Naturally Speaking | WRITTEN BY ELIZABETH JONES ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE WATLINGTON CHRISTINE BY ILLUSTRATION

e storm had an e ect on one of my pots we had never possessed in 1987 that had Winds students. He decided to switch his research the potential to turn into missiles. paper topic to up-and-coming technologi- But however crazy a path Nicole followed, cal advances in weather prediction. Perhaps we were not without meteorological predic- Light to the weather forecast announced the night tions. e National Hurricane Center and before Emily—“winds light to variable”—had sharkoil.bm followed her every twist and turn something to do with his decision. Anyway, giving us graphs of all her possible direc- Variable... he wrote an extremely informative paper that tions, arrivals and eyes, just as my student had took me, I thought, into the realm of science predicted all those years ago. So nobody could  ction where computers and satellites could say that Nicole was a surprise in the way Emily I CANNOT BELIEVE that 2017 will mark do miraculous prophesying. In the future, he had been 30 years previously. When Nicole the 30th anniversary of Hurricane Emily. It said, no longer would we be surprised by the arrived, I was yet again in bed, this time Mike seems just yesterday that Mike was shaking me storms appearing out of the blue. We would with me because we had done all the prepa- awake to tell me classes at Bermuda College be able to time their arrival and length of stay rations—dealt with the furniture and the were cancelled because of an approaching and adjust our lives accordingly. We would be windows and the  lling of pots with water. We storm. Bliss, I thought, a lie-in. Hurricanes in safer and, my student optimistically argued, decided to stay put and actually had that lie-in my experience in Bermuda never happened; we would not be without electricity for three I’d wanted all those years ago. It wasn’t exactly they skidded away at the last moment allowing weeks. (Hurricane Emily made me understand relaxing as the wind blasted at the windows unexpected holidays. Besides we had had no the true meaning of shower parties). and shook the  oor boards, but neither was warning at all of this one. But Mike insisted we When he wrote that paper, I couldn’t think it nearly as terrifying as Emily had been even take in garden furniture, etc., and half an hour ahead to the year 2000, let alone 2017—I felt though Emily was just a Category 1. Just as we later he was proved right. e wind from the  rmly stuck in the twentieth century. I gave were adjusting to Nicole’s rhythmic roar, the south was so furious I thought the apartment his essay a good grade and thought no more wind suddenly stopped. we were living in was about to take o . en about it until last year when Hurricane Nicole “It’s the eye,” I said. came the eye, directly over us, and the eerie il- hit us in October. I should have thought “It can’t be,” said Mike. lusion of great calm. We joined our neighbours about it in 2003 when Hurricane Fabian was “Why not?” What else could it be? on the road between apartments for a comfort- predicted days in advance and duly arrived as “It’s too early,” Mike said. ing chat and then rushed back inside when a Category 3 storm. But somehow I didn’t, “You what?” the wind roared back doubly furious from the merely taking the far more accurate weather “It’s too early. e Hurricane Center said north. I don’t think I had ever felt so scared by prediction for granted. But Nicole was a tease. the eye would arrive at 12.” weather in my life before or so impotent in the One minute she was a threat, the next she was “So?” face of the elements. Emily lasted scarcely an weakening. Just as we were beginning to relax, “It’s only 11 o’clock.” hour but she le such devastation. I remember she took a deep breath and went straight for us I looked at him. “Are you serious?” sending pictures to my parents. In a week or so as a Category 4. Once again, Mike and I were We both fell about laughing. I’m not sure they returned the compliment. Emily had de- dealing with the garden furniture and cursing even my student could have predicted people cided to lash into the U.K., eventually reducing the fact we had acquired far more than we had would demand the same punctuality from Seven Oaks to One Oak. possessed in 1987. Cursing, too, the  ower hurricanes the Swiss expect from their trains.

24 | THE BERMUDIAN www.thebermudian.com Naturally Speaking | WRITTEN BY ELIZABETH JONES He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not

