Movies, Anyone?

43°f/6°C, rain showers, overcast.

My post about authors' homes got me thinking about places I have visited where movies have been filmed. Of course, movies are made everywhere and often are filmed using multiple locations. But some stand out to me because of their location, and we have a few favorite movies or TV series that we have watched multiple times. I mentioned Cross Creek in the authors post, and Grantchester in my last post; I don't watch much TV, and didnt watch many movies until after I retired, so I find myself surprised at this list. Do you also visit places like this?

For instance, the Irish film The Matchmaker. We love that silly romcom and I cannot exactly pinpoint why. I think it is several things: the beautiful scenery of Connemara and the Aran Islands, the snarky humor, and the utterly believable characters. We watched it so many times, in fact, that the place it was filmed was the focal point of our trip! Roundstone is a small village, right on the water, and fishing was its main industry until tourism has sadly taken almost all the homes and turned them into rentals. (Click the link to see my post about Roundstone).

But when we were there in early October 2017, tourist season was over. We were pleased to learn from our Airbnb host that he had actually been an extra in the movie, so we had a great discussion about it with him. It was absolute joy to be in the town and to see all the things we remembered from the movie: the boat ramp where the bus and later the police car wrecked, the bar, the old souvenir shop...really, just the whole main street. Later we also visited Lisdoonvarna, the place where the actual matchmaking festival still takes place.

We were there during the matchmaking festival, and it was packed!

If I could ever get back to Ireland, I would want to go back to Roundstone. I think I left a piece of my heart there.

We also visited Cong on that trip, which is where the movie The Quiet Man, starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, was filmed. Now, I am no fan of John Wayne (big ol' draft dodger and a major player in thd Hollywood blackballing epidemic during the McCarthy era), and I had never seen the movie, but Cong is lovely, and when we got home I did watch the movie. Didn't make me a John Wayne fan though!

Then, on the Aran Islands, we saw several familiar things from the ridiculously funny Father Ted series. If you haven't watched it, well...it might not appeal to everyone, but we loved it. So we had to also visit the house featured in the series when we were exploring The Burren. (I had been to the smaller of the Aran Islands in 2015, and on that trip I first heard of Father Ted.)

Also in Ireland, when we explored the Ring of Kerry, we were surprised to find scenes from Star Wars had been filmed there. Apparently the rugged coastline and countryside were well suited to both The Force Awakens and Return of the Jedi.  

In Cornwall in 2019, my sister's and I visited many sites from the Poldark series. Judy is a huge fan, and before we left I binge-watched most of the series and really enjoyed it. I found that I had actually seen several of the sites during my visit to Cornwall in 2019, but seeing it all again with Judy was such fun. 

My sister's Theresa and Judy, caught by surprise when the pirate and I pulled a joke on Judy!

And in 2016, Larry and I made the trek to see Port Isaac, where the series Doc Martin was filmed. It's not an easy place to get to! They want you to park in a lot above the town because the lanes are so narrow and indeed, we saw several instances of traffic messes as we walked around! Well, if you have seen the series, you know. Seeing it all first-hand was quite a thrill, and remains a cherished memory. I would love to go back to see my favorite sea shanty group, The Fisherman's Friends, in performance, as that is where these guys are from, and where the movie about them was also filmed.

On that trip we stayed in a small stone shepherd's hut up on Bodmin Moor, a wild place that features prominently in both Doc Martin and Poldark. 

The Hurlers

In our little hut. 

What drew us to all of these places, of course, was the scenery---we just had to see it for ourselves because it seemed too beautiful to be real. But real it is, and boy would I love to see it all again.

If you want to see more, I have linked in this post to many of my blog posts about these trips.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

A Catching-Up Post

29°f/-2°C, snow showers early, giving way to light rain occasionally all day. Some areas had ice this morning, resulting in many accidents. A good day to stay home.

I have been quiet lately! Mostly just busy, honestly, and then too tired to settle down to think and write.

Remember my last post, last Thursday,  when I shared the various authors' homes I have visited? Well, Saturday morning I was listening to Weekend Edition on NPR, and I'll be darned if they didn't interview a lady who had written a book called The Writer's Room,  published by the Princeton University Press. Author Katie da Cunha Lewin visited the homes of writers, and specifically the rooms where they wrote. One of them was the Bronte's home, which I, along with countless other Bronte' fans, also visited, looking for clues to the i spiraling behind their dark tales. So this book is now on my shopping list.  Don't i wish I could request a reading copy! But alas, I don't fit the criteria, so I will have to part with some dollars to get it. Oddly, the book was released the same day as I quote my post. So strange.

