Oxford Bulletin

Now well into our 15th season as guesthouse owners in Provincetown, we're continue to enjoy the many old and new guests who come to stay with us each year. Having sold our first guesthouse in 2005, we're now able to concentrate all our efforts on the Oxford. Trevor enjoys his passion for gardening and our front and back gardens are a real picture. I'm alway amazed by how many people stop to take photographs. Quite the compliment.

It is always a pleasure when one’s efforts and hard work are recognized. We are delighted that the Oxford as been awarded once again the Out&About Recognition of Excellence - the "5 Palms"

and “Editor's Choice” Award - for the 10th consecutive year.

We also received the "Editor's Choice" Award 2007 by the Cape Cod Travel Guide. This prestigious guide has a global circulation and is considered to be the pre-eminent guide for the Cape and Islands.

In January 2008 we received a Pink Choice Award for excellence in service to the gay and lesbian community.

But most importantly, we are truly thankful that the Oxford continues to enjoy the patronage of many returning guests who have come to look upon the Oxford us as their "home away from home". It really is a joy seeing so many familiar faces returning again and again. We feel more like hosts of a never-ending house party rather than as two owners running a business.

So along with Potter, our golden retriever, we very much look forward to welcoming old and new friends to the Oxford in the coming months.

Stephen and Trevor

JUNE 2009 is a month for out of town friends to come visit. Our friends, David and Stephen from Rochester NY, grabbed a few day’s vacation after a 2 week European vacation/performance schedule. They started with a few days in Venice (envy) and then 10 days in London (double envy!) During their UK visit, David rededicated the new organ at St. Alban’s Cathedral and gave a performance on the organ of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Two British friends, David and John paid their annual June visit shortly after celebrating their first ‘UK civil union’ anniversary.

Trev’s brother Martin and his wife Shari came for a 5 day visit and we had quality time catching up on family news and enjoying each others company. During their stay, Mart attended the first day of a 5 day workshop at the Fine Arts Work Center given by Constantinos Manos, the world famous photographer, and a good friend who lives across the road from us. Marty had a great time, said he learned a lot but wished he could have stayed for the entire workshop. That evening we invited Costa and his partner Michael for supper so Marty got some quality one-on-one with Costa. What we do for family.

You might know that we are members of the Distinctive Inns of Provincetown, a marketing group of 8 guesthouses we established nearly 10 years ago. Over that time, I’ve acted as ‘informal’ chairman and Trevor has handled the finances. Well, a couple of months ago we decided it was time for a change and hand over the roles to other members in the group. Much to our surprise, the guys decided to throw us surprise BBQ on one of the few sunny, dry nights we had this month. If the BBQ wasn’t enough, they also presented us with a beautiful ceramic vase made by a Mexican potter, something we will always treasure.

At the end of the month, I paid what turned out to be my last visit to my neurosurgeon at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital for follow-up after my neck surgery back in March. I can’t put into words how grateful I am to Dr. Papavasilliou and his team. Since the operation, I have been without pain and my strength has fully returned to my right arm. To be able to sleep through the night which is an added bonus.

The one common thread weaving through all these events is the weather. This has to have been the wettest, dullest and sunless June in the sixteen Junes we have had in Provincetown. Officially, we have had only four sun days for the entire month. So not only have we had a bad economy to deal with but the weather also turned against us. Hopefully, the next three months will be better, on all fronts.

MAY 2009 After the shock of my little sister’s news, May started well and then got better. After my neck surgery in March, the neck brace came off on May 7, even though the surgeon originally told me that I would have to wear it for at least 8 weeks. He did suggest that I wear it occasionally when I needed a cup of sympathy or if I got into a situation were an involuntarily "nod" in the affirmative wouldn't be appropriate. I just wish neck braces came in different styles, like leather with studs, or an Elizabethan ruffle...you get the idea...I think I could be on to something.

With the removal of my neck brace, I got the all clear to head to the UK to visit my family and to check on the progress of my sister Roni. She'd been home a week by the time I arrived and except for her speech, she was better than I dared hope. Her speech is slowly improving and with the help of speech therapy, there is no reason why she won’t make a full recovery. She sleeps for 18 hours a day, which the medics say this is totally normal. Even though all the tests are inconclusive, they think Roni had an acute cardiac arrest. When her heart stopped, her brain shut down to protect itself and when her heart was restarted, it was like a computer being rebooted.

Whilst I was in the UK, I popped in to visit Trev’s Dad and take him for a pub lunch at one of his favorite pubs, The Bull at Barkham. Their local cheese – a creamy blue vein cheese – is absolutely delicious. Pop P was in great form and polished off a plate of ham, eggs and chips, no problem. His knees aren’t as good as they used to be so he’s now traveling around on a four wheel scooter he’s named ‘Meg’. We’ve nicknamed him ‘Wheelspin Wally’.

It’s hard to believe that it was a year ago that Ken lost Beryl, the one true love of his life and his life companion. A good friend took him to the bridge over the Thames at Sonning, which is where he had scattered her ashes under a spreading, flowering Chestnut tree. It was on that very bridge that they first met, 76 years earlier.

I also met up with Sir Charles (aka Chuck or His Lordship) and we had lunch at the Brown’s Hotel, just off Piccadilly. The last time I had stepped inside this hotel was when I was an hotel school student and I spent a summer working behind the front desk. That was back in 1970! The old place hadn’t changed much, except for looking a little more trendy and boutique’ish. Charles was on good form, we dined and talked for over 3 hours. His major challenge currently is mastering the art of riding a bicycle. It's a challenge! He’s still practicing in his garage. It’s a long story!

Our Canadian great nephews and niece are all doing well and we’re looking forward to seeing them for the first time this summer.

We also celebrated a couple of birthdays. Miss Potter, our golden retriever, turned the ripe old age of nine on May 5 and what a party we had! I'm still recovering - I think it was the 4th marrow bone that done me in. I celebrated my ‘50 plus tax’ birthday on May 27 which also happened to be our 5th ‘official’ wedding anniversary. God bless Massachusetts. So we enjoyed a double celebration with dinner at the Red Inn, one of our favorite restaurants in town.

APRIL 2009 and although we’ve had some really miserable days, weather-wise that is, spring has arrived and we had time to get the garden all ship shape after a long winter. The front garden is lush green with splashed of purple, white and yellow. The wisteria is just about to bloom and the roses are all pruned and showing strong growth. I just love the spring. The hostas around the fir tree in the back garden are pushing through the soil so in a couple of weeks the back garden should look spring-like.

On April 1 I arrived home after spending 24 hours at the Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston where I had two discs removed from my neck - C4/5 and C5/6 to be precise. That I didn’t expect is for the surgeon (who was brilliant) to operate through my throat. But I am now have a titanium plate stabilizing the three vertebra and cadaver bone replacing the discs. The really, really good news is that all the pain, numbness and tingling I’ve experienced in my right arm and hand for the past couple of years have all gone. Bliss. I have to wear a neck brace for the next 6 weeks until the bones have all knitted together - a small price to pay for being pain free.

Duncan, our manager 4 years ago returned for another season. He must ba a real glutton for punishment. Just kidding! And what a joy it is to have him here again. We might even twist his arm to produce a float for us in this year’s Carnival. The challenge is going to be coming up with something fun and original. This year’s theme Peace, Love and Go-go Boots really sucks (well, I think so) so if anyone has any bright idea, please let me know!

At the end of the month, we decided to take a few days off. At 7.00am on the first day away from the Oxford, I got a call from my brother-in-law in the UK telling me that my younger sister Roni, had had what they thought was a stroke, and had lost her speech and use of her legs. Half an hour later, Trevor had a call from his brother in Canada telling us that our niece Jenny, had just given birth to a 9.5lb baby boy names Nathan. Talk about an abundance of emotions.

After being persuaded not to head back to the UK right away, we spent our days hoping and praying that Roni’s diagnosis might not be as bad as we first heard. Well, miracles do happen. After an CAT scan, lumber puncture and an MRI, there was no sign of any brain damage or bleeding. On Thursday, Roni woke and began to talk, only a couple of words but they were clear. The following day, she began to get sensation in her legs and three days later she was walking around the ward. The neurologists have no idea what happened but they now believe Roni has an acute cardiac arrest that caused her brain to shut down and she was going through the human equivalent of a computer reboot. She’s now home and her speech is getting better by the day. Long may that continue.

I’m planning to head back to the UK in early May, once I’ve been given the “all clear” by my surgeon that it’s OK to fly and that I can remove my neck brace. Here’s hoping.

MARCH 2009 started as March often does with cold temperatures and cloudy skies. Although we had no plans to travel this month, we decided to fill our days with work around the house and to focus on Pink Choice marketing.

We celebrated family birthdays, my Mum and younger sister Roni as well as Sir Charles of the Gillett dynasty and our Irene. Tim Babcock, who was our manager at the Beaconlight for several years celebrated another birthday with a visit to town. He’s forging ahead with his acting career and getting great reviews. Although based in New York, he visits every few months just to smell the sea air and recharge his batteries.

The highlight of our month was visiting Peter Scaramuzzo, our manager two years ago, in Springfield MA. He gave us the grand tour of the city and then took us to dinner in a great restaurant in Northampton. The following day and accompanied by Miss Potter, we did a “show and tell” at the Montessori School where Pete teaches English to 7th and 8th grade students. They were a great bunch of kids and asked us questions about our lives in the UK, such as “who was our favorite football team?”, “what did we miss most?”. “what did we think of the new President?”, “what are the politics like in England?”. And all this at 9.00 in the morning and without coffee. One of the lads told Pete afterwards that we were the first people he had met that spoke with a real English accent.

On a personal note, my neck continued to be a ‘right pain in the neck’ and regular physical therapy only provided short-lived relief. After a lot of pushing, I eventually got to see a neurosurgeon at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston and three MRI’s later, he decided that it was time to do something. So, on March 31, I’m having two discs removed (for the medically inclined – C4/5 and C5/6), cadaver bone inserted in the gap and a titanium plate attached to anchor the two vertebra. Yikes! The good news is that all the discomfort, numbness and tingling, and loss of strength in my right arm should resolve quickly and with exercise, I should be back in peak condition in a matter of weeks. At least all this gets done before the season heats up, which is a good thing.

Talking of the coming season, we’re really looking forward to Duncan returning next month for the summer. He will certainly make our lives a lot easier and happier just having him around. Roll on April.

FEBRUARY 2009 and another month of cold and bleak winter weather. Our weekend business was surprisingly good considering the added gloom of the economy. We celebrated Trevor’s birthday on the 14th with a quiet candlelight supper for just the two of us and a few days later we toasted our 11th anniversary as owners of the Oxford.

Refurbishment work on the house continued at a pace and by the end of the month, we’d repainted the trim and door in every bedroom. Fresh paintwork certainly makes a difference.

My right arm problems continue but I’m hoping that after all the tests and prodding and poking, the neurologist and neurosurgeon will come up with a plan to make things better. But I’ve started physical therapy and look forward to my appointment with the specialists next month.

JANUARY 2009 and after the festivities of Christmas and New Year, we were both ready for a quieter few weeks. The drive back from to Provincetown after our enforced stay in Rochester because of snow was in temperatures close to 1 degree F! As we had no vacation plans we decided to do some refurbishment to the house. We sanded and varnished the original pine floors of the dining and drawing rooms and repaint most of the white trim throughout the house.

For some reason, January is the month that I seem to attract a medical situations. This year was no different. Whether it resulted from my fall back in 2001 or advancing age or a combination the two but I started loosing strength in my right arm and shoulder. So after several visits to a neurologist in Boston and a very uncomfortable EMG, the diagnosis came back that I have a couple of pinched nerves in my neck that will likely need surgery to repair. So now I have something to look forward too in February or March.

So we spent our 35th “unofficial” anniversary in our cottage with a candle light supper for two and a chilled bottle of bubbly. Who could ask for anything more!

