Talk about gorgeous! I planted this day lily last year and it is chock full of buds this summer – all that rain helps. I walked outside this morning to see that two of the lilies had opened. It’s funny, I sometimes forget what I planted and how it looked from year to year. This was a lovely surprise this morning.
We mowed like crazy yesterday. We were tuckered out. There’s still more to go but the front of the property, along with the corral, looks lovely.
I’ve never seen the gardens this lush. Even Don was commenting about it this morning. The hydrangeas are plump and gorgeous. There is more bee balm than ever, maybe a little too much. The day lilies have more blooms than normal and their bloom time is longer than usual. The peonies were better than ever, as were the lilacs. The endless rain that we had from April on was depressing at the time, but the payoff – and don’t we need one? – is the look of the gardens. Don was crediting me and, yes, I planted everything, but I quickly gave credit to the rain for the current abundance of blossoms.
I’m dithering between two books right now – not sure which one I want to read. Maybe I’m coming out of my long stretch with non-fiction and am heading back to my longtime love, fiction. I feel a change in the air!
An early morning shot of the living room and part of the kitchen. The sunlight is softening the edges of everything, so it looks a bit impressionistic.
I watched The Moon-spinners on TCM On Demand the other day. I remember loving that movie as a kid – I was a huge Hayley Mills fan. I also quickly developed a crush on Peter McEnery, her co-star. He was also in a Disney movie called The Fighting Prince of Donegal, another favorite. It was fun to watch it again. I snuck it in during the day as I knew Don would have absolutely no interest in it. Anyway, I read every Mary Stewart mystery when I was a a teenager. I still have many of those paperbacks, read over and over again. I was struck by the Disney take on the novel; the casting of younger actors, the decision to eliminate the sophistication of the characters (who smoked!) and the editing of the story down to a basic Disney plot that didn’t involve too much complexity. The book is far, far better. I’m now in the mood to re-read all my favorite Stewarts: The Ivy Tree, Nine Coaches Waiting, The Moon-spinners, Madam, Will You Talk? and This Rough Magic. She was such a wonderful writer and I must admit I miss those cocktail-drinking, cigarette-smoking, sophisticated British heroines.
Don’t get me started on the Disneyfication of Broadway. That’s a subject for another day.
After the movie, I walked around the house talking like Hayley Mills. I think I’ve got her line delivery down. Lots of enthusiasm and a certain way of punching the final word of a line. It worked well for her when she was a child actor, not so well as a young adult. But oh, how I loved her at the time! I wanted to be her!
Happy Tuesday.
The Fighting Prince of Donegal…my ultimate favorite movie as a preteen!!! What a crush I had on young “Red” Hugh, and how I agonized over his escape from Dublin Castle. I have Mary Stewart’s novels as well, and pull them out from time to time for a fun re-read. This Rough Magic, set in Corfu, started my desire to visit Greece and the islands. I kept thinking about the characters in My Brother Michael when I finally visited Delphi.
Thanks for a great memory this morning, Claudia.
I knew there was one I was forgetting! My Brother Michael! I love This Rough Magic and all the Shakespeare references. I remember buying a paperback version of The Fighting Prince of Donegal – I’m sure it was published to coincide with the movie. I read it countless times!
hooray for payoffs! yes, rain is necessary, but don’t discount all your hard work of planting and weeding!
i’ve not heard of mary stewart or her books, but it sounds like you’ve got your next book picked out … enjoy!
i kept my most favorite books from childhood, including books my parents read over and over and over again to my brother, sister and me. love …..! grateful to have them … the books and my family! :)
happy tuesday!
kathy in iowa
Favorite books are so powerful, especially those from childhood!
ps: love the strong horizontal lines across the backs of those two chairs in your living room.
kathy in iowa
We didn’t plan it that way, but it looks good! Thanks, Kathy!
Loved Mary Stewart! Pollyanna was filmed in my hometown of Santa Rosa at The McDonald Mansion which is lovely still.
I didn’t know it was filmed there. Lovely! xo
I also read Mary Stewart books in my youth !.My favourite Hayley Mills film is Whistle Down the Wind, have you ever seen it ? It was filmed in the early 60s at Downham in Lancashire which is my home county. Made in the winter, in black and white, the landscape looks quite bleak but it’s a beautiful place in reality. The story written by Mary Hayley Bell (Hayley’s mother in real life), tells the story of three children who think Jesus (Alan Bates) is hiding in their barn.