(I should add to my list that we also visited "Byron's Pool" in Grantchester, England, with my cousin Les back in 2013. According to local lore, Byron often came there to swim. Grant Hester was the site of the series on BBC of the same name, and the walk that the main character often took was the same area where my uncle often walked. We also visited the Green Man pub, featured in the series, many times while we were there, not even knowing about the series at the time.)

So, what have I been doing...let me see. Thursday I worked all day on painting projects and getting more things ready for our booths. The van was full when we went to restock on Friday! 

I changed the display window at our Ravenswood location first, 

and then changed the table from Valentine's colors to greens,

and sprinkled some new items around. Like this red lamp, that looks for all the world like it belongs in a bordello! I actually had those shades and then abouts year latter, found the lamp which they fit perfectly.

I opened the big trunk finally, and filled it with quilts. Maybe now someone will see it? It's kinda pricey at $375, but it is an antique Chinese traveling trunk from the 1800's, probably brought back by some serviceman years ago. Guessing that as it was found by the lady I got it from near military bases in North Carolina.

I will be re-folding quilts every time I go in, as people always make a mess of them and other linens.

This is a unique charcuterie board that I bought from the lady who made it, but just never used.

I call the second shelf down my "shelf of oddities".

The rocker was in the window, now it displays a pile of linens. I priced it at just $15, as rockers are hard to sell and this one isn't particularly special. But so comfy!

The blue and white teapot is new, but so cool-- it is larger than most, and has a built-in Iinfuser! I bought a dozen of them for so cheap I am embarrassed to say. But, if you would like one, message me and I will sell it to you for that ridiculous price, plus shipping 😀

Lots of junk jewelry. $3 each and hot sellers! It's something the young folks can afford.

Another cool teapot. It has a tiny chip on the spout, but that color! Well, I like the yellow one too.

I painted the green stand last week. 

Also painted and decorated these old treadle sewing machine drawers. They're great for storage 

We added this "spaghetti glass" set last week, I think. Very mid-century.

 

We stocked Ripley too, but i was too tired to take pictures. That strong wind while I was in Nashville caused the garage doors that form the back of our booth to bow in badly, knocking some things down and breaking them. The staff moved a large mirror I had up against that door and anything else they thought might get broken, and bless their hearts they cleaned up the mess, but I had to put everything back together again. Quite a job.

We spent Saturday at home (recuperating!), then yesterday we were on the road to a sweet little town called Canal Winchester, just this side of Columbus, to pick up a 1950s dinette set and matching metal cabinet. 

The young man selling these was so interesting. He is a member of a moped group that does group trips all around the area. A moped group! Who knew there was such a thing? All of the machines are old, of course, none are fast, so the trips must be a hoot. The place we picked up this furniture was their clubhouse. Hundreds of mopeds in there.

He also owned and drove this vintage pickup,

and this old camper, which he is restoring.

He said this sticker made people smile instead of getting aggravated at him being so slow---top speed is 50 mph!

I thought the furniture would need no work so that we could just move it into a booth, but nope. A bad re-co earing of the vinyl backs and seats means I need to re-tack all of it, and the chair frames need some rust cleanup. But gevreduced the price, and it will be well worth the work. 

Afterward we met up with our oldfriend Donna Wilson, who had moved back to her home state of Ohio after 5 years in Florida.  Donna and I wrote grants and organized an annual summer series of storytelling events for about 6 years I think. It was very successful and brought storytelling to many small rural communities. But the funding agency, part of the state arts commission, was dissolved after the death of its chairman, ending our long run. I have really missed Donna, and it is so good to have back within driving distance. At 81, she is as wild, funny, and active as ever. 

We had a great visit, and an excellent lunch at the Homestead Tap Room. 

My chopped salad with their house dressing, which was lemon and something I forget, but delicious.

Donna ordered fried pickles, thinking she would get one pickle, but I stead it was a bowl full. I had never had them, but I am a convert!

I ordered the deviled eggs appetizer,  which were fantastic, sprinkled with crushed BBQ chips and aioli sauce. Amazing.

Larry and Donna both ordered the chili in a bread bowl special. 