On the Pink Choice front, we presented the 2008 Pink Choice Awards to 14 properties worldwide as well as a number of properties who received a “highly recommended” rating from their guests. The site's ranking on Elixa continues to climb which does good things for Pink Choice and search engines.

DECEMBER 2008 and Trevor and I want to send all our friends who have stayed with us over the years our best wishes for a very Happy Christmas and our hopes that 2009 will bring you all that you wish, particularly good health, happiness, contentment and prosperity. We decided not to send Christmas cards this year. Instead, we have donated what we would normally spend on cards and stamps to Heifer International who use donations to provide impoverished families worldwide with livestock and training to help alleviate hunger and poverty. If you want to know more, go to www.heifer.org

December is always a hectic business and personal month for us. It begins with getting the house decorated for the Holly Folly weekend and the holiday season. This year we didn’t have the management skills of our good UK friend Charles to help speed things along but even without his hindrance, I mean help, we managed to get all done in a couple of days. Over the following few days our very special friends arrived for the Holly Folly Weekend. Rich and Kevin, Irene and Kathy, Peter and Kevin, John, Paul and daughter Olivia, Phil and Jim, and Ed all helped to make this weekend the fun time it always is.

As soon as they left, we headed to the UK for a 12 day early Christmas visit with our families and friends. Over the course of 10 days we got to stay with my Mum and sisters and Trevor spent time with his Dad. He’s doing really well but misses his wife Beryl very much. We also got to celebrate the 40th birthday of John with his partner David with dinner at a new restaurant called ‘Pearl’ on High Holborn, highly recommended. We also had dinner with Michael and Aaron at the Ivy, as yummy as ever and spent a day with Sir Charles at his stately home in Enfield, where we enjoyed a candle lit luncheon prepared by his lordship. Now you can’t get posher than that!

The flight home was relatively uneventful and after 36 hours catching up on emails etc we set off at 5am for an 11-hour white knuckle drive to Toronto in driving snow to spend Christmas with Trev’s Canadian family. It was a great family visit and we got to cuddle our grand nephew Jake and niece Olivia for the first time. As they say – we coo, we poo, that’s what we do! In between visits, lunches and dinners, we managed to see three movies – Benjamin Button is truly dreadful; on the other hand, Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon are fantastic.

To break our journey home we decided to stop off in Rochester to visit friends. What was planned to be a couple of days stay turned out to last much longer. A severe snowstorm swept through the day we had planned to leave so, we graciously accepted their hospitality and stayed to celebrate the New Year with them and a dozen friends.

So here we are, back in Provincetown, sorting through mail,

catching up on emails, clearing snow off the decks, keeping warm and wondering what 2009 has in store for us. We look back on 2008 with mixed feelings. There was the great sadness of Trev’s Mum’s passing back in May but then the joy of the birth of the twins, Jake and Olivia, in September. It was seeing Pete (our 2007 manager) follow his passion for teaching by starting as a 7th and 8th grade English teacher at the Montessori School in Springfield. There was the week we spent with my sister Angela and hubby Frank who visited in September. It was remembering the al fresco dinner we shared with all our Carnival friends on the back deck of the Oxford. It was skyping my niece Katy in Cambodia and Outer Mongolia and nephew Sam in Thailand. Then there was my Mum’s 80th birthday celebrations in March and her visit in June and my 60th birthday in May. There was the wedding of our good friends Mark and Bill in our front garden. And there was watching the Carnival Parade from the side lines for the first time in over 10 years.

Wherever you are, have a great New Year. We hope to see you sometime during 2009.

NOVEMBER 2008 and for the first time in months, we had a few, well two, quiet days with no guests. It always feels strange having an empty house after a long, busy season but it gave us time to put the garden to bed for the winter and to tackle a couple of projects that needed to be taken care of.

Of course, the most exciting memory of this month was the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America. And what a night that was! We shared Election Day with a bunch of friends in town, watching the results come in and praying for a democratic victory. When the election was called, we were ecstatic, no only because of the size of his victory but that America had elected an African American to the highest office in the country. Abe Lincoln, Martin Luther King and President Elect Obama’s Grandmother were all looking down and smiling. When we woke the following day, the news really hadn’t sunk in but we started getting calls and emails from friends around the world saying how much his election had restored their faith and trust in the USA.

After beginning born 14 weeks premature, our grand nephew and niece are coming along nicely, thank you very much. They are both home at last and Emma and Greg are settling in to taking care of two little ones. After quite a wait, we finally got news of their names – Olivia and Jake. Great choices. We’re looking forward to seeing them for the first time when we visit the Pinker family in Toronto for Christmas.

November is the first time after the season when we try to get away for a few days of R & R. This year we headed to Washington DC for a week for sightseeing, theater and catching up with a couple of good friends. The weather was great and allowed us to walk the monuments and to visit various Smithsonian museums and galleries. Our stay coincided with Veterans Day and we just happened to be at the Vietnam Memorial on the stroke of 11 o’clock. I don’t know why but for the first time I realized that all the veterans standing around us were roughly our ages and if we were born in the States, we could so easily have been drafted. Now that’s a scary thought! In front of the Lincoln Memorial, someone had set up a series of boards for people to write their thoughts following the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. It really made us feel proud, amazed, uplifted, excited and humbled reading the thoughts written by people from all over the world. We added ours for good measure.We had the chance to catch up with a couple of our previous managers. John Grenon who was our manager at the Beaconlight is now in sales at the Grand Hyatt Washington. He’s doing really well and holding down a great job. We also met up with Tim Plant who worked with us at the Oxford. He is currently the Development Director of the Woolley Mammoth Theater that specializes in presenting new plays. He got us tickets for a production of “Boom”, a “must see” play and one which received rave reviews from the Washington press.

After a week in the city we headed north to Frederick, Maryland to spend the weekend Kevin and Rich, two special friends and guests of ours for many years. They took care of us right royally and we feel in love with their little pooch, Elmo.

The week before Thanksgiving, we had a great meeting with our marketing and web technical team to plan the next phase of enhancing and promoting Pink Choice. At the beginning of the month we announced the winner of the Pink Choice Competition who turned out to be a guy in Fort Lauderdale. He got to win a weekend stay in a USA Kimpton Hotel and $1,000 spending money, lucky man!

My tingling and numbness hasn’t gotten any better so later that week I got a call to go to Boston Beth Israel Hospital for an epidural into the discs between four vertebrae. The procedure was relatively painless but the after effects weren’t so pleasant. But, hopefully, the tingling etc should subside in the next couple of weeks. If not, on to Plan B, whatever that may be.

Just as were planning our Thanksgiving shopping, we learnt through the Provincetown jungle network that the Grand Union, known as the GU (goo) for several reasons none of which is particularly pleasant, was selling out to Stop and Shop. I guess it was seeing the shelves slowly empty that gave us all a clue. The good news was that they were going; the bad news was that they were going on December 1 and Stop and Shop wasn’t going to open until Dec 12. So this means that for 12 days we had to rely on the smaller stores in town for day to day provisions and then travel to Orleans to get bulk provisions for the guesthouse. Talk about timing, but thank goodness this wasn’t happening in mid summer!

Thanksgiving Day followed our normal routine for the day and by three o’clock our friends arrived to share a 20lb turkey and all the trimmings. As usual, we over-catered, over-ate and over indulged. Typically, we had plenty of leftovers but there are only so many things you can to with a leftover turkey!

But no sooner had turkey day passed when we started decorating the Oxford for the holiday season. The weather was mild so hanging the outside lights was almost a pleasure. We decided that less is more so we kept our lights untypical minimalist. The good news was that we completed most of the decorating, inside and out, before December 1, a record.

OCTOBER 2008 and we’ve had one of the best weeks of fall weather in years. The fall colors were also quite amazing, one of the best years in ages. Business continued at a pace and we had the best October to date. The weak dollar continued to attract foreign visitors so as they say, “it’s an ill wind…”

October is also our month of themed events starting with the annual Mates Leather Weekend, followed by Columbus Weekend, Women's Week, Fantasia Fair, Round-up Weekend, and all rounded off with Halloween. There was great energy in town that seemed to be busier than it was in June.

We had a couple of weddings this month. At the beginning of the month, Jen and Kate married on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in front of their families and friends. Later in the month, Jack and Gary tied the knot. So far this year, we have hosted nine wedding ceremonies and when we hear each couple speak their vows, it reinforces the ones we made back in May 2004.

On the family front, the twins are doing well and at long last, they have names – Olivia and Jake. Jake is out of hospital but Olivia will not head home of a couple of weeks yet. Both are putting on weight, feeding well and passing all the baby tests, like walking, talking and chewing gum – just kidding. Trevor’s other niece, Jenny surprised everyone by announcing that she is expecting a baby in April 2009. The three babies will keep my Mum busy knitting jackets, bonnets and booties etc for the next few years at least. She will be one very happy lady.

SEPTEMBER 2008 started with wonderful weather that continued through the month. We had such warm weather that it really didn’t feel like the early fall. But September always brings the risk of hurricanes and this year was no different. We even had two near misses on the Cape but thankfully, both kept far enough at sea that we only felt the effects of strong wind and rough seas. Others in the south were less fortunate; a number of Caribbean islands suffered badly, Galveston was devastated and New Orleans was dealt another heavy blow.

The Labor Day weekend was fun, good weather and a smashing group of people staying in the house. The following weekend was the Annual AIDS Support Group’s Silent and Live Auction and Swim for Life. This year they raised close to $150,000! Yippee!

Talking of celebrations, we celebrated the birthday of Rich, who along with his partner Kevin are long standing guests and great friends of ours. The following week, my godson Simon married Jo back in England. Unfortunately, we could not make the wedding but the photographs captured wonderful English country wedding. Our favorite massage therapist Tony and his partner Kevin celebrated their 13th anniversary, and the following day Kevin entered his 5th decade (but we don’t talk about that) At the end of the month, my sister Angela and her husband Frank spent a week with us; we love having family visit. Although the weather turned a little cloudy and damp we managed to pick the two best days when visiting Nantucket and Boston. After they stayed they headed to the Berkshires and Vermont to do a little leaf peeping.

But the most exciting and joyous news came on Wednesday, Sept 24 when Trevor’s niece Emma gave birth to a beautiful little girl and handsome little boy. Trevor and I are official great uncles! Born prematurely, they had to be given extra special care to begin with, but the good news is after a two of weeks, they were gaining weight and needing no special medical attention. Emma and her husband Greg are so happy and proud, and so is the rest of the Pinker/Mascilo family. But they are still keeping us on tender-hooks as we’re waiting to know what the twins are to be called. Wait for an announcement in October! We’re planning to spend Christmas in Toronto, which will be the first time we will get to see the twins in the flesh.

If anyone knows a cure for two pinched nerves coming out of two-neck vertebra, please let me know. Since the end of August, I’ve had a tingling sensation and numbness down my right arm and in to three fingers of my right hand that has grown in intensity over the weeks. By mid September I decided to get it checked out and the MRI showed inflammation, and boney spurs on several vertebras. Prognosis isn’t too encouraging starting with up to three steroid injections in my neck to reduce the inflammation and hopefully lessen the tingling/numbness. If that doesn’t solve the problem then the doctor is talking about surgery, something I’m definitely not wanting to consider. Ah well, it could be worse.

Throughout September, the gardens continued to bloom and looked better than ever, thanks to Trevor’s TLC. Even our four varieties of heirloom tomato plants continued to produce delicious tomatoes and we picked the last good crop on September 30. The fall color is also beginning to appear and by the looks of the trees so far, we are going to have spectacular fall color this year. Let’s hope that the good weather will continue well into October.

AUGUST 2008 and a great month it was too! I know the Brits are renowned for fixating about the weather but it was a pretty decent month. Compared to last year, we had very few high temperature/humidity days. In fact, we actually had the first tastes of fall during the last week of the month, cool, sunny and calm.

