Good stars met in your horoscope

The good stars met in your horoscope/Made you of spirit and fire and dew ~Epigraph in Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

From the poem “Evelyn Hope” by Robert Browning

Honestly, I was stunned by the beauty of Prince Edward Island. We arrived on Sunday, July 17 after a two-day drive from Massachusetts. I felt blessed by all the stars in the heavens.

Prince Edward Island is the birthplace of my husband’s maternal grandmother Olive Gaudet. Ed and I had several excellent reasons to visit PEI. Genealogy is one reason. Another relates to our experience of the global pandemic. The East Pointers, a roots music band from Prince Edward Island, launched a nightly reading of Anne of Green Gables in April 2020. Every night at 6:00pm ET, we set our laptop on the table with our supper. We listened to Koady Chaisson, Tim Chaisson, and Jake Charron (and their many friends) read a chapter and play a fiddle tune. #Annedemic was a bright spot in an otherwise confusing time, and the readings united us with people from all over the globe-literally.

The drive to Prince Edward Island is long. Long and beautiful! Up through Maine and across New Brunswick. Our travel day was rainy, and the mist hung in the evergreens along the highway. We stopped in St. John, New Brunswick for coffee and tea. This port city is where Ed’s grandmother Olive Gaudet left Canada for Boston, according to her naturalization papers.

Our first meal on the Island was a Bogside Brewing in Montague, PEI. Yes! Another Montague. Not only that, but Gone Coastal was on tap! An obvious cousin to Ed’s Gone Postal. I went for the Belgian Wit, and we both scarfed down burgers and fries after our long drive.

Our sweet cottage. As lovely as the place is, there was a plague of mosquitos. Seriously. Swarms of them. The screened porch helped. We stayed for two weeks (aka, a fortnight).

On our first morning on the Island, we headed into Montague for groceries. Our first supper on PEI-mussels, new potatoes and blueberry pie. I love having a kitchen when I travel. A relief and yet another blessing to have home-cooked meals and freshly baked treats.

Every night, I read a short story by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Chronicles of Avonlea was published in 1912, and gives a nod to Anne Shirley. The spunky orphan is mentioned in several stories, but is the main character in none. One of the more humorous stories involves quarantine during the smallpox epidemic.

“Now, now, don’t quarrel, my good people.” interposed the doctor seriously-but I saw a twinkle in his eye. “You’ll have to spend some time together under the same roof and you won’t improve the situation by disagreeing.”

While listening to the doctor I had been thinking. It was the most distressing predicament I had ever got into in my life, but there was no sense in making it worse.

“Very well, doctor,” I said calmly. “Yes, I was vaccinated a month ago when the news of the smallpox first came.”

[She’s told this isn’t enough protection to ensure that she won’t spread the disease.]

Quarantine at Alexander Abraham’s, short story by Lucy Maud Montgomery