Now we are in winter again… a season which seems to be the only time I turn my back on the busy-ness of our lives to write these notes.  The stillness is pervasive, creeping through the January air, tethering to itself the lawns and fields, and their neighbor, the river.  This moratorium in nature finds me, and beckons as an invitation to also stop:  to step out from work and routine, and to listen to the quiet.  I find myself made more aware now of nature’s dominance over the experience of living in the country and on the North River. It’s a constant, reaching presence and, in the flatness and quiet of winter, gives a steadiness and evenness underfoot. Winter here lays a kind of foundation, or blank slate, on which to record reflections – which, in turn, may bring about creating new ideas, new work.

This blog is a message to the “outer world”, from our winter retreat.  “North River” is still here, and we welcome our guests’ continual visits.  In 2013, we enter our fourteenth year sharing with others this spacious “place apart” from the busy world.  In this country setting, you can wander one-hundred private, waterfront acres, with a choice of three, separate homes from which to watch the water and the wildlife.  You can, and will, leave the din of commerce and crowded ways behind when you turn down our river-pebble lanes, winding to the water past a tidal creek or a wave of cedars and hollies to your own front door. When are you coming to stay?

As I write on this January day, geese are flying overhead and birds are hopping along the main drive.  We are blessed with drifts of ancient trees, always majestic in winter – tall, bare boughs reaching for the sky.  They seem to promise spring, simply through their bold, unapologetic “upliftedness”! Beyond the enormous trees, stretch peaceful, bare winter fields.  Everything in nature seems to say, “waiting”.

You can “wait” here, too. You can unpack your bags, and take the time to just “stop”.  Some folks read for days at a stretch, some just sit!  And some find that they want to be here to work on creative pursuits.  You can settle in to your room, or even have a house to yourself, and get out your pen and paper.  The whole property is wireless, so your notes will reach the outside world if you want them to.  Or, set up your easels and begin to paint:  tidal landscapes, long reaches of the broad river, undisturbed Virginia woods.  In the common rooms of Creek House, you’ll enjoy excellent acoustics with your musical group on winter nights -- by a real wood fire cheerfully blazing in the fireplace.  And on weekends, wake to Ms. Hayes’ incomparable breakfasts.  This weekend, it was banana-raisin-oatmeal pancakes topped with fresh fruit and real maple syrup from our own supplier in Vermont, Virginia sausage, and her famous Asiago cheese grits.  After breakfast, walk along the shore, pause in the ancient acre-square walled garden, hike down the lane to the 18^th century ice house and peer into its depths through the secret window cut into one wall.  You’ll want to write or paint or sing before your day is over. “North River” is about retreating, “waiting” … and also about creating.  We invite you to make the journey!

(* Garden of Proserpine, Swinburne)

New identity! In 2011, we "morphed"!  We graduated from operating strictly a "B&B", to a more comprehensive identity as "North River".  We've opened the three houses on our one-hundred acre waterfront farm here to both short and also long-term vacation stays – and to several special events, placed throughout the year.  Of course, we still welcome our weekend guests, and also extend hospitality to family groups and those on retreats, to come and enjoy our unique combination of open space, country walks and water activities, all accessed from the three gorgeously appointed, privately situated houses.  Now, you can rent Creek House, the Cottage and, along with one of the first two, the Guest House for a lower nightly rate per person than you could before (see www.northrivervirginia.com for details).  You will still find waiting for you our sumptuously made-up beds (with triple-sheeting and high-thread count linens), and bathrooms stocked with luxurious amenities, fireplaces laid with wood and ready to go, and the kitchens stocked with gourmet treats to get you started.

Good Food! Our wonderful chef, Marjorie Hayes, whom most of you will remember, makes certain you are greeted with her home-made bread and muffins for your first breakfast here, and we stock the kitchens with juice, milk, fruit and coffee and tea -- and fresh eggs from our own free-range chickens!  In a wonderful addition to what we offer, Ms. Hayes is also busy with her new personal chef services, for brunches or box lunches, to stoke you up before you head out for your day of sightseeing, or for dinner when you return.  How does Tuscan pork tenderloin (regional, Berkshire pork) sound, served with rosemary potatoes and winter greens from our gardens, at the end of a day spent touring the colonial historic triangle?  Finish it off with honey-rye cakes and port by the fire. You don't have to go out to dinner, Ms. Hayes will bring dinner to you.  Gather your friends, family or one special loved one, and come for a winter getaway at North River!