We celebrated the second anniversary of PINK CHOICE. It’s hard to believe that it was two years ago this month that we launched the site during the Carnival Parade on August 17, 2006. Coincidentally, we launched the latest version of the site that mainly consists of behind the scenes stuff, all to do with maximizing the search capability by the search engines and refinements to the hotel and member applications. The great news is that the sight continues to grown. Our rankings improve each week, new destinations and properties are added each day, and more sites and blogs are picking us up, giving us great exposure across the internet.

We had a great house of guests throughout the month. Many old friends from previous visits returned so it felt that we were hosting a month long house party rather than running a business.

The quote of the month was overheard coming for a bedroom between two people. 1st person - “I can’t sleep!” 2nd person - “Then do your froggie thing”. The mind boggles.

Over the weekend before Carnival, we hosted the wedding of Bill and Mark who have been guests of ours for many years. Although they have been together for 20 years, they decided to sanction their union and legally marry. They invited twenty of their closest friends to celebrate along with them and the day could not have been more perfect in every respect. The fun moment was when they exchanged wedding bands and Mark produced new rings to commemorate the day. Bill’s face was a picture when he saw his new wedding ring for the first time.

Charles, another long time friend and guest from the UK treated the house to a ‘Candlelight Supper’, complete with matching periwinkle blue china, which was more liquid than nourishment. Hic! But we had a blast and several friends staying in town also joined the party.

The carnival parade was a little different this year. It was the first time in 13 years that we didn’t enter a float in the parade. Two reasons – this year’s theme “The Wild, Wild West” didn’t inspire us and we simply wanted to take a break and watch the parade from the sidelines for a change. As it turned out, the parade was fun but short and a little samey compared to previous years. I guess when you’ve seen one cowboy, you’ve seen then all. The town was packed, the weather was perfect and everyone had a great time.

During the Carnival week we also celebrated the 4th wedding anniversary of Peter and Kevin, the 2nd wedding anniversary of Irene and Kathy, and the 4th wedding anniversary of Rich and Kevin. The bubbly flowed for days!

For those who remember Lil’ Pete, our manager last year, he came to town for the Carnival week before returning to Springfield to start the new school term. He looked great and as handsome as ever.

If you remember Tim Babcock, our manager of our Beaconlight days, well, he made his New York City debut appearing in a one-man play during the New York Fringe. The play is called “Lecture, with Cello” by Robert Moulthrop (www.robertmoulthrop.com) We really wanted to see his performance but it clashed with Carnival week which made traveling to New York a non-starter. But we’re certain he was a great success and stardom is only moments away.

A very special friend called Christina, came for a few days before Carnival. Christina and Carl who was taking care of her, came into our lives last December, whilst my family were staying for Christmas. She is one of the most wonderful people we've ever met. Immediately upon stepping out of the car, Christina oozed love and friendship and a zest for living. Within minutes, it was hard to believe that we had only just met. Over the days that she stayed with us, we learned that she was not only a lovely, warm and generous women but a strong and determined fighter. Even thought she is in constant pain - on a scale of 1 of 10 think 25! - she always has a smile and always positive. We learned that she is battling cancer, not on one front but three - her brain, her liver and her leg. Over the following months, we shared her journey but not her pain. She was determined to visit this summer and because of a last minute cancellation, that became possible. Some things are just meant to happen. She is still battling her cancers, but it is not getting any easier. Just where she gets her energy and strength is nothing short of miraculous. We have come to love her very much and I can only ask you to have her in your thoughts and prayers.

Now here we are, Labor Day 2008 and the beginning of Fall. If the weather stays as delicious as it is today, we will be very happy.

JULY 2008 And where better to start than with the July 4th celebrations. The town was packed, the weather was near perfect and everyone was happy. And the mosquitoes kept away! Once again, we listened to the firework display, what’s wrong with that picture. But if you’ve read our Bulletin in the past you know what a baby Potter is when it comes to things at go bang in the night. So with the first sound of fireworks she went into her shivers mode and we spent the next two hours trying to calm her down.

After the holiday week, we settled into full houses and the return of several guests we hadn’t seen for a while. We really weren’t sure what to expect this year in terms of business. As it turned out the economic gloom, foreclosures, lay-offs, property market and gas prices didn’t seem to stop people from taking their vacation. It just may be that because Europe has become so expensive and air travel is getting more expensive (and more of a hassle), people are staying domestic. It will be interesting to see how the fall season pans out.

Once again, we had our annual supper with the Belz family - Eddie and Lori, and their two daughters, Talia and Sivia. Their two weeks on the Cape coincided with near perfect summer weather to daily trips to the beach were a given. Talia is a beautiful little girl; intelligent, caring, imaginative and full of energy. Her baby sister Sivia has grown too, now walking and keeping everyone entertained as only one year old little girl can.

I can’t believe that is was a year ago that our much love golden, Jessye passed away. We still miss her very much although Potter has certainly taken over the mantel as house mascot. We were told by a guest that carrots are a good substitute for doggie cookies. Well, you try telling Potter that one! She carried her first carrot in her mouth for a few minutes then most indignantly, spat it out. But with the third attempt, she chewed, swallowed and came looking for more. I guess if nothing else, her night vision should improve.

JUNE 2008 was a month of friends and family visits. It began with our friends, David and Stephen from Rochester NY, who grabbed a week’s vacation from a very busy schedule. David is Dean of the Organ Dept of the Eastman School of Music and he’s always in demand teaching, playing and judging competitions here and abroad. We managed to have dinner with them at the new restaurant in town called Victor’s. It’s just 5 minutes walk from the Oxford and a great addition to our restaurant choices. The best way I can describe Victor’s is to liken it to an American tapas restaurant, small plates that should be shared. Delicious. Another new restaurant is Bistro 404, where Chester’s used to be. From reports of several of our guests, it’s a winner too.

My Mum arrived in early June for her annual summer vacation with us. She looked so much better than when she last at Christmas because her joint pain is now under control. We kept her busy tinkering in the garden, a passion of hers. Another British friend, Michael, came to stay at the same time so the accents around the breakfast table that week that were decidedly English. We took the fast ferry to Nantucket for a day out together. We haven’t been to the island in over ten years so it was fun re-exploring the town. We had delicious two hour lunch at the Winwauset Inn, well worth a visit and highly recommended.

When we returned home we had a shock with news that a regular guest, Jeffrey had been rushed into hospital in a diabetic coma. Thankfully, he made a full recovery, much to the relief of his partner Richard and us all.

No sooner had my Mum left when two more British friends, David and John, arrived for a two week ‘honeymoon’ stay, just one day after they were legally married in the UK. We always have a great time in their company and enjoy their very British sense of humor.

June is also a month for celebrations. First, the birthdays. My nephew Sam received turned 22 on June 14 and his sister Katy celebrated her 27th birthday at home having just returned from a UN consultancy contract in Phnom Penh, Cambodian. Jan, a great friend and a regular guest celebrated his birthday on June 6.

On the wedding front, we celebrated three. On June 7, Jan and his partner Ron celebrated their 4th wedding anniversary. On June 16, Trevor’s niece and husband, another Trevor, celebrated their 1st anniversary and on June 22 Sue and Heidi celebrated their 1st wedding anniversary.

Miss Potter, our golden, had her summer hair cut. She looks so cute, just like a little lamb but don’t tell her I said that. With the hot, humid weather we’ve been enjoying this month, I’m sure she’s happier having shed a few pounds of hair.

Business has been surprisingly good despite the gloom and doom of the economy, stock market, gas prices and the property/mortgage meltdown. Let’s hope this continues for the second half of the year.

MAY 2008 and the weather continued to keep is guessing, warm and sunny days and then days that were cold, damp and miserable. But the climate helped put energy into the garden and the spring flowers and blossom suddenly popped. The garden has never looked so good so early in May.

Christina, a very special and dear friend, came to stay for several days at the beginning of the month. She continues to battle bone, liver and brain cancer and simply refuses to let her illness stop her from enjoying life to its fullest. To say she is an inspiration may sound clichéd but it is difficult not to feel humbled when we’re with her. She also has a special bond with Potter, who turned 8 on May 5, so what better reason to celebrated Cinco de Mayo than with a party of marguerites and delicious food. Over Christina’s visits, she and Potter have developed a special bond and the two were inseparable. We’re planning for another visit in June.

Now I have some very sad news. On Saturday, May 10, Trevor had a call from his Dad saying that his Mum had been taken to hospital because she wasn’t doing so well. The following day, his Dad called again to tell us that Ma Pinker had an infection and not responding particularly well to treatment. Trevor decided to fly that night but sadly, Ma Pinker passed away peacefully in the early hours of Monday morning, May 12, just 5 hours before he arrived in the UK. Trevor’s brother Martin and wife Shari flew from Toronto the following night and I followed on Tuesday night. We were all together on Wednesday morning with Trev’s Dad. Somehow, we managed to get all the formalities completed to enable us to have Ma Pinker’s funeral on Thursday morning and a Memorial Service in the afternoon. Thursday was a beautiful spring day and the service was quiet and dignified, just as Beryl would have wanted. One memory I will always have of that morning was when we were asked to remember her in our own way and the silence that followed was filled with the sound of birds singing. The afternoon service was quite wonderful. So many friends and family came to celebrate Beryl’s life that the little chapel at the home where Ken and Beryl shared the past 3 years together was full to overflowing. Trevor and Martin read two poems chosen by Ken. I think Beryl was smiling at the sight of the extended Pinker and Mascilo families meeting for the first time. It was also a wonderful moment welcoming Trevor’s Aunty Joan (92 years old), considering she hasn’t left her house for over three years. Yet her she was, looking as lovely as ever. Trevor and I had to return to Provincetown on Friday morning but Mart and Shari stayed over to be with Pop Pinker. On Sunday, they scattered Beryl’s ashes in two places. The first was on the banks of the River Thames at Sonning, Berkshire, close to where Ken and Beryl first set eyes on each other from across the river over 75 years ago. The second was in a flower bed that Ken can see from his sitting room window. So Beryl’s journey with Ken came full circle, where they met and where they parted. We're planning for Pop Pinker to come out in September for his birthday and to spend time with his Canadian grand children, and we hope, great grand children.

After a relatively short trip to the UK, readjusting to the time change wasn’t much of a problem. Carl had held the fort admirably and business continued to pick up for the rest of the month. Just before my birthday, Trev took me to New England Garden Ornaments to choose my present, that turned out to be a beautiful English lead statue of Greek mythology, Mercury the messenger. It now sits happily in the front garden. Before we knew it, the Memorial Weekend was upon us, we had a full house with a great group of guests, the town was packed, the weather was sunny and warm, and all was well in our neck of the planet. My big day and our 4th “official” wedding anniversary came right after the holiday, perfect timing and was blissfully quiet, just the way we wanted it to be. We flew to Boston, had lunch at L’Epicurian and supper in Sibling Rivalry. The restaurants are totally different in terms of décor, food service but equally enjoyable. We flew home the following day to the beginning of the summer season.

APRIL 2008 and unlike last year, spring sprung ahead of schedule. This gave us chance to get into the garden to clear away the winter debris to allow the new growth to pop. And pop it did. Within a matter of days the front garden transformed from a dull brown into a lush green with splashed of blue, yellow and white. The wisteria is just about to bloom and the roses are all pruned and showing strong growth. I love the spring. Trevor has really gained control of the garden and loves pottering every opportunity he gets. If you visited the Oxford last year, you might have noticed the brown staining along the front and back deck railings, caused by the iron bacteria in the well water we use to water the garden. So, to minimize this we’ve installed a drip system in the back garden and repositioned the spray nozzles around the front garden to spray the garden and not the railings. Dah! With that done, we repainted all the railings, back and front, and they now look crisp and fresh. The hostas around the fir tree in the back garden are just pushing through the soil so in a couple of weeks the back garden should look spring-like.

