Last week, after I wrote about the blizzard, and John Lennon of course, I mentioned how the snow would probably be gone in a few days. This has not been the case, in fact it has snowed several times since plus one day of freezing rain on top of the plowed up remains of Juno that then froze into solid mounds of ice. There is snow in the forecast everyday for the following week except tomorrow, although tomorrow it will be wicked cold. It even snowed today, it was just a dusting, but slippery enough if you happened to be out being blown around by the wind.

Ah, that wind again. There’s an old joke about not bothering to have a hairdo on the Cape, and more than once I’ve had a snugly pulled-on stocking cap blow off. It makes me wonder about Melville’s whalers and other sailors braving the hazards of the open seas. Imagine. Hollywood doesn’t do them justice, it’s a miracle any of them came back home alive. One of my Irish great-grandfathers was a fisherman who drowned because he got tangled up in the rope of an anchor that had been tossed overboard. This was my father’s mother’s father but there were sailors in my mother’s family as well. Her father was a steward on the Saint Lawrence Seaway who was gone much of the year, and her three brothers were in the Navy during World War II. So it seems living close to the ocean is in my blood. But spare me boats, I’m a firm believer in not going places I can’t get to on foot.

This week, between the weather and minor surgery on Friday, I’ve been more or less house bound and have spent most of my time on the sofa reading Eleanor Catton’s brilliant novel "The Luminaries". Confusing, yes, tricky and with a complicated structure, yes, and I must confess I went online to clarify a few questions, which, as it turned out, were the same questions as everybody else’s about the supernatural aspects of the book. Almost a ghost story, it also has harrowing seafaring voyages, I could hardly put it down. 

But back in the real world, I made a trip to the grocery store after posting on Facebook that I needed a ride since the roads were not walkable and within five minutes three complete strangers had volunteered. That wouldn't have happened in New York, neighborly strangers, it's what I love about Provincetown.