We arrived at Oak Bluff and drove across the middle of the island, a mixture of scrubland and small holdings, occasional open fields and stone walls, small clapboard houses, all heavily wooded. Its history dates back to the original settlement of 1602 when seafarers came in search of sassafras, used as a cure for syphilis. We’re staying in the south-west corner of the island in what’s called up-island, based on its position in longitude, slightly less touristy, more discrete, in Chilmark with its memory of sheep farms and the Wiltshire downs, with the sea eating away at the coast. This is the sea:
And this is inland:
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
Your description reminds me of a summer my late wife Catherine spent with our children on this island some years back and of the cards she sent me. Don’t forget to get yourself a Black Dog tee shirt, they’re very collectable. The painter Wolf Kahn is wearing one in this month’s Modern Painters.
We have close friends in Martha’s Vineyard. Feel free to call them for a drink or so. I’m sure he and his wife Susan would respond to a Royal Academy Don!