On April 15, we celebrated Trev’s parent’s 66th wedding anniversary. They’re both in their late 80’s but still show their love for each other in so many little ways. Trevor’s brother Martin and his wife Shari arrived in London a week later to spend time with them before heading for Athens and the island of Santorini to celebrate Shari’s birthday.

Pete, our manager from last year paid us visit for a couple of days over his spring break. He’s doing really well teaching English at a Montessori School in Springfield MA. He loves the kids (6th and 7th grade) and gets on with the other teachers, always a good thing. We’re really happy to see him back teaching and doing what he loves to do. Long may that continue.

On a sad note, Bill Ingram, an old friend of ours, passed away after a long illness. Bill and his partner Ray have been together 50 years and it heartbreaking to see Ray look so lost and deeply sad. Bill had a full life - Boston fire chief, Provincetown volunteer fireman, Town Electrical Inspector, Master Cabinet-maker, and building supervisor for several town projects including the airport and senior citizen home. He loved traveling with Ray, and had friends from all over the world. We will miss his famous, infectious laugh, his kindness, his warmth and friendship.

On a happier note, we welcomed Carl Bretton to the Oxford as our new manager. We first met Carl at the end of last year when he came and stayed for a several days with a really wonderful lady called Christina. Christina is seriously ill with cancer but you would never know it from her amazing energy, lust for life and incredibly positive spirit. During their time with us, we talked about the coming year and our need for a new manager. The rest is history. Christina has become a very special person to us and hardly a day goes by when we haven’t talked or emailed each other with gossip and fun stuff. We’re really looking forward to a great year with Carl on board.

MARCH 2008 and we headed to the UK for a family visit. The main reason was to celebrate my Mum’s 80th birthday on March 6. Actually, she started celebrating the previous weekend with a party given by her neighbors of her assisted living complex. By the time we arrived, the celebrations, orchestrated by my two sisters, Angie and Roni, were in full swing. For her actual birth day, we treated her to a day at a really amazing health spa called Whittlebury Hall where they pampered her for 8 hours. After a family lunch and an afternoon of more pampering, we ended the day with chocolate cake and champagne. After a days rest, we ended her week with a family dinner in a smashing little restaurant in Angie’s village of Pury End. My Mum likes nothing more than having her family around her, and from the smile on her face she had a great time.

We also visited Trev’s folks several times that week and made our usual trips to Marks and Spencer for some necessity shopping as well as several pub lunches. The good news is that all UK pubs, restaurants and bars are now non-smoking so eating out is truly a pleasure.

The following week we headed to London and stayed with Gary and Richard, two friends we holidayed with last November. We spent our first evening with another great friend Charles dining at the Greenhouse Restaurant in Mayfair. What a meal we had! Great company, good conversation, a spectacular menu and delicious wine – you can’t ask for better than that. Later that week, we saw ‘Avenue Q’ which was a lot of fun and had dinner with another long time friend who we haven’t seen in over 7 years. Before we knew it, it was time to head home and the beginning of our 15th season as inn-keepers.

FEBRUARY 2008 and the month didn’t start as we planned. We had arranged to visit friends in up state New York and then head on to visit Trevor’s brother and family in Toronto. Just two days before leaving, I woke and couldn’t move because of the pain in my low back. But after several days bed rest, heap powerful medicine and visits to a physical therapist, I was back on my feet and feeling as good as news. Unfortunately the two week window we had before a busy Valentine’s weekend and the planned vacation evaporated. As the saying goes, ‘ If you want to make God smile, tell him you plans!’.

But the good news is that Trevor’s brother Martin and his wife Shari decided to come and visit us instead. Not quite what we had planned, but it was great seeing them. Two friends, Janet and Sara, also surprised us with a visit. Janet has had a tough time with knee surgery, but is now back to her old self and happily chasing Sara around the block (just kidding).

We celebrated Trevor’s birthday on the 14th with a dinner party with several friends. As Trev’s the better chef of the two of us, he prepared a gourmet meal ending with a ‘piece de resistance’ of a white chocolate, amaretto and fresh raspberry trifle. Throughout dessert, all that was heard was the sound of cutlery against china.

Four days later, we celebrated our 10th anniversary as owners of

the Oxford.

Wonder-lust seems to run in the Mascilo family and this time it was my nephew Sam hitting the trails. He left for a 6 week back-packing vacation of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Fortunately, he has his sister Katy to give him tips and places to visit following her 3 year experience in the same countries. But I think my sister Roni was just a little anxious seeing her son and heir heading East with just a back-pack, a few travelers checks and a lot of energy. I’m sure that between his Facebook and cell phone, we’ll soon hear from him if he runs out money or runs into trouble.

After a busier than usual February, we ended the month getting ready for a trip to the UK for a very special event. But more on that next month.

JANUARY 2008 and after the festivities of Christmas and New Year, we were both ready for a less hectic time. The weather played a big part in helping us decide what to do and where to go. As it turned out, we didn’t go anywhere but did some refurbishment in the guest house.

January 1, 2008 turned out to be a day of mixed blessings. The great news is that Peter, who was our manager for most of 2007, left us to start as an Grade 7 and 8 English teacher in the Montessori School in Springfield, MA. So with his first couple of weeks lesson plans prepared, his Dad came down to take him and some of Pete’s belongings to Springfield. We were very sad to see Lil’ Pete head out but more than thrilled that he was returning to teaching which we know is his vocation. His reports we received throughout the month about his pupils, other faculty members and life as a teacher just confirmed our feeling that he’s back on the right path. We really miss his humor and wit, not forgetting his ability to mimic all sorts of people, in the nicest possible way of course.

For past guests who remember Tim Babcock who was our manager at the Beaconlight for several years, well, he was in town for the month rehearsing and then performing the lead role in the award winning play “Doubt”. He received rave reviews from local, Cape and Boston papers. He looks really well and clearly loving his life upon the stage.

We had plans to visit Rochester New York for a few days and then Toronto to visit Trevor’s brother and family but things didn’t work out quite the way we planned. A few days before we were due to leave, we worked out together, nothing to strenuous you understand, but later that evening my low back didn’t feel so good. By the following morning, I couldn’t get out of bed because of the pain. After being diagnosed over the phone with having acute backache (dah!), I started on a regime of muscle relaxants and pain-killers that put me into a very peaceful frame of mind! One week later, I had an MRI that showed two compressed discs between L5 and L6. So it’s just a case of the spasms reducing, a bit of physical therapy and I’ll be as right as rain.

So we spent our 34th “unofficial” anniversary in our cottage with a bottle of bubbly and a delicious supper. Who could ask for anything more!

On the Pink Choice front, we presented the 2007 Pink Choice Awards to 18 properties in the USA, Australia, France as well as a number of properties who received a “highly recommended” rating from their guests. What was as pleasing was the blog and press coverage the awards received from national and international newspapers in UK, Europe and Australia.

DECEMBER 2007 and the month started much like those of previous years wish getting the house decorated for the Holly Folly weekend and the holiday season. The weather cooperated and temperatures were unseasonably mild. We also had Charles, a trusty helper from the UK, acting as foreman and elf supremo, and generally directing the light display. Despite his help (just kidding) we managed to get the house decorated, two Christmas trees and outside lighting and garlands twinkling with gay abandon.

Our very special Carnival guests, Charles (elf supreme remember), Rich and Kevin, Irene and Kathy, Peter and Kevin and Phil all helped make this weekend the fun it always is. John, Paul and daughter Olivia celebrated their twelfth Holly Folly with us. Olivia had a tough year with a new fatal illness but she is fully recovered and looking as lovely as ever.

Unlike previous years, we were not heading anywhere. Instead, my Mum, sister Roni and nephew Sam flew in from the UK to spend Christmas with us. What a treat. The best Christmas present I could have had. They arrived on the 17th for a ten day visit. We really didn’t do much except a little shopping – with the exchange rate being what it is, Roni and Sam went on a shopping spree at the Wrentham Outlet Mall – and a lot of woodland and seashore walks with Potter.

We also had a sprinkling of guests two of which stole our heart. Christina and Carl arrived for a weeklong stay before the holidays and what a couple they are. Christina is really poorly but you would never know. Her warmth, love and energy was so infectious that almost immediately we were captivated by her and fell under her wonderful spell. Because of a weekend snowstorm, they had to extend their stay with us, an added bonus. I hope and pray that if ever I have to face the challenges facing Christina, that I do so with the same positive energy and joy for living as she does.

The family returned to the UK just in time for us to get the house ready for the New Year guests arriving. We had a really great house this year which made the celebrations all the happier. It also took our mind of the fact that Peter, our manager, was going to be leaving on January 1 to begin the next stage of his journey. He will be teaching English to 7th and 8th graders at the Montessori School in Springdale MA starting on January 2. More about that in the January bulletin.

It just remains for Trevor and me wish all our friends around the world a very happy New Year. We hope it brings you all that you wish and happiness, good health and contentment throughout the year.

NOVEMBER 2007 and just like previous Novembers, the month turned out to be a busy one. After a hectic October, the first few days of the month were peaceful and quiet. This gave us time to catch up on a few projects that we stored up during the summer. Nothing major mind you, those will have to wait until the New Year.

Traditionally, November is quiet, so we traditionally take a short vacation after the end of season. This year we headed for a 10-day vacation in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona with Gary and Richard, two close friends from the UK. We’ve known Gary for over 20 years when he was a General Practitioner trainee in Trevor’s medical practice in London. About 5 years ago we met Richard and last year, we attended their Civil Union in London.

On Nov 10, we all met in Vegas and immediately headed to Springfield in Utah, a small town just outside Zion National Park. By the time we drove the three hours to our first hotel, it was dark and getting late. What we hadn’t realized is that there was a one hour time change, so that by the time we a freshened up and thought about dinner, most of the restaurants in town were already closed. Thank goodness for the local pizza shack; great pizza and a couple of cold beers really hit the spot. When we opened the drapes the following morning, the view from our room was spectacular. We were surrounded by mountains of red rock and trees in their full fall color. When we arrived the previous night we had no idea of the beauty that awaited us.

That morning we headed to Bryce Canyon. We were totally unprepared for what we saw. Bryce Canyon is one of the most amazing landscapes I’ve ever seen. I can’t adequately describe the beauty and majesty of the canyon, so I’m not going to try. Just know that if you every get a chance to see it for yourself, DO IT!

The following day we attached the famous “Angel’s Landing” climb in Zion National Park. Now, you have to know that Trevor is terrified of heights; he actually froze half way up the tower in Siena. So, when we started the climb we had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for. The first stage was gentle, giving no warning of what was to come. Our first challenge was climbing Walter’s Wiggles, a twisted series of 21 switchbacks leading from Refrigerator Canyon to Scout Lookout, 1000 feet above. And this is where the story really begins! The distance to Angel’s Landing is only 500 feet but to get there you have to climb long pathways only 3 feet wide with 1,000 foot drops on either side, or scale the rock face holding on to chains driven into the rock. And guess what, Trevor made it to the top. How? By sheer determination, and by no looking down. I’m just thankful he kept his eyes open. The view from the summit was breathtaking and a place to catch our breath. The return journey was as difficult at the assent, just in reverse. Two tips if you ever decide to make the climb, don’t do it during the middle of the day, it’s far to hot; bring plenty of water and wear good shoes.

Our next stop was the Grand Canyon, which turned out to be a little disappointing. I think it was because of our experiences in Bryce and Zion National Parks and because the Canyon is just SO big. Of course, it was spectacular but it was difficult getting any true feeling of its size and scale.

We then headed for a two-day stay in Sedona. We really lucked out with our guesthouse called Boots and Saddles. If you every plan to stay in Sedona, we couldn’t do better than staying here. We attempted to climb Cathedral Rock but we started to late in the day and had to abort our climb two thirds of the way up because the light was going.