A few pics of the town:

The old railroad station, which looks like it's getting some renovations.

Downtown was full of cute shops and well maintained buildings.

A quiet spot.

Well, enough for today! 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Visiting the Homes of Writers

26°f/-3°C, dusting of snow this morning.

Have you ever visited the home of a famous writer?

A friend asked that question on Facebook, and it got me to thinking about the homes of authors that I have visited. Not many, really, which surprised me. I came up with three:

1) Pearl Buck's birthplace, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. 

I was invited to present a writing workshop there in 2019, so in preparation I read some of Buck's works. I was surprised to realize I had never actually read anything by her! So I tackled a few; The Good Earth was far and away my favorite, and what a parable for our times of the seemingly insatiable quest for wealth.

Buck only lived in Hillsboro for about three years; her parents were missionaries and she grew up in China, which of course explains a lot of her writing. But the homeplace does not reflect anything of her writing life 

Not far from Hillsboro is the homeplace of West Virginia poet Louise McNeill. Her work, Gauley Mountain, established her on the national writing stage, and she became the Poet Laureate of West Virginia in 1979, a position she held until her death in 1997. Her home has never been open to the public, but I often passed it when at workshops in Pocahontas County, and her work influenced my writing whenever I was there.

2) Cross Creek, Florida was the home of Pulitzer Prize Winner Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. We stopped there on our way ro Miami in 2021.

I have never read the book that earned her the prize,  The Yearling. But I did read the autobiographical Cross Creek, which detailed her life after moving from New York City to a rundown orange grove in north central Florida. I was entranced by her struggles as a single woman to reclaim the farm, repair the house, and write. This was in the early 1930s so you can imagine just how rural it was! 

Rawlings did most of her writing right here on the screened porch. That's her typewriter on the table.

She slept out here too. I was intrigued by all the ways people managed to stay cool in the hot Florida summers before electricity and air conditioning. 

Cross Creek is still one of the best books I have ever read, and I highly recommend it. There is a movie too, not quite as good as the book but still fascinating, and one we have watched over and over. Visiting her place was a bucket list item for me, and it did not disappoint.  

3) The Bronte sisters home in Haworth, England was also on my bucket list, and it far exceeded my expectations.  I was there in 2019 while on a trip to England with two of my sisters 

I have been curious about the writers of those wild novels since I first read them in my early 20s, and seeing their home, the village, and the surrounding countryside was eye-opening. 

Like Cross Creek,  the home and the Bronte's belongings have been remarkably preserved, and ot was easy to envision the Brontes in their front parlor, writing or sewing, while their brother lay drunk upstairs. They were a talented if strange family, and all but one sister died far too young--apparently poisoned by their drinking water which was tainted by runoff from the nearby graveyard.

 

Their father, who never drank water but only tea or whiskey, lived to a ripe old age, and was instrumental in identifying the contaminated water in the town and working to get clean water.

There are a few other places I have been with connections to famous writers: a room we stayed in in Aberystwyth, Wales, was the room where the Welsh poet Waldo Williams once stayed, perhaps while a student at the college there. The room had no view, and seagulls screaming was our morning alarm clock, which made me wonder if Mr. Williams was able to write at all in that room. But the city itself, yes, beautiful and full of places that could make an author pen memorable words.

In 2016 we visited Jamaica Inn in Cornwall, where Daphne DuMaurier wrote her famous book by that title. 

It is still a spooky place! We drove through mossy, foggy, narrow lanes to get there, so i could really get the feel of her inspiration when we were there. My only regret is not staying there for a few days.

The upstairs windows in this photo is in her room, and she had her typewriter on a desk below the window so she could look out while she wrote. What a view it must have been.

And then in London in 2019, I stayed in a small hotel that was once the home, for about a year, of George Orwell. Which they proudly announced on a plaque on the outside wall. At the time we were there, it wasn't in the best part of town, shall we say. 

A few other near brushes with authors' homes  include passing by but not visiting Hemingway's Key West home (too crowded with tourists), and attending a workshop near the home of Kentucky writer Jesse Stuart. There are probably others but these are the ones I remember right now. 

I have been lucky enough to meet many authors in my life as a storyteller, librarian, and occasional writer, and am lucky to count many among my friends. Maybe one day their homes will be as famous as these others!

How about you? Do you visit the homes of authors? Any favorites or memorable ones on your list?

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.