It so reminds of my own childhood when boys wore caps and Wellington boots and the children’s accents are so familiar.
Happy Tuesday
I think it was Whistle Down the Wind that brought Hayley to Walt Disney’s attention, Dee Dee. I do know that movie!
Pollyanna was one of my favorite movies. I loved Haley Mills. I still on occasion watch The Trouble with Angels and the other whose name escapes me right now. I’d look but they are packed away.
We haven’t had nearly as much rain as you, but my pay off will be in a huge crop of blackberries. That is if I get them before the animals do. I make sure I leave a patch for them, and I only pick a couple of quarts or so.
When in doubt about what to read there is always Inspector Gamache.
That Darn Cat?
I’m not ready to re-read Gamache, but there’s a new one coming out in August, Trudy!
That Darn Cat, The Parent Trap, and especially The Trouble with Angels are my favorite Haley movies!
We love Hayley!
I think it was Where Angels Go Trouble Follows, maybe?
I’m trying to read Gamache in order and just finished 7. I’m way behind! As usual late to the party.
Maybe that’s it!
I envy you experiencing Gamache for the first time, Trudy!
What childhood memories you invoke, Claudia! I remember Moonspinners as one of the
more sophisticated movies I ever saw. Well, sophisticated for an 8-year old, and by that time I’d seen at least two James Bond films! I loved Moonspinners and I became a lifelong Hayley Mills fan. One of my cats, who turned out to be the friendliest and most impish feline who’s ever been a family member is named after her. I didn’t name her, my daughters did…they are fanstoo. That Darn Cat (though strictly speaking more a Dean Jones movie) and Pollyanna are among our favorites. I must find Moonspinners!
I think the novel says “moonspinners” but to my surprise, the movie title is moon-spinners. I’ll have to check the cover on my book. Shr was such a lovely screen presence, that Hayley Mills!
As a teenager I also loved Hayley Mills. Each summer when all the grandchildren are with us, we have a tradition of watching Parent Trap and PollyAnna. . Our hometown Carnegie Library was where I would check out Mary Stewart novels. Was on the waiting list for each new release. I loved that beautiful library. I can still picture the Nancy Drew , Louisa May Alcott, E.B. White, Emily Bronte. Daphne du Maurier, Ayn Rand shelves etc.. ( I am still puzzled how that shaped Paul Ryan and I was lucky enough to escape the outcome it had on him!).Thanks for taking us down memory lane. Also love that your flowers are going amuck and I do love your couch addition.
Lani in Oregon
Oh, thank you to libraries for allowing us to find those books when we were kids and escape into other worlds!
Thanks, Lani!
OMG, Claudia; can’t believe this. THE SAME THING with me about Moon-Spinners; caught it on TCM and remembered how much I’d loved it when young! Made me look up what had ever happened to heart-throb Peter McEnery. I think he was only age 24 when he made this film; Hayley Mills was growing up, like age 17 or 18. Some of the Disney movies when I’ve watched them now have left me disappointed because of course I’m an adult, not a kid, but I still have such fond memories of Swiss Family Robinson and In Search of The Castaways. I remembered, too, when this Moon-Spinners film came on a few days ago, how much I had loved the Mary Stewart books; also Phyllis A. Whitney; even a few Victoria Holts. It was that ‘phase’ in the teen years. I also, for awhile as a ‘youngster’, really got into Frances Parkinson Keyes, which fueled my all-time love of Louisiana.
So I went on Amazon and ordered a few used books so that I could revisit Mary Stewart; they’re not here yet! Maybe all of us teen girls of a certain age & time read and watched some of the same stuff, just like on what was fairly limited in those years on TV pre-cable; but I know I got my Mary Stewart books out of the community library, not the school library and I can make out to this day exactly what shelves in the library I combed over to get in my four-or-five-book checkouts each week (my mom thought I’d damage my vision because I always had a book in my nose).
I remember how shocked I was when Hayley Mills married that much-older man in real life!