Our last two days was spent in Vegas, and as Gary and Richard had never seen the city before, we acted as official tour guides. We stayed at the Mirage, which is looking tired compared to other hotels on the strip but it was convenient for getting to places. We saw the latest Cirque du Soleil show “LOVE” based on the Beatles music. It was a bit like the curate’s egg – good in parts.

We all returned to the Provincetown just in time to prepare for the Thanksgiving festivities. We celebrated our favorite day with 10 friends which included five guys from the UK, two from Germany, one from France and two Americans and a couple of converts (us). We over-catered, over-ate and over indulged but did we have fun!

No sooner had we put pay to the last of the turkey when we started decorating the Oxford for the holiday season. The weather was pretty decent so hanging the outside lights was a joy. We decided that less is more so kept our lights untypical minimalist. Whilst all this was going on, the blue spruce tree in the back garden had a much needed haircut. She now looks slimmer and tighter, and the arborist said that the tree should thicken up nicely over the next couple of years.

The good news is that we completed all our outside tasks in time for the arrival of our Holly Folly guests and the frigid weather that descended on us on December 1. How’s that for timing!

OCTOBER 2007 and the weather was quite wonderful. I know people say that the Brits (even the ex-Brits) are obsessed by the weather but, come on, it really has been a fantastic fall this year. I thought last year’s was great but this year takes the prize. The foliage wasn’t quite as rich as in previous years but that’s because of the dry summer we had this year. I guess you can’t have it both ways.

Business continued at a pace and we had the best October to date. I suspect that the weak dollar accounted for the increase in European visitors this year so as they say, “it’s an ill wind…” As I’m sure many of you know, October is the town’s Events month, starting with the annual Mates Weekend, followed by Columbus Weekend, Women's Week, Fantasia Fair, Round-up Weekend, and all rounded off with Halloween. There was great energy in town which seemed busier than it was in June.

Trevor headed back to London for a week to be with the entire Pinker clan for his uncle’s Memorial Service. Uncle George (aka Sir George Pinker) was the Royal Gynecologist for many years, taking care of HRH Queen E II, Princess Diana and other members of the extended royal family, and abroad. He delivered a number of royal and celebrity personages including Prince’s William and Harry. Sadly, George passed away in March after battling Parkinson’s disease for several years. The Pinkers came together from Canada, South Africa and the States and it was one of those hatch, match and dispatch occasions when both sides of the Pinkers came together. Trevor’s parents are now the head of the family so for them to have three generations together was quite something. The Memorial Service was quite the social occasion with over 800 family and friends attending. A soprano from the Royal Opera House and the London Chorus sang and several dignitaries gave readings and told stories about George’s life. The story I love goes that during the interval an performance at the Royal Opera House a lady went into labor. The house manager knew that George was in the audience so he rushed into the Crush Bar and asked in anyone knew Sir George Pinker. At which point 20 70 women raised their hands. Lovely story. The day after the service, all the Pinkers were names in the Royal Court Circular of the London Times, now there’s posh for you!

On the Pink Choice front, we had a great article published in the Cape Cod Times which generated great traffic to the site. The exciting news is that we’ve been asked to work with a large Canadian ad agency to be part of a national media campaign for the Canadian Tourism Commission. This should keep us busy during the winter months!

SEPTEMBER 2007 started with wonderful weather that continued through the month. We had such warm weather that it really didn’t feel like the early fall. It was hard to believe that only two years ago we were reeling from the devastating news of Hurricane Katrina and Rita. We kept out fingers crossed that this season didn’t live up to the expert’s forecasts. The Labor Day weekend was fun. The Annual AIDS Support Group’s Silent and Live Auction raised close to $100,000! Yipeee! The garden continued to bloom and looked better than ever, thanks to Trevor’s TLC. We had a wedding later in the month so keeping the flowers coming was a priority.

This is always the month when European friends come to visit. Michael, from the UK, stayed for several days and this year it was our time to cook him dinner; we had a lot to live up to after his gorgeous gourmet Thai dinner he cooked for us last year.

Tim and Jeff tied the knot in the front garden with their families and friends looking on. It was THE perfect weekend, the sun shone on the happy couple. Their families and friends were some of the nicest people to have stayed with us. I won’t forget the look on Tim and Jeff’s faces when a flotilla of peddle rickshaws turned up to parade them and their parents along the length of Commercial Street.

I can’t believe that it is a year since my sisters and I moved my Mum into her new home. The amazing thing is looks like a mini-version of our family home in Torquay. Over the summer, my sisters and a gardener landscaped her little patch of England, making it more user friendly for a lady of Mum’s tender years. She likes nothing more than sitting in her garden chair with one of her many cups of milky coffee and keeping an eye on the sparrows, hedgehogs, squirrels and magpies that try to gain control of her garden.

Pink Choice is going great guns and keeping our brains working. I’ve started writing a monthly blog for a British gay/lesbian up market site called refresh - www.refreshlite.com It give us good exposure to the UK GLBT market and allows to push US destinations to the Brits, particularly with the dollar being so weak.

AUGUST 2007 and a great month it was too! I know the British are renowned for fixating about the weather but it was a pretty decent month. Compared to last year, we had very few high temperature/humidity days. In fact, we actually had the first tastes of fall during the third week of the month, cool, sunny and calm.

Before going any further, Trevor and I want to thank so many of you for your cards, emails, calls and flowers following the sad news of Jessye’s passing last month. It’s taken a while for us to stop welling up every time we did something that normally involved Jessye and your thoughts and words helped enormously. I’m also happy to report that Potter is back to her old self. It took her nearly 2 weeks to come out of a real funk, and it was clear she missed her playmate and comforter. Pots really didn’t understand why Jessye was no longer around. On walks she would keep looking behind her as if to see where Jessye was. We do miss Jessye very much and thank you so much for sharing in our loss.

Now on a more up-beat note, let’s see what happened this month.

First, we celebrated the first anniversary of Pink Choice. It’s hard to believe that it was one year ago this month that we launched the site during the Carnival Parade on August 17, 2006. Since then, the sight has grown substantially in size, in membership and the numbers of visitors to Pink Choice. New destinations and properties are being added each day and we are beginning to see evidence that other sites and blogs are noticing our presence on web. Two months ago we took on a media consultant to help us spread the Pink Choice name.

And talking about Carnival, once again we enjoyed a houseful of great friends and fellow exhibitionists, who return year after year for this fun and crazy week. The theme this year was “Fairy Tales”. We chose “Alice in Wonderland” or as we called it, “Alicia in Wonderland”. Well, when you have Michael as Alice, (and a pretty fabulous Alice he was too), we just had to rename the principle character. Each guest took on other characters – Sir Charles as the Queen of Hearts (nothing like type casting) and a perfect likeness to Julia Childs, Ed and Bill as the twin Kings of Hearts, Rich and Kevin as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum; Irene as door mouse; Kathy as March hare, Peter as the Cheshire cat; Trevor as the White Rabbit and yours truly as the Mad Hatter. Sadly, Duncan wasn’t able to work his magic this year because of other commitments which he couldn’t escape. But Trevor came up trumps at the last minute with created a mobile tea party complete with huge teapot, cups and saucers. The parade along the three miles of Commercial Street was a hoot and the city fathers guestimate that this year over 80,000 people lined the route. Check the photographs on this site in the Guest Scrapbook.

During the Carnival week we also celebrated the 3rd wedding anniversary of Peter and Kevin and the 1st wedding anniversary of Irene and Kathy, followed by the 3rd wedding anniversary of Rich and Kevin. The bubbly flowed for days!

August was also the debut of Tim Babcock, our manager of the Beaconlight for 4 years, in a production of the one man play “I am my own wife” by Doug Wright. I say one man but he had the challenge of creating 35 characters. All I can say is that he was absolutely FANTASTIC. For the first time, I stopped watching Tim the actor, instead I witnessed the telling of a transsexual’s life story as told by Charlotta. The play is extremely challenging on many of levels but from the critic’s reviews, Tim met each challenge head on and triumphed.

We also had a visit from Keogh and his partner Tim now living in DC. Keogh was our manager here about 4 years ago and he is now heading towards his PhD studies. He looked as handsome as ever and he was really happy and excited with his life.

Now here we are, on the last day of August, heading towards the Labor Day weekend and the onset of fall. If the weather stays as delicious as it is today, we will be very happy.

JULY 2007 started with the annual July 4th week. Perfect weather and would you believe it, no mosquitoes! What a difference a year makes. Potter went into her usual quivers at the first sound of fireworks so we spent the evening trying to keep her calm. We heard the fireworks were spectacular this year and even the synchronized rain didn’t dampen the spirits of the thousands of people lining the harbor to watch.

After the holiday week, we settled into full houses and the return of several guests we hadn’t seen for a long time - Gari and Pete from Toronto, Bill and Jody from Palm Springs, John and Roman from Dallas, Don and Joe from Schenectady, Paul, John and Liv from Hartford - to name but a few. Two very special friends, Jan and Sara, popped in for supper whilst on the Cape for a medical conference. On July 29, they had a civil union ceremony in Princeton on the day of their 11th Anniversary.

July is also the month for the annual visit of the Belz family - Eddie and Lori, and their two daughters, Talia and Sivia. Talia is growing into a really beautiful little lady, full of energy, imagination and questions. Her baby sister Sivia has grown amazingly over the past year – as babies do! Sivia, is just a big bubble of fun and has discovered the power of her lungs. Such a voice and such a wicked smile.

I’ve kept the saddest news to the end. On Saturday, July 28, just three weeks before her 13th birthday, we had to put Jessye to sleep. It happened so quickly that we’re still coming to terms that she is no longer part of our lives. She suddenly went into acute heart failure. In less then 24 hours, there was little the vets could do for her.

Jessye has been with us since 1994, our first year in Provincetown. She’s watch over us these past 13 years, with those deep brown eyes of hers. She was a great sniffer and could spend minutes sniffing the tip of a branch or a patch of moss in the woods. She also loved to roll into her back, legs in the air, and wriggle in the sand on our dune walks. I’ll always remember her performing this maneuver and slowly sliding down a sand dune, on her back, head first. Jessye could hear us opening her cookie jar from two blocks away and distinguish the sound of a UPS or Fed Ex truck coming down Commercial Street. She knew that when they stopped, she got a cookie! Jessye offered unconditional love and in return she was loved by so many friends who have stayed with us over the years.

Jessye is going to be greatly missed by us all.

JUNE 2007 I know I’m a bit tardy with the June bulletin but somehow July seems to have moved along more quickly than usual. Memorial holidays, wedding anniversaries and birthdays are all a happy memory and we gently settled into our summer routine. Lil’ Pete has settled in and keeping us and our guests happy.

After the sad demise of the Birdman Competition last year, together with Greg Daniels of the Porch Bar at the Gifford House, we hosted what has become the annual deck party for the Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project. Over 30 friends from Boston and Provincetown attended and we managed to raise over $5,000 of much needed funding.

This was also a month for celebrations. First, the birthdays.

My nephew Sam received the “key of the door” when he turned 21 on June 14. He’s training to be a tree surgeon and will be attending horticultural college in the fall.

His sister Katy celebrated her 26th birthday in Phnom Penh where she is currently Cambodian co-ordinator for UNIFEM. I heard through the grapevine (don’t tell my Mum I called her that) that Katy is likely to return to the UK in September. This will be great news for the family who I know worries about her a lot. Phnom Penh is not the safest of places!

Lil’ Pete reached is quarter century on June 25. We can well remember his 21st birthday, celebrated in his first year working with us at the Beaconlight.

Jan, a great friend and a regular guest of ours celebrated his birthday on June 6. Then on June 7, Jan and his partner Ron celebrated their 3rd wedding anniversary.

On the wedding front, we celebrated three.

On June 16, Trevor traveled to Canada to attend the wedding of his niece Jenny to another Trevor, Trevor Walz. Because of business, I couldn’t attend but from the photographs I’ve seen, I know it was a fabulously romantic wedding held on the banks of a lake just north of Toronto.