have to confess that a er all these years e ‘dayeseye’, or elles the ‘ye of day’ her the doubly appropriate name “Pearl of my home has been in Bermuda, I still e emperice [empress] and  oure of  oures Scotland”; Margaret, ueen of Navarre; and Imiss the wild  owers of my childhood, alle. Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, who was immortalised in Cicely Mary Barker’s Flower Somewhere else he says no “English rhyme known for her beauty but also her ruthless- Fairies. Every February and March I have a or prose/Su sant this  oure to praise aright.” ness. Diana Wells in her 100 Flowers and How longing for da odils, primroses, violets and…  e Latin name comes from bellus for beau- ey Got eir Names rather wittily points daisies.  ere are, of course, many, many daisy tiful but it could also refer to Belides, a nymph out that marguerites have another side, just species, but the one I most miss is the com- in ancient Greece who, as is typical in Greek as Margaret of Anjou did: “In a vase they will mon daisy (Bellis perennis), that I would see myth, turns into a plant, in her case a daisy, to make other  owers wilt.” But that Margaret faithfully beginning to appear singly in our escape male attention. did found ueens’ College in Cambridge, and English lawns at the end of the long winter We may not have wild primroses in Ber- in this regard has something in common with months. I think I remember my mother tell- muda but we de nitely have daisies, though Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of ing me if there are daisies on the grass close not of the common English variety. We have Henry VII, who founded Christ’s College, enough together to let you put your foot over our own endemic Darrell’s  eablane, not com- also part of the University of Cambridge. them, then summer has arrived. I’ve asked my mon at all, whose  owers are more feathery Both the English daisy and the marguerite sister and friends if they remember that saying and miniscule. And we have daisy  eablane, are members of the Compositae family, so and they don’t at all. (Do any readers?) But a delicate shade of purple and also tiny. But called because while they appear to be single everyone remembers making daisy chains for my favourites in Bermuda are the showier  owers, they actually consist of many.  e crowns or bracelets and plucking the “petals” and larger ox-eye daisies, also associated with “petals” surrounding the centre are ray  owers one by one to play the “He loves me, he loves innocence, that in recent years have become while the centres, or heads, contain many disk me not” game. And everyone remembers the more common escapes on the roadside. When  orets, each with its own stigma, stamens and song “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do” I was a child, I never could understand why petals. Daisies, therefore, have huge reproduc- apparently inspired by Edward VII’s mistress, people named Margaret could be nicknamed ing powers since the insects they attract can Daisy, Countess of Warwick, but also surely by Daisy. It didn’t make any sense to me.  at’s pollinate many  owers at once. For that rea- the “He loves me” game. because nobody told me the French call these son, some people denigrate them as invasives.  e common daisy has a pink blush to its daisies “marguerites,” perhaps a er the Greek My sister argues you can tell what gardeners white “petals” which may explain why it’s as- word margaretes which means “pearl.” ( e are like from their relationship with daisies. “If sociated with innocence and purity. Its English aforementioned Countess of Warwick wasn’t you’re a proper one you abhor them. If you’re name refers to its habit of closing at night and called Margaret, though—she was Frances Ev- like me you note with delight how they spring opening in the morning, the “day’s eye” as elyn.) In England, the ox-eyes are also known up a few days a er you’ve mown the lawn and told in Geo rey Chaucer’s Legend of a Good as herb Margarets. are glad they exist.” I agree with her and with Woman: Several famous Margarets are associated Wordsworth: “We meet thee like a pleasant at wel by by reason men it calle may with daisies: St. Margaret, whose piety gave thought/When such are wanted.”

28 | THE BERMUDIAN ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE WATLINGTON CHRISTINE BY ILLUSTRATION Naturally Speaking | WRITTEN BY ELIZABETH JONES ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE WATLINGTON CHRISTINE BY ILLUSTRATION

A Rose by Any Other Name...

hen I le the UK and had my  rst as lily  ow’r” and just as perfumed. Over the name is apparently Greek and means “born Christmas in Bermuda, I knew I years, the scents of a Bermuda Christmas have feet  rst”—not an easy way to start life but Whad to adjust my thinking. Where become for me a heady mix of pine, cedar, that’s not my objection. I don’t understand decorations were concerned, it could no lon- jonquils and roses. how this beautiful rose species with its shyly ger be simply a matter of the holly and the ivy. Among the roses we found growing in our drooping heads bears the name of a schem-  at said, some people did assure me there was garden is the cramoisi supérieur, otherwise ing, murderous ancient Roman empress, Julia such a thing as Bermuda holly. Indeed, a 1955 known as the Agrippina rose that is now very Agrippina the Younger. She not only connived edition of the Bermuda Garden Club book common in Bermudian gardens. According to with her tongue, but also probably poisoned e Bermuda Garden mentioned it growing the Bermuda Rose Society’s Roses in Bermuda, an inordinate number of people, including profusely in Devonshire Marsh, but I never it is “almost naturalized all over the island two husbands, Passienus Crispus and Emperor saw it there in 1973 and in all the 44 years I’ve and can be found growing under the most Claudius, not to mention Claudius’s son Brit- been here I’ve never seen it anywhere else. It’s adverse conditions.” Our rose bush bears this tanicus. I suppose you could say that like the not mentioned in the club’s 2002 Bermuda: out since we have not exactly assiduously paid rose she was a survivor but that by her end was A Gardener’s Guide so perhaps it has died out it attention. It blooms sporadically all year, not true. She had her comeuppance since her altogether. and without fail, its crimson buds appear a insatiable ambition for her son Nero arguably Mexican or Brazilian pepper also bears a week before Christmas, opening into cupped drove him to murder her. When tricking her berry as red as any blood and being the inva- blossoms with close layers of petals.  e heads to sail in a ship designed to sink didn’t work— sive it is, is in no danger of dying out (though bend from the stems and it is true that they are she swam to safety—he had her murdered in last Christmas the berries were few and far be- not the best roses for cutting since they drop her own country house. tween, thanks to Hurricane Nicole). Aspara- their petals. I ignore this, however, since they Not to worry, Google this rose and you’ll gus fern has red berries, too, complete with look beautiful in the base of an eighteenth-  nd it has a variety of other less-sinister names, prickles as sharp as any thorn, so for the  rst century silver sugar shaker that is otherwise including Bengale à pétales striées, Bengale few years those were the main plants I used perfectly useless. éblouissant, La Gaufrée, and Lady Brisbane. to decorate the apartment. However, once we Besides, who can complain about a constant Other countries might have claimed it (origi- moved into our own house I got converted to stream of fragrant confetti? nally from China, it was apparently discovered the roses and the jonquils, discovering both  e only thing about the rose that bothers in Europe by 1832), but we too have adopted were growing in our garden and helpfully me is its name. Now as Shakespeare said, it for our own, dubbing it the Old Bermuda blooming just in time for Christmas.  e jon- a rose with any other name would smell as Red Rose. Now that is a great name for a rose quil, like the holly, “bears a blossom as white sweet, but still, Agrippina is a bit much.  e that smells so sweet. 24 | THE BERMUDIAN www.thebermudian.com