Happy Birthday Roger!

Wednesday June 11
We had a lovely day, celebrating Roger’s birthday. The weather was fine, so his choice was to go kayaking up at Caesar Creek. We put in first at our usual spot, near the inlet Creek, but then paddled toward the campground, and explored a cove area which I had nicknames Cormorant Cove when we were there camping in September last year, since there were so many of them. Today there were only about half a dozen perched on a couple of dead trees which stick out of the water. Unfortunately, it was rather breezy, and I was getting very frustrated trying to take photos, since the wind kept turning me round! So we headed back and paddled up the inlet creek where it was calmer, but we still didn’t see many birds other than the usual great blue herons and cormorants, except on the way back I was lucky enough to get the swallow perched on a branch and in good light! However, I was more interested in getting a photo of the birthday boy today!
We spent over two hours on the water today, enjoying the blue skies and sunshine and being out in nature.
In the evening we went out to a new restaurant to us in downtown Cincinnati, in the area known as Over the Rhine, as this was originally an area settled by German immigrants. We had originally thought of going to a popular Italian restaurant in the area called Pep and Delores, which Laura had given us a voucher to for a Christmas gift, but unfortunately we hadn’t tried to book until the day before, thinking it wouldn’t be so busy mid week -
But we were wrong. We couldn’t get a reservation before 9pm until next Tuesday! So perhaps we’ll save that for my birthday and remember to book earlier! Instead, I had got online and looked at Cincinnati Magazine reviews, and came across a relatively recently opened one called Colette, which refers to itself as “mainly French”! Having spent a total of 13 1/2 years in France, we are rather partial to French food, and the reviews were very good, so that is where we went. The chef had previously worked at 2 other popular downtown restaurants. It’s in a great location, just the other side of Washington Park from Music Hall. We enjoyed a wonderful evening, with excellent food, and great service in a pleasant setting!
So all in all a very happy day!