On June 18, we celebrated the wedding of Michael (Brass Key) and Ken (Sotherby’s Realtor) at the Red Inn in town along with over 50 family members and friends. It was a perfect summer’s day, cloudless and calm. Michael and Ken couldn’t have looked happier. We wish them all the happiness in the world.

Then on June 22, we hosted the wedding of Sue and Heidi in the front garden of the Oxford. They filled the house with friends from the south and on a day when rain was forecast, and when it came time for them to exchange their vows, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was a glorious afternoon, with tears of joy and loads of laughter amongst close and loving friends.

June really was a fun filled month and before we had time to think about it, July was just around the corner.

MAY 2007 My Mum, Dorothy, but affectionately know as DOT.com (it’s a long story) arrived at the beginning of the month for her annual spring visit. She looked great and still has a bounce in her step. Not bad for a sprightly 78 year old I think she brought a pocket of sunshine with her because the weather settled and she enjoyed three glorious weeks. Mum was a great help around the house and as she loves gardening, she spent most days pottering in the beds deadheading and giving us a daily update of what was coming up. We took her for a couple of day trips into Massachusetts and Maine and a couple of trips shopping! And can she shop!

During her stay, our financial adviser and marketing consultant stayed for the weekend with their young sons. Mum loved the little guys and kept them entertained whilst we did some Pink Choice business.

We had one of the best Memorial Weekends for several years. We were full and the weather was perfect - warm and sunny. We had a nice group of people staying and most check in on Thursday and don’t leave until next Tuesday. I had my birthday, the last year of my 5th decade. Next year will be a biggy for my Mum (80) and me (60) so we’re going to have to do something special. Mum mentioned that she would love to revisit India where she spent the first 18 years of her life growing up in Puna, just outside Bombay. So watch this space.

Trev’s scapular has healed after his March fall but he’s developed a strange grinding sound in his right shoulder joint. He’s getting an MRI to see what’s going on but who knows what the prognosis will be. Let’s hope it’s nothing serious and easily mended. I reckon a quick quirt of WD40 should do the trick.

APRIL 2007 and spring continued to evade us with days of cold, miserable weather tinged with just one or two days of warm temperatures thrown in. After several years of help from Tim Callas and his team, we decided it was timely to reclaim control of our little bit of earth and to take up gardening ourselves. There is nothing quite like getting down and dirty in the soil, well, almost nothing! An famous English gardener, Reginald Molehusband, used to reply “The answer lies in the soil” when asked any gardening question. Time will tell. We’ve pruned the roses, cleared vinca out of two small beds fronting the parking lot so we can plant flowering plants we can cut for the house, reseeded the front lawn and reshaping the borders. But you would have smiled at our attempts to calculate the amount of mulch needed for the garden. We reckoned 6 cubic yards would do it but our trusty gardener man giggled and suggested 2 would be ample. We have a lot to learn!

Our good friend Joy McNulty invited us to attend this year’s Seder at the Lobster Pot. This was our second Seder and it was as passionate, uplifting and memorable as the first one.

On April 15, we celebrated Trev’s parents 65th wedding anniversary. Although we couldn’t be with them, Trev’s brother Martin and his wife traveled to the UK to share the occasion. They had perfect spring weather on the day, attended mass in the church where they were married, followed by lunch in the hotel where they first met. Martin said that they received so many flowers that they could have opened a florist shop.

Trev’s scapula is healing nicely and considering he broke only 6 weeks ago, he’s already regained 85% of his mobility. He swears that it’s the acupuncture treatment he’s getting that’s helping to speed up the healing.

There are new owners of Perry’s Liquor Store on the corner of Commercial and Tremont, just three minutes from the Oxford. Scott and Tom ran a highly successful restaurant in Maine for over 11 years before venturing into the wine and liquor business. Besides offering a great range of wines at sensible prices, they also provide fresh baguettes, pates, sausage and cured meats. The guys are a very welcome addition to our neighborhood and we wish them every success.

I don’t want to keep harping on about the weather but it really has been one strange year spring so far. On Sunday, April 15, we had the storm of the decade. This little monster crept up from the south and covered most of the eastern seaboard. By the time it reached us, it was off the coast, churning nicely, and packing one hell of a punch. That night we were hit with torrential rain, sustained winds of 72 mph and a lunar high tide. Many houses on the shore were really hammered and many were flooded with the combination of storm surge and the very high tide. Fortunately, we lost only a few tiles off the roof. For the next three days, the storm held its grip on us but when it departed, we were rewarded with beautiful, warm, summer like weather, perfect to getting into the garden. Which brings me right back where I started. I just hope the good weather continues for when my Mum arrives on April 30 for her annual spring visit. Fingers crossed!

MARCH 2007 and our strange winter weather continues. Temperatures are on a roller-coaster. Our snowfall has been pitiful but we’re not complaining. That just isn’t be right. Mind you, they always say that “it never snows on the Cape!”

Pete, our new manager, is settling in nicely and together we started the ritual spring-cleaning. Trevor concentrated on making new drapes, duvet cover and shams for the Greyfriars Room. Well, we thought it needed a freshen-up. Another room that got “the treatment” was the Magdalen Room. This time is was a total makeover. The new color scheme is a rich sexy Romanesque faux red that replaces the earthy green that was “in” in the late nineties. Whilst we were at it, we gave the common bathroom a new color too. When we’re on a roll, we roll!

This was also a month for visits. Tony Sabadini who was our manager at the Beaconlight during the nineties stayed for a long weekend. He’s doing really well and studying for his MBA whilst working for a hedge fund company in Boston. Well, it’s the thing you do when you’re in your early 30’s. That same weekend, Mart and Shari (Trev’s bro and sister-in-law) arrived from Toronto for a week’s visit. Shortly after, Emma and Greg (niece and husband) arrived to round off a Canadian family visit. It was a shame that the weather wasn’t more friendly.

With the family settled in, Trevor decided to spice up their visit a little. He took the basement stairs (you know, the ones that are as steep as the north face of the Matterhorn) just a tad too fast, slipped and landed on his right shoulder. After a trip to our local medical facility and told “It’s very hard to break a shoulder bone”, they sent him off Hyannis Hospital because Outer Cape had had no x-ray technician on duty. (Remind me why we live at the end of the world!) Again he was told “It’s very hard to break a shoulder bone”, but the x-ray disproved conventional wisdom and yes, he had achieved the almost impossible and had broken his scapula. A nice break though, very clean. The lesson here is never tell Trevor that he can’t do something! I know. By the time I returned from Boston, he was home with arm in sling and not looking very perky. But Trevor being the man he is, the sling was off by day three and his mobility improves daily. You just can’t keep a good man down!

The month ended with my final sessions with my dentist and orthodontist. After two years of treatment, the braces of off and the retainers are in. All I have to do now is pay the bills, and that feels something like off the third world dept.

FEBRUARY 2007 and first big event for me happened on our return from Florida. On February 5th, and after almost two years, I had my teeth braces removed. I now know how some women must feel when they take off their corsets (do they still do that?) After months of teeth scaffolding, gone went the psychedelic smiles (if you’ve ever had braces, you know the joys resulting from eating salad or broccoli and the colorful smile they create) and on came large and slimy teeth that was gentle on the tongue. It really was a strange feeling! Walking out the orthodontists’ office my mind turned to crispy apples, toast, pretzels and toffee (just kidding, about the toffee) Arriving home, Trevor greeted me wearing sun glasses – he said it was because of my new dazzling smile – ya, right! Sarcasm is sarcasm no matter how you spin it!

After 5 days of turning around laundry, dealing with reservations (a good feeling) and generally getting on top of a couple of weeks of mail – snail and electronic- we headed to London for a week’s visit with our families. And it great week it was too.

We first celebrated Trevor’s birthday on February 14 (yes, he’s a Valentine’s baby) with a day at Blenheim Palace, just outside Oxford in the village of Woodstock, followed by dinner in a 17th Century Inn deep in the heart of Northamptonshire.

Blenheim Palace holds all sorts of memories for us. On the way, we passed the hotel where we first clapped eyes on each other, 33 years ago. It’s changed a little but not so much that we didn’t recognize the place. The Palace is at the end of the High Street flanked by beautiful cream-colored stone cottages, a century’s old stage coach hostelry called The Bear, and a street more suited for horses than cars. We entered the grounds through a stone archway that immediately opened onto the vista created by Capablity Brown in the 18th Century, complete with a man made lake and two three arch stone bridges going no-where. The House was built by the first Duke of Marlborough, as a gift from Queen Ann following his defeat of the French at the Battle of Blenheim. OK enough of the history lesson! Blenheim is very military in design but quite stunning. Winston Churchill was born there, the Spencer Churchill’s have ties with the Vanderbilt dynasty and the current Duke (the 7th) lives in the East Wing (well don’t they all). As you would expect, the gardens are quite wonderful too; formal, fountains, statues and views going on for counties.

The following Saturday, February 17, we celebrated Trev’s Mum’s birthday (good manners prohibits me from writing her age) The thrill for me was taking Beryl and Ken to the Great House in Sonning, the place where they met 72 years ago. The hotel used to be called the White Hart Inn and it sits on the banks of the upper reaches of Thames. It was a lovely lunch, made all the more memorable by the unintentional mirth created by the hotel’s organization of lunch service. It’s too long a story but when you come and visit – remind me to tell you – but don’t feel pressurized.

The following day we have a combined Mascilo/Pinker family lunch complete with a skype call to my niece Katy in Cambodia where she’s still working with UNIFEM. 18 hours later we were heading back to Boston and sub zero temperatures. Oh joy!

We ended with month with a start on the annual house spring clean and Trevor making new drapes, shams and duvet cover for the Greyfriars Room. It's a new look and we hope you like it.

JANUARY 2007 and “there is no such thing as global warming” tested the ostrich heads with a crazy mix of extreme weather, both here and all across the country. Even the UK suffered a tornado, 6 inches of snow, then 50+ degree temperatures. We decided to close the guesthouse for the first two months of the year to give us time to do other things, but more of that later.

It’s a year since the new HVAC system was installed and so far it has worked perfectly. It’s also hard to believe that we still have PINK CHOICE under wraps and feverishly working on the site with our designer Vin, Bobbie and John. The exciting event for us was presenting the first PINK CHOICE Awards to the 2006 winners. Actually, “winners” is not quite the right word as the recipients receive the award based on the number of reviews received and the scores given to their properties by guests staying there. You can read all about that by going to the site www.pinkchoice.com and checking out the Pink Choice Blog in the bottom left hand corner of the home page.

The next major decision of the month was “where do we want to go to celebrate our 33rd anniversary?” This year we decided to have a working Pink Choice vacation in Florida and use the time to market the site to guesthouses in Ft Lauderdale, Miami and Key West. That turned out to be one learning experience that was, largely, very positive. We stayed at the Villa Venice www.villavenice.com in Ft Lauderdale – a great guesthouse just two blocks from the ocean and Alexander’s Guesthouse www.alexghouse.com in Key West – really smashing and at the end of Fleming St off Duval. We did good with our choices.

The weather was a little iffy but when you’re going door to door encouraging owners to sign up to the site, cool is good. We spend our anniversary relaxing, having a massage and diner in a local diner, which was an “interesting” experience. Put it this way, for an up market restaurant, the staff needed a little guidance on opening a bottle of wine, and that it was not necessary to fill the ample wine glass to the brim. Having filled my glass to the brim and clearly attempting to do the same with Trevor’s glass, I suggested that half full was quite sufficient. Without batting an eye, he took my full glass and tried to pour some of it into Trevor’s glass. Interesting service I thought. It would have been entertaining but not their wine prices.

We also managed to have lunch with Flavio in Miami on one of those trendy restaurants on the strip. The waterfront was in full swing with preparations for the Super Bowl parties that following weekend. All in all, it was a good couple of weeks. The majority of guesthouse owners signed onto Pink Choice, and we managed to get a break from the NE winter weather.

