Members of the Oak Bluffs zoning board of appeals made the right decision in upholding their town building inspector’s order that a series of illegal additions on the East Chop summer home owned by Dr. Leslie Hayling must come down.

Bundle up. That was the watchword this week when temperatures plunged into the single digits at night and never climbed out of the teens during the day. Wind chill factor? Don’t want to go there. Heavy wool sweaters, long johns and ski jackets were pulled from the depths of drawers and closets as the need for warmth trumped fashion. Was that the sound of the furnace running all night as cold air seeped in through every crack in the house?

The mercury shot up this week on the thermometer that radio station WMVY has posted to measure its fundraising progress. At press time yesterday the station was just twenty thousand dollars shy of its six hundred thousand-dollar pledge goal, with seven days left in the campaign to save the local radio station. After two months of uncertainty, things were looking possible and indeed probable for the popular station to stay alive by continuing as an online venture.

It’s quiet out there. Too quiet. This is the time of year on the Vineyard when the Island shuts down and it can be hard to find even a cup of coffee on the morning rounds. But this winter it feels even quieter as the flu and its various cousin illnesses deplete schools and offices and whole families take to their beds.

It seems like the whole Island came down with the flu overnight. That’s not true, of course, but this week it became clear that the Vineyard had not escaped a nationwide early outbreak of influenza that has prompted a state of emergency in Boston.

The first snowdrop to appear on the Vineyard this year was reported last Monday by Tom Hodgson of West Tisbury, who has become the Island’s unofficial chronicler of what is thought to be a harbinger of spring.