Events! We'll bring you news on events via this email quarterly update*. We are planning "happenings" here that we wish to let folks know about.  In June, we’ll have one for the artist in your life!  We are proud to announce, along with Brent and Becky's Bulbs and two other area inns, we will be hosting the first annual Plein Air Painters' Retreat in Mathews and Gloucester, June 22-24, with proceeds from the guest passes going to support our local, not-for-profit Bay School for the Arts in Mathews County.  Brent and Becky's Bulbs has exclusively invited our guest artists to paint in their award-winning gardens on Saturday, June 23.  Two artists from our region will be on hand to provide tips.  Saturday evening will feature an artists' reception at the Bulb Shoppe and the Bay School for the Arts will hold a special exhibit of the artists' work the following week.  For more information, email us at info@northrivervirginia.com.  Space is limited!

If painting isn't your thing, consider planning a retreat here centered around other artistic endeavors -- writing, or musical workshops.  We have the rooms, the grounds, the kitchens and the catering to make it all possible!

Be in touch, and thank you again for your business. As always, past guests of North River receive a 10% discount off the rate for a returning stay,

Mary and Breck Montague

* We will be sending brief quarterly newsletters, with the start of each season.  To be removed from this mailing list, simply send us an email at info@northrivervirginia.com.

While he was gone, I watched ducks here. They swim neatly in a line in the North River, right out in front of the Inn’s longest stretch of shore. Ours appear docile and well-behaved, perhaps aware they are a more privileged group than their far-away cousins crowding the Arkansas waters, there being only about fifteen waiting for us in the mornings here in front of the Inn. They float with a prim confidence, unafraid of hidden hunters. We have the same dawns, too – gorgeous red and gray over the Mathews shoreline, behind which lies the Chesapeake Bay and the rising sun. This morning, we had huge flocks of large, dark ducks, which I pointed out were easy targets right from the breakfast table (closer than Arkansas) – only they turned out to be geese, tall forms rising as one into the morning sky and heading off south, towards the open water of the Bay.

While Breck was gone, I managed the Inn. We were privileged to have a whole group here celebrating one guest’s birthday. Young, talented, rising-star people from Washington and New York. To a one, they are deeply engaged in careers that will make a difference in our world — in politics, in social change, in the arts. They live in urban centers, in order to follow these passions. I often wonder what the “younger set” will think of our history-bound homes and unabridged rural setting (the three buildings that make up the Inn, surrounded by fields and lanes and water). I like to think that combining access to wireless internet with sitting by fireplaces that burn real wood (of which there is no shortage), helps disguise the gap between us and the “outside”; if it doesn’t, that’s OK, too. The fact is, our common rooms have embraced many diverse gatherings over the years. The big rooms host eating and toasting, the smaller rooms invite private conversations. Everywhere, one feels the proximity to water: both the big blue salt river and also, just off the entrance to the river, our wooded, salt creek. Sitting by the creek, with our private shore opposite, appears to work a kind of change on guests – it speeds up the the process of unwinding, of coming together. This group seemed to relish their time doing just that, pulling up wing chairs by the Creek House fireplace after Marjorie’s big breakfast, planning their celebratory dinner they would be cooking there that night, and re-connecting with each other. There would be skits and singing in the evening – they would be sharing their fine talents with each other, bolstering friendships with this exchange of gifts, before going their separate ways back to work, back in the “real world”.
The benefit runs both ways, so often, in our innkeeping experience — it’s marvelous to see guests enjoying themselves so much, but their presence is also often a gift to us, too: I called Mollie, our twelve year old, to come over from Toddsbury on Saturday morning and meet me at Creek House, so she could hear the two opera singers practicing for their role in the upcoming birthday celebration. I impertinently interrupted these two song-birds to show them how the large common room there, the “second dining room”, was said to have good acoustics. They took off, their voices soaring and winding around my weekend housekeeping-helper and me as we stuffed extra towels into racks and plumped pillows – purposely taking longer than necessary so we could enjoy our private concert. Their music filled the waiting rooms. I called Breck on the cell phone, holding it up to the dining room opera singer’s booming throat, so he could hear “Don Giovanni”. He was still in the swamp in Arkansas, Robo-Duck in the background. I think he was jealous.

Mary Montague

Mary Montague