DECEMBER 2006 There is always a sense of urgency following Thanksgiving, just to get the Oxford decorated in time for the holiday festivities and Holly Folly. This year was no different. Fortunately, the weather was kind so decorating the outside of the house wasn’t the Artic experience it has been in previous years. The other bonus was that we had two British friends, John and David, staying with us and their help was stellar. Within three days we had the house sparkling with lights, Christmas trees and garlands.

John, Paul and daughter Olivia celebrated their ninth (or is it their tenth?), Holly Folly with us. We have watched Olivia grow from a little baby into a lovely little girl over the years. This year, she graduated to her own room! Our other regular guests, Rich and Kevin, Irene and Kathy, Jim and Phil and Peter and Kevin all helped make this weekend the fun it always is.

No sooner had they left and we were heading to the West Coast. We spent the first few days in Las Vegas and managed not to gamble once. Could this be a record? We had some great meals and took in a couple of shows. “Ka” at the MGM Grand was amazing and as good as any of the Cirque shows we’ve previously seen. “Phantom of the Opera” at the Venetian was quite stunning. Staged in a purpose built theater that cost $45 million to build and the production cost over $35 million, the show is shorter than the London production and with no interval. I guess they wanted us back at the slot machines as quickly as possible!

Our next stop was LA. We went specifically to attend a concert at the new Disney Concert Hall given by a very good friend, David Higgs. David is one of America’s top organists and he performed a organ recital of Christmas organ music with the American soprano Cyndia Seiden. The hall designer Frank Gehry also designed the organ façade and we had the pleasure of meeting Manuel Rosales, the organ builder. The day before the concert, we sat in on the dress rehearsal. It was odd just the three of us sitting alone in a 2,500 seater hall listening to David and Cyndia fine tune their program. The following evening, in a packed hall, we shared two hours of great music. The concert was one of those lifetime memories.

Then back to Provincetown with just enough time to do the laundry, repack and head to Toronto for the Christmas holidays with Trevor’s brother Mart and his family. On the way, we had an overnight stay with Duncan (ex-manager) and his partner Rob in Schenectady. Both looked good. Rob is busy nursing a new musical called “Ace” - he wrote the words. It’s getting rave reviews and heading to San Diego for a three month run. Duncan has his hands full with various theatre projects and the “mansion” he now owns. Maggie, their 16 year old dog, is hanging in.

Next stop, Kingston, Ontario and another overnight stay, this time with Shari’s sister Carole and hubbie Peter. They have a great house on the shores of Lake Ontario, with uninterrupted views across the lake. They treated us right royally. Toronto came next for the Christmas holidays with Trevor’s brother Mart and his family. Talk about being spoiled. We had the best time.

On the way home, we made an overnight stop in Rochester to visit two friends, David and Stephen. David is Chair of the Organ Department at the Eastman School of Music and he gave us a tour of the city and the organ school. The treat for me was hearing and

playing a pedal clavichord – the kind of instrument that Bach and Haydn would have played. Who would have guessed that Rochester would turn out to be such a gem of a city. When we compared their property prices to Provincetown’s, it was a shocker.

Trevor and I wish all our friends a very happy NewYear. We hope it brings you all that you wish and happiness, good health and contentment throughout the year.

NOVEMBER 2006 was a pretty busy month even though the season was beginning to wind down. Right after Halloween, Flavio, our manager, headed back to Brazil to spend a couple of months with his family before heading to Miami for the first part of 2007. It’s always sad when it comes to see him off but he looked like he was eager to see his Mum and Dad again. Who could blame him.

It was also the day that I was diagnosed with having Meniere ’s disease which affects my right inner ear. No one knows what causes it and there is no cure, yet! The symptoms are loss of hearing, a continuous buzz in the affected ear and vertigo, which is the hardest to deal with. The good news is that the disease only affects one ear and there is no record of someone getting the disease in both ears. The bummer is that the disease only resolves when I become totally deaf in my right ear and only then will the buzzing and the vertigo disappear. What a trade off! Fortunately, the vertigo can be controlled by medication, most of the time. So if you see me suddenly begin to stagger sideways, do not think it’s because I’ve had one too many, OK!

One week later, we headed to London to see our families and a couple of friends. The good news is that our folks are doing great. My Mum has settled into her new bungalow and loving the company of her neighbors and the closeness to my two sisters. She’s slowly getting her new home the way she wants it and enjoying the chance to buy new furniture and appliances. Trev’s Mum and Dad are also well and happy in their retirement home. We also took them shopping for nick-nacks and some early Christmas presents.

After spending a few days shuttling between them, we headed into London. Our first evening was spent at a reunion of colleagues I worked with back in the early 80’s when I was Personnel Director for Holiday Inns UK. It was quite the evening, catching up with a bunch of people I haven’t seen in over 20 years. Some are now retired, some have moved on to very different careers whilst others are still working in the hotel industry. With over 80 people there, we didn’t get to see everyone but with plans for an annual reunion, there will be other occasions to put that to rights.

The rest of the weekend was pretty hectic. Dinner with friends on three consecutive nights and a couple of musicals – Cabaret and Wicked. The first was dreadful but the second more than made up for the earlier disappointment.

The London production of Cabaret at the Lyric is very dark. The singing was OK, the dancing mediocre. But why the director decided to inject naked bodies into the show for no apparent reason except to perhaps titillate is anyone’s guess. I think he did it in an attempt to take our minds of the production.

By contrast, the London production of Wicked at the Apollo Victoria was stunning in every way. We loved it! Although the stage version differs from the book, the essential essence of the story was there.

The occasion that had the biggest impact on us was on November 11, Armistice Day. We just happened to be walking into Trafalgar Square at Big Ben’s first stroke at 11.00 o’clock. London’s traffic came to a stop. Not a bus, a London cab or a car moved. People stopped walking. No one spoke. No cell phones rang. Even the wind seemed to drop. The only sound was from the pigeons circling over our heads. At exactly 11.02, signaling the end of the two minutes silence in memory of all those who have died in wars this century, jets from the three armed services flew in formation over the Square. Then a transport plane flew over and unloaded thousands and thousands of poppy petals on to the city. Slowly the crowd, still quiet, began to move towards the fountains in Trafalgar Square where they floated poppy petals in the waters and at the same time, the Charter House School Choir sang an anthem by John Tavener. It was a moment I will never forget.

We returned to the Provincetown just in time to prepare for the Thanksgiving festivities. We celebrated our favorite day with 10 friends and as usual, we over catered and over ate. No sooner had we put pay to the last of the turkey when we started decorating the Oxford for the holiday season. Fortunately, the weather was on our side, very mild and dry, so hanging the outside lights was a joy. Unlike our previous lighting extravaganzas, we decided to go a little more minimalist this year, with half a mind to energy conservation as much as anything. But with only 5 days to complete the decorations, we couldn’t rest on our laurels.

The month ended with temperatures in the 60’s. We had difficulty imagining that we were heading into December.

OCTOBER 2006 and unlike October 2005, the weather has been quite wonderful. I think we’ve had one of the nicest falls in a long time, certainly the best we’ve experienced in thirteen years.

Our month started with an empty house, the first time we had no guests staying since April. It really felt strange not having guests around. But the moment soon passed and the house filled for the Columbus Day weekend with family and friends gathering to celebrate the marriage of Chris and Paul. Chris’s mum, Ann, was the perfect wedding planner and she did a fantastic job. The day was a perfect fall day, the Oxford garden still had color and the ceremony was romantic and heartfelt.

Although we have hosted over 30 weddings at the Oxford, each one has been so different but the common thread is always the real sense of love, commitment and happiness shared by the wedding couple and the family and friends witnessing the joining together of two people in marriage. I would dearly love to invite all those who seem determined to take away our right to marry to come and experience a marriage ceremony that has been denied to us for too long. Maybe then they would begin to understand. I always say a silent thank you to our state Supreme Court for having the courage to put right a dreadful injustice in our state. We can only wait for other to follow, and they will!

As I’m sure many of you know, October is the town’s Events month, starting with the annual Mates Weekend, followed by Columbus Weekend, Women's Week, Fantasia Fair, Round-up Weekend, and all rounded off with Halloween. The energy in town changes with each event and by the people it attracts. We love the month because we get to see many guests returning for a specific weekend that we don’t get to see any other time of the year.

The weekend of Women’s Week was a fun filled couple of days for us. We started by celebrating the marriage of two good friends and fellow guesthouse owners, Jim and David of Christopher’s by the Bay; then we celebrated the 50th Birthday of the great singer Suede at a lunchtime party at Lorraine’s Restaurant organised by her partner Michele, and that evening, we celebrated a special birthday party of another guesthouse owner, Tim, of the John Randall House.

My Mum is slowly settling into her new bungalow and from our calls each week she seems to be slowing organizing her new home just the way she likes it. My brother-in-law finished tiling her very trendy kitchen and when we go and visit her in November, we plan to purchase a new flat screen TV and a couple of easy chairs. Best of all, Mum is quickly making friends with her neighbors (if you know my Mum that is not a surprise) and scooping the pot at the weekly bingo evenings. Trevor’s Mum and Dad are both doing well and we’re looking forward to visiting them our November trip.

PINK CHOICE continues to grow. We now have over 50 destinations, quadruple the number we started with. We have over 2,000 registered members and our ranking on Google climbs upwards each day. So keep spreading the word, go to www.pinkchoice.com, register as a member, post a review(s) of places you have stayed for others to read and if you’ve been somewhere not currently listed, then add the destination. That's the end of the sales pitch. We plan to roll out a couple of enhancements to the site in the coming weeks. One will allow visitors to the site to narrow their search based on specific amenities and facilities offered by a property. The other is an enlarged global directory. We're also looking into creating a Pink Choice Blog and in finalizing the physical look of the Pink Choice Award.

SEPTEMBER 2006 started with wonderful weather. The Labor Day weekend just couldn’t have been nicer. It was difficult to believe that only a year ago the US was reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane’s Katrina and Rita. We’re all hoping and praying that we are spared from similar disasters during this hurricane season.

It has been an eventful month with visits from old friends, trips abroad, entertaining guests and major family events.

We had a surprise visit from Alistair, a member of staff from the 2000 season. He hasn’t changed a bit and still full of the dry English humor we love so much. We also had an even more surprising visit from Tim who needed to get away from DC from some well earned R & R.

Michael, a guest from earlier in the summer, returned and offered to cook an authentic 3 course Thai dinner for us. Well, he didn’t have to ask twice. We invited along a few friends, and what a meal we had! To be honest, I’m still not exactly sure what Michael prepared but it was so delicious and brought back fond memories of our Thailand adventures back in 1998. Sadly, being a professional chef, his portion control was a little too good for my liking and there was nothing left for doggy bags. Damn!

Lesley and Denise tied the knot in the drawing room in front special friends and Kate and Cindy who married in our front garden last year returned to celebrate their first official anniversary. Flavio, our manager, celebrated his 30 plus tax birthday.

Lori, Ed, Talia and Sivia made a last minute visit to town over the Labor Day holidays and we got to see that all for dinner. Talia is growing so fast that sometimes it was difficult to remember that she was only 6. Baby Sivia is a poppet and one of those wonderful babies who seems contented with life from the get go!

My niece Katy returned home to the London UK following her year working with the UN in Bangkok. No sooner had she recovered from the jet lag when she got a call offering her a position heading up the UNIFEM office in Cambodia. She had barely enough time to finish her Master’s thesis when she was heading back to the Far East for another year. The good news is that her boyfriend is working in the neighboring country of Laos so they should get to see each other every couple of weeks.

