Last week I was in Pennsylvania: it was definitely springtime. But coming home to Massachusetts still felt like winter: brown grass, maybe the tiniest tips of crocuses. We're probably a couple of weeks behind them. After some rain, and some warm days, the flowers are out in Bellevilleport.

Belleville MA isn't on the maps: it's roughly the part of Newburyport between Atkinson Common and Cashman. There's a church with the name; and the Bresnahan school was the Belleville not so long ago. Nice town.

Bellevilleport is a little more obscure than that. I don't know its boundaries, but we're in the middle of it: several houses around here have plaques "Bellevilleport Historical Society". Ours doesn't: it's probably not old enough (or certainly not distinguished enough). It'd be interesting to find out who's behind that little effort.

Townland names, if cultivated, can last for centuries. In County Dublin (Fingal), we lived in Balcunnin - baile coinín, or "rabbit town". Nice, huh? We saw plenty of rabbits, too.

Now, just down the hill was Lughlochta Logo: Lusk, more notable for its traffic problems than the legendary maiden wooed by Cú Chulainn. But the names are recognisable, 1200 years after the stores were written down.