country life Archives - Social Correspondence

A Week in Tomales

Thanks to the generosity of friends, we escaped the fog of San Francisco and spent a week in Tomales, CA. It was a beautiful week. The weather was perfect: the sun was shining, the birds were singing, the cows lowing, and honeybees flitted through the gardens. For the most part, the only sounds interrupting the quiet in this small town were the nighttime hooting of an owl from the trees across the street, and the crowing of a nearby resident rooster. Weekends, however, are a slightly different story. Shops and other businesses open up to visitors…

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October 6, 2021

Landscapes of the Suspense Novel

Brooding landscapes are often a staple of the suspense novel. In some cases, the shadowy, mysterious house at the center of a country estate is a key character. Perhaps it is haunted by the ghost of a sophisticated, beautiful, deceased first wife. Rebecca, by the late Daphne Du Maurier, is a modern classic. Most suspense novels use scene to set a foreboding mood. Suspense novels In John Banville’s Snow (Handover Square Press, 2020), his first mystery novel written without a pen name, the setting is bleak rather than menacing. A violent, desecrating murder takes place in…

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February 16, 2021

Tomales, CA farmhouse

books / country life / Mail / Post Office / Post Office Boxes / U.S. Postal Service

Country Mouse

Tomales, CA farmhouse