My major life event was moving my Mum from the house she has lived in for the past 53 years, into a sheltered senior citizen bungalow located a short distance from my two sisters, Angie and Roni. They have been helping Mum down-size her worldly possessions for the past couple of months and by the time I arrived at No: 23 Halsteads Road in mid September, there was just the final packing to do and several runs to the charity shops to be made. My Mum did good and really tried to let go of things she had had around for decades. Even after a lot of struggling and decision making, we still managed to fill the removal truck with boxes and boxes of stuff. By the time we unloaded at No 9 Springfield, it was clear that more clearing of clutter had to take place. After a week with her, the bungalow looked like it had been lived in for years and familiar photographs, ornaments, lamps, rugs, china and glass were back inside familiar cabinets and on coffee tables. My brother-in-law Frank had fitted a smashing new kitchen and bathroom with all mod cons prior to her moving in. Best of all, Mum has an 18 sq foot garden in which to play. Trevor and I are heading back to see our families in November so we’re look forward to spending time with her in her new home.

I spent a wonderful late September morning with my peridontist. Whilst gazing out at the skyline of Boston he screwed two titanium posts into my lower jaw, in preparation for attaching two molar crowns later this year. When all is done, I will be able to chew on the left side of my mouth, something I have not been able to do since having the two molars knocked out whilst playing rugby for my old school team some 40 years plus years ago. Those were the days!

And on top of all this, PINK CHOICE is growing by the day. We’ve had over 8,000 distinct hits on the site in the past couple of weeks with an average viewing time of 9.30 minutes. Our list of destinations have risen from 16 to 47 in 5 weeks. Reviews are coming in on a daily basis and we are seeing positive growth in a number of resorts serving the gay and lesbian community. We are learning as the site grows and enhancing the site’s navigation on a daily basis. So check it out for yourself, www.pinkchoice.com and register as a member and you could win a 7 day vacation at the Oxford with $500 towards travel expenses.

AUGUST 2006 and three words sum up the month – hot and humid. Even though we’re surrounded by the ocean we still had several days with temperatures over 90 degrees and humidity to match.

It was the month we launched our new business, a website called PINK CHOICE On August 8 at 12.20 the site went live, 4 days before the official launch on August 12, 2006. We wanted to check that the site worked as it should and there were no last minute glitches or gremlins. All the guys at SystemArchitecture.net – Vin, Bobbie, Bill and Evan - did an amazing job and we can’t thank them enough for the patience and creativity. Who would have thought that Trevor’s epiphany of last October would become reality eleven months later. Check out the site and post a review of your accommodation experience anywhere in the world and if you are one for the first 5,000 charter members, you could win a 7 day vacation in Provincetown

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Just to be sure we didn’t rest on our laurels, Carnival Week quickly followed the launch and with it came a house full of friends and fellow exhibitionists who enjoy putting on silly costumes and walking three miles down Commercial Street in front of over 65,000 people. Now what better opportunity to promote PINK CHOICE could we have and we didn’t let the opportunity pass us by. The theme this year was “Gay Paree” and Duncan worked his magic yet again. This time he created a replica of a Paris poster booth that he attached to the back of our RAV4. We needed to car to carry the 2,000 PINK CHOICE tee shirts we threw into the crowd as we paraded down Commercial St. Our guests dressed as various Parisian/French characters ranging from chefs, Tour de France cyclists, Fifi the maid, a couple of Pierots and of course Flavio dressed in nothing more than 6 dozen pink and black feathers, body paint and a pair of very brief briefs! Did we have fun? You bet we did! After the parade we relaxed with supper and wine, exhausted and happy.

Then on August 21 we celebrated Jessye’s 12th birthday. Of course we had to make a special trip to the pet shop for a bag of her favorite cookies. We took Potter too of course, because you know how she hates missing out on treats!

And then before we knew it, August was fast coming to an end and we were heading into the Labor Day weekend. Just where did the summer go?

JULY 2006 started with the annual July 4th week. The weather was perfect except for the mosquitoes! They were out in force this year partly because of the mild winter we had. Most of our guests had plans for the day so we went with the flow. We decided to watch the town fireworks from the local jetty but Potter had other ideas, She has recently become terrified of bangs and thunder, so just as we were heading out, off went the first salvo of fireworks and off went Potter into a shivering fit. We spent the rest of the evening trying to settle her down. It is really sad to see her to frightened.

My niece, Katy, returned home from her year in Bangkok working for UNIFEM’s Gender and Aids/HIV Program team. I can’t believe that at 24 years old, she has done so much. The only downer for her was having to finish her thesis for her Master’s degree from the London School of Economics. No sooner had she settled into life in London UK, when she had another call from the UN offering her a management position in their offices in Cambodia, this time heading up the Gender and Aids/HIV Program there. She leaves sometime in September. That’s my niece!

Trevor had a major family event, the marriage of his niece Emma and her husband Greg. The wedding was held in St Andrew’s, New Brunswick, Canada. Emma and Greg have known each other since 9th grade and both are teachers. We think they have claim to one of the longest courtships in history. With a forecast of rain for their day, they woke to find blue skies and sunshine instead. And what a wedding! It really was a perfect day.

Trevor returned just in time for dinner with our very special friends from Boston, Eddie and Lori, and their two daughters, Talia and Sivia. They always take a vacation in Provincetown in July and it has become a tradition to share at least one roast chicken dinner with them. We have watched Talia grow into a really amazing little girl and her baby sister Sivia, is just a big bubble of fun.

JUNE 2006 With the Memorial holiday behind us, we've settled into our summer routine. Flavio is working again with us this summer; this will be his forth season with us. He is great to have around, always happy and like us, our guests love him..

Sadly the Birdman Competition no long flies. No insurer was prepared to underwrite the event and without insurance the competition just couldn’t happen. But that didn’t prevent us from holding a small fundraiser for the Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project, the organization that created, promoted, organized and benefited from the Birdman Competition, which was their major fundraiser. So on June 22 we hosted a benefit cocktail party at the Oxford, co-hosted by Greg Daniels, manager of the Porch Bar at the Gifford House. Over 50 friends from Boston and Provincetown attended and we managed to raise over $9,000 of much needed funding.

Stephen is now one year into having his teeth re-aligned, separated and straightened. The latest phase of the process was a bone graft to help raise the bone density on one side of his mouth to enable two implants to be added. Not the most pleasant of experiences but not as bad as he imagined it would be. Earlier that week he had a colonoscopy, which found and removed two polyps. So if you happen to be over 50 years old, it really is a good idea to have a colonoscopy, just to be sure nothing nasty is happening.

So here we are, into our 13th season in Provincetown, and only weeks away from the July 4th celebrations. Our new project is fast coming to fruition and we hope to do a soft launch of our new website, PINK CHOICE.

Last October Trevor had an epiphany in the shower one morning and there started this new project. But let us go back and put it in context.

When we first owned the Beaconlight back in 1994, a small travel publication called Out&About was having an impact on the gay accommodation market. Although highly subjective, their reviews and awards established a standard in gay accommodation in North America and subsequently throughout the world. Their “5 Palm” and “Editor’s Choice” Awards became important marketing tools for the recipients. However, since being acquired by Planet Out their prominence as an arbiter of gay accommodation quality and service has diminished.

More recently, we discovered TripAdviser, a site that enables guests to post a review of their accommodation experience. The more reviews a property receives, the higher their ranking in their specific destination. However, TripAdviser primarily attracts reviews from and patronized by the straight market.

And this is where PINK CHOICE comes into its own.

The mission of PINK CHOICE is to be the most reliable, honest and trusted web site for gay and lesbian travelers seeking information about accommodations targeting the gay and lesbian market worldwide.

We believe we have an understanding of the gay travel market. Since we became guesthouse owners in 1994 we have developed an understanding of the enormous value of guest and travel writer reviews. But as gay travelers, we are often frustrated by the lack of such information for people like ourselves.

There are a number of gay guidebooks available but these often become quickly out dated as businesses change hands or new hotels, inns or guesthouses emerge. With the advent of the internet, there are now a number of sites providing valuable travel information to the straight market but none specifically targeting the gay market.

PINK CHOICE will fill this void so that gay and lesbian travelers will have all the information at hand to not only choose a hotel, inn or guesthouse that meets their needs but to be confident in the knowledge that when they arrive there will be no surprises, and they will be made to feel welcome.

Travelers will also be able to score properties they have patronized against a set of criteria that will then be used to calculate their ranking against similar properties in their price range and location.

At the end of each calendar year, the accommodations reaching a certain ranking in each of the four price bands will receive a PINK CHOICE Award.

Our aim is to soft launch the site in last July 2006. Its success will depend on the gay and lesbian travelers who post reviews of their accommodation experience. The more accommodations that are reviewed, we believe the greater the likelihood that future visitors will travel confident in their choice of accommodation. So to encourage reviews, all reviewers email addresses will be entered into a draw, the first prize being a 7 night stay in a luxurious Provincetown Guesthouse PLUS $500 towards travel costs. The more reviews an individual submits, the greater the chances of winning.

We will be announcing the date of the soft launch in the next 3 to 4 weeks.

MAY 2006 and unlike last year, this May was a pretty decent month. The weather was great most of the time and we’ve had the best May ever business wise.

Stephen’s Mum arrived for her annual spring vacation at the beginning of the month and she was a real poppet helping out around the house and in the gardens; and does she love gardening! Mum has the proverbial green fingers. Twigs she stuck in the ground last year have all taken root. At the end of her first week we whisked her off to Toronto for a long weekend visiting Trevor’s brother and his family. Mum spent last Christmas with Mart and Shari, Emma and Greg and Jenny and Trevor here at the Oxford and she was thrilled to visit with them in Canada.

On our first full day we took her to Niagara Falls which were spectacular and almost convinced Mum that once the water had gone over the falls it is pumped back up and recycled. Is that mean or what? After an al fresco lunch Niagara on the Lake we strolled the botanical gardens which were in full spring bloom.

Over the following days we headed to Down Town Toronto, visited the Farmer’s Market and an impressive new arts development on the site of an old brewery; had dinners with Jenny and Trevor and Emma and Greg in their new homes; visited China Town and generally made whoopee. After our long weekend we headed back to the Cape with enough time to clear emails, repack and head to London with Mum.

Our short London visit was primarily to attend the “civil union” of two close friends, Gary and Richard. Dear ‘ol Blighty has recognized the rights of same sex couples and a civil union bestows the same rights and benefits as to a man and a women. Their ceremony was held in “Sketch”, a trendy new restaurant/bar complex on Conduit Street. Trevor read the same Winnie the Poo poem recited at our wedding two years ago. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. After the ceremony, 60 guests and family mingled, chatted, laughed and photographed sustained with glasses of bubbly and delicious hors d’oeuvre.

The night before we met up with our good friend Charles and as is our tradition itwas cocktails at one of those most English of hotels, DUKES HOTEL in Mayfair. They serve perhaps one of the best martinis in London. Then we headed to dinner at THE GREENHOUSE, 27A Hay’s Mews, in Mayfair. We ate there last year and the meal was as good if not better than our last experience. The ambiance, food and service were spectacular: highly recommended but only when the dollar and pound reach parity!

We also managed to squeeze in supper with Stephen’s sister Roni, two visits with Trevor’s parents, a visit to his aged Aunt on her 89th birthday and supper with Stephen’s family before heading back to the US in time for the Memorial weekend.

Unlike last year the weather got better and better with each passing day. The gardens are in full bloom and look spectacular. On May 27, we celebrated our second “official” wedding anniversary and Stephen’s 58th birthday. It was a very good day! We also decided to give Potter and Jessye a summer treat and had their coats clipped. Jessye is a pleased as punch with loosing all her hair. Potter on the other hand, looks decidedly miffed and even seems a little embarrassed. We think they look so cute and hopefully they will enjoy the summer more without all the extra hair.

APRIL 2006 turned out to be a good month, in more ways than one. The weather was pretty wonderful, at least by New England standards. We actually had a spring this year and with the warmer temperatures, the garden greened up 4 weeks ahead of normal. This gave us the chance to get the deck furniture out of storage, to spread cocoa mulch ov