer I was completing PhD dissertation research, and I took him along with me. As his reward for excellent behavior while we were in London and Oxford, I gave him a week of my full, undivided attention and a chance to explore his father’s homeland, complete with miniature golf on the Isle of Arran.

As Bella and I laughed our way through eighteen holes in a suburb of Portland I'd never seen before, I recalled that summer with pleasure. The weather then was exactly like that in Oregon today. Rain, hail, sun, and glorious cloudscapes. Tomorrow Bella's mother comes home and our sleepover will come to an end. It has been our best ever. 


The main photo is the moment just before her ball rolled into the pond. The extra is her joy in fishing it out.