Author: Frances

What a beautiful day in the Park today, and what a lovely thing happened: I was out for a quick walk, and the cold water a lady was hawking on the sidewalk sounded good. All i had was a $20 and she had no change. Just take it, she offered. Naw! I said. She insisted and I accepted. Thanked her and started to walk away, stopped and gave her the $20. Really?! She said. Pay it forward, I said. Made both our days. #payitforward #centralpark #afternoonwalk #bethesdaterrace

A friend’s orchard after the rain, #highlandsnc #appletree

Bye bye beautiful #highlandsnc #whitesidemountain

What a treasure the Bascom is! @thebascom thank you for a wonderful weekend. #thebascom

One of the pretty tables last night at the Bascom, a center for visual arts in Highlands, NC, where Im speaking today. All the flowers were donated and done by volunteers. #thebascom #highlandsnc #summersoiree @thebascom

Charming guest room of my Highlands host. #blueandwhite #guestroom #vignette #highlandsnc

The beauty parlor at the Roaring Gap Club, present day and #throwbackthursday at its finest. #washandset #beautyparlor #roaringgap

Double rainbow in Roaring Gap!

Another lovely garden in Roaring Gap. #roaringgap #shadegarden #waterfeature #boxwood

Love this friend’s herb garden on a farm near Roaring Gap. #herbgarden #raisedbeds

Zinnias in a pretty vase, the Blue Ridge in the background, in our hosts’ pretty house in Roaring Gap. #zinnias #windowsill #roaringgap

Happy 100th Olivia de Havilland, great lady and great actor, beloved as #Melanie in #gonewiththewind, for which she won #bestsupportingactress #oscar, among her dozens of other womderful roles. I was lucky to meet her once in Paris, introduced by a mutual friend. She had to her house and we had chanpagne and smoked salmon. My cousin journalist Susan Myrick was technical director of GWTW and worked with the stars as dialect coach and with producers/director on getting the “Southerness” right – which to her and Margaret Mitchells’s chagrin, they didn’t always, but it was a great movie nonetheless. #oliviadehavilland