Gardens and Goodbyes

I've been feeling rather bucolic this week, sweeties, what with spending the long cloudy mornings sitting on a porch and looking at a lovely cottage garden the likes of which we simply don't have on the shores of the Persian Gulf.

Mr. Muscato and I have moved on from Provincetown, with another bout of travel imminent, but we take away some nice memories and some uncharacteristically sweet-natured garden shots:

I don't know - I've just gone all kind of Wallace Nutting over these flowers.

Hydrangeas are certainly the Flower of the Moment, turning up in all sorts of sizes and colors. When I was child, I seem to remember they were considered rather dowdy, the sort of thing that the unfashionable people at the wrong end of the block still had tarting up their yards.

They do add color.

During our Farewell Luncheon at the Lobster Pot (Mr. M. became as addicted to their lobster roll as he did to tea-dance), Mr. Muscato and I spotted this lady, who seemed a perfect combination of Hyacinth Bucket, Marie Barone, and the late Queen Mother.

She was perfectly turned out, her bright yellow cardigan over her shoulders, her hair a perfect fluffy cloud of a twice-weekly wash-and-set, and her makeup a splendid example of how a Lady of a Certain Age used to paint. She even, with that wonderful poise once so common at Your Better Restaurants, brought out a compact and thoughtfully corrected her bright-red lippie in between each course.

We only wished her companions made her happier and briefly considered kidnapping her. Sadly, we have other plans, more of which anon.