What a shame the weather turned dreary and cool for the weekend. Last week was a series of perfect spring days, one after another, warm enough for shorts and a thin shirt. Town looks resplendantly golden with forsythia and daffodils. The pink cherry trees at Polly Hill’s can be seen from the road, as can the star magnolia in front of the Olsens’ house. I’m so glad none of them were touched by a late frost. Everything really is beautiful in our little part of the world.
Town meeting was long and contentious. Several articles were tabled after much discussion, but we got through all 56 in about 4½ hours. Mike and I had eaten something before we left home, and the pillow I brought to sit on was a great comfort. Still, we were both a bit stiff when we tried to stand up.
Then the election on Thursday. Congratulations to Jessica Miller, who was re-elected to the select board, and the override passed. My admiration for Garrison Vieira, who ran a good campaign, and who, I hope, will run again.
This week is school vacation, so don’t be surprised to see kids around town during what otherwise would be the school day. There will be free soup and bread lunches at the library through this Friday, 11:30 to 1. Rose Coloured Glasses will perform at 2 on Sunday afternoon. The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School Building Committee will be at the library on Wednesday afternoon, April 29, at 4:30 pm, to speak and answer questions about the building project we will vote on in June. Come to a free CPR training class with Alan Ganapol on Thursday, 1 to 2:30 pm. The library will be closed next Friday morning, May 1, for staff training, then open at 12:30.
Did I just write May 1?
I had been meaning to visit Ginny Jones’s garden, so took the opportunity one morning last week. Ginny’s garden is always spectacular this time of year. She has loads of daffodils of all different varieties, and I especially wanted to see her hellebores. Ginny and I had been nutty about hellebores for a few years before she died, and she planted several in her last year.
Everett’s girlfriend, Zephy, was out in the yard when I arrived. She most graciously took the time to give me a garden tour. She was particularly well-informed about those hellebores. They not only made it through the winter, they were all in bloom. Deep rose. Black, although really a dark, dark purple. Single and double whites. They were all showing their best among the daffodils and “the blues,” scilla and chionidoxa that had carpeted garden beds and lawn alike over the years.
I love that quality about old Vineyard gardens, how things grow where they are happy with a rambly-scrambly vigor. Mike’s Aunt Janice had a garden like that, too, filled with plants that came from friends’ gardens, or from some plant she admired and bought, or just dug up a piece. Everything sort of tumbled together. I hope someone someday will find that pleasure in mine.