Leonard Maltin, the reviewer, said to watch the Moon-Spinners film and just go with it (a lot of ‘drama’ over not much of anything); just have fun. Greek Island scenery always drew me in, too. I also recently watched the original ‘Parent Trap’ movie (the beautiful Maureen O’Hara and also Brian Keith who I recall from several films of youth I liked) and of course like all this stuff it’s quite dated, yet I loved it as much as the later remake with Lindsay Lohan as a child. I’ve made sure in my home DVD ‘library’ that I have all my fave Hayley Mills movies. When I was a fanciful young girl, I’d dream of someday having multiple sets of twins, all girls, and they’d be named Hannah & Hilary, Holly & Heather; Heidi and Hayley.
I envy those hydrangeas! Your living room looks so soft and inviting!
(PS, one of my favorite things at Disneyland in Anaheim of Calif was the Swiss Family Robinson tree-house in Frontier Land. I think they no longer have it. It was the stuff of imagination! It wasn’t one of the coveted E-ticket ‘rides’ but it was still my fave anyway!! I was nerdy; I also liked the Jungle Cruise. And the People Mover in Tomorrowland [when everybody else was clamoring to get to the Matterhorn; or, later, the Pirates of the Caribbean and New Orleans Square] and Storybook Land Canal Boats. I suddenly have a hankering to go to Disneyland; haven’t been, in over 20 years!)
I also read every Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney! Such wonderful memories! Loved Parent Trap and Pollyanna and basically, anything Hayley. That much older man was Roy Boulton. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do.
You’re right; I’d looked it up just days ago; she had sons with him. I always feel I remember Juliet Mills, the sister, from The Three Lives of Thomasina, another huge movie hit for me in childhood. But, no, the actress was Susan Hampshire. Juliet Mills was in a movie I liked as a kid, also with Brian Keith and Maureen O’Hara called The Rare Breed. Both Hayley Mills and Juliet Mills are, in today’s life, now partnering with much-younger men! Juliet Mills became a U.S. citizen and actually lives in my neck ‘o the woods in SoCalif. Like a lot of child actors, the luster was off once mature but I did like Hayley Mills in the starring adult role (she was in her 30s by then) which I’d caught on PBS back in the day, called The Flame Trees of Thika which had a period setting in Africa.
I loved Susan Hampshire. She was so beautiful!
I saw The Flame Trees of Thika. Based on the book by Elspeth Huxley. Did a report on it in high school, so I was anxious to see it with my idol, Hayley Mills!
I’m loving all these coincidences of us female boomers. So glad you brought up the subject today; too fun!
A couple of days ago, purely by happenstance with another prompt, I became in touch with a childhood friend with whom I attended schools K-12; she lived just around the corner from me. We haven’t spoken since 1972 from when she was in college. It’s incredible, the memories that began to spew; stuff I haven’t had anything to remind me about in all these years, like class projects we had in the elementary school years, field trips we took, going to the movies with her older sister, etc.
I’m on a huge wave of nostalgia this summer. I want to transport myself back to the late 1950s-early 1960s! I had submitted suggestions to TCM for their July programming in conjunction with the anniversary of the moon walk and Woodstock to no avail. I want to watch “A Walk On The Moon” with Diane Lane (the moon walk and Woodstock as stated), “It Happened in Naples” (fireworks); “Houseboat” with Cary Grant and Sophia Loren (4th of July ); etc.
I don’t know if you’re still reading Susan Branch, but she talks (in her current/most-recent post) of getting on a bathing suit, actually getting in the ocean water and let the waves give you buoyancy (let the sun dry the salt on your skin, feel the sun warm you when you’re sopping wet; let yourself smell like the surf); at least that’s how I interpreted her; it’s also when a picnic lunch tastes the best!) and, again, I was JUST saying that to my husband when he and I were on the beach yesterday, like WHY do we, in these days, never get in the water like I saw people doing on this long 4th of July holiday week? I realized I haven’t put on a bathing suit since 1991 when I was taking therapy for my neck in a heated pool designed for patients. And that was NOT the same thing as swimming or wading in a pond, lake, stream or ocean! We have to just forget our age and shape, put on a bathing suit and have some fun! Remember how Jackie O and Rose Kennedy swam in the ocean every day on Cape Cod? I think Katharine Hepburn, too; somewhere in the Atlantic.
Didn’t you and Don, a couple-more years ago, go out east to the coast from where you live in the Valley and swim in a lake or the sea? I swear I recall you doing a post about it, and I know you’ve spoken of getting back again one of these days. Maybe as the garden wanes but long before the Fall gets cold, you can go on a little road trip again and tell us about it!
What I want to do is try to find some way to rent a beach bungalow and just stay for a week if we could possibly afford it; like start saving NOW and not delay the experience! There used to be a lot more where I live but, in recent years, people have made them their permanent, year’round homes…and, ugh, modernized them into McMansions/McModerns, completely losing the charm of their 1940s-1960s era that I remember SO fondly. Between my relatives and my parents, we stayed at the beach at least a week, sometimes a whole month, every summer and it was golden, some of the best memories of my life. They can’t be duplicated, but I’d like to copy the experience to whatever degree I can!
We swam in the ocean in Santa Monica – first time I’d put on a swimsuit in years. Then we returned home and went swimming in a local lake. It was wonderful.
Thank you for the memories. Hailey Mills was such a joy. Your analysis of her delivery had me hearing her again . Mary Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy was delightful. Now I must re-read it!
You’re very welcome, Ingrid!
I watched The Moonspinners on TCM the other night, and what memories it brought back! I felt just like I was 13 or 14again. I also loved the authors Stewart, Whitney and Holt. Going to look and see if I can find copies of their books to reread.
I am, too. I think we can call it ‘comfort reading’, Dottie!
Hayley Mills was the first (and one of very few) famous people I ever wrote a “fan” letter to — and she sent back an “autographed” picture. Sigh! I wish I still had it and maybe I do somewhere. I had a crush on Peter McEnery too. Wish I could have caught Moonspinners — I was in transit to the cottage. I’m glad it was still fun and inspired a re-reading!
I hope you find that autographed picture, Jeanie! Lucky you!
Hayley Mills one of my fave too. Do you know she’s been in a couple of recent series? There’s a streaming service called Acorn (British and Australian tv) (I think they have a free trial) but only costs $5 a month I think and I think you can get via a Prime stick. Anyway there’s a series there called Wild at Heart, about a British vet who ends up moving his family to a game preserve in Africa. The characters, scenery, music and animals are wonderful. Anyway Hayley Mills comes in in maybe Season Two as a mother-in law and she’s wonderful. Her sister Juliet is even in a couple of episodes. Great storylines. I’m currently watching the Best Village (or something like that) where they visit different villages, name the best parts of each to come up with a winner.
Good to know. I assume they’ll eventually be on BritBox. Thank you, Diana!
I agree, good to know about this series; I was clueless. I of course tapped immediately into Amazon to see if I could get it on DVD but all the offers new & used state the discs can’t be played on American DVD players so we’ll have to hope this series from about 2006-2012 will indeed be with other offerings (in my case, probably PBS, I-wish-I-hope!); sounds like a all-around very enjoyable series.
Stunning photo of the day lily, Claudia. Thank you!
I, too, always loved the Arthurian books by Mary Stewart.
I had the record of Pollyanna (I think I still do). I named one of our house-rabbits after Hayley!
Good for you! It’s a great name.
I still love Hayley (some loves never die) and I read every Mary Stewart book too, xo Laura
We have a lot of Hayley and Mary Stewart fans here today. That makes me happy!
Your day lilies are lovely. We have three white ones and three pink and yellow ones. This is the first year they have bloomed We cannot remember when we planted them. Hayley Mills is a favorite. I saw all of her movies. Parent Trap was a particular favorite since i am a twin. My twin and me never did the shenanigans they did. i have all of my childhood books. My older sister has a lot of books from her childhood that are hard to find these days. I am so glad she kept them because my twin and me have read them as we got older.
Marilyn
As a twin, you would love Parent Trap! Thanks, Marilyn!
I forgot all about Hayley Mills! I used to love her too. Thanks for the reminder.
You’re welcome!
Touch Not The Cat is my favorite of Mary Stewart’s. Moonspinners (didn’t know there’s a movie! thank you!) and This Rough Magic tied for second. I don’t usually comment, but felt compelled to speak up about Touch Not The Cat.
I don’t know if I ever read that one, though I remember it. Hmmm. I’ll have to remedy that!
What young girl notes vocal inflection, and then mimicks it. Only you, dear Claudia, who then turns it into her art of vocal coaching. I love this remembrance.
Thank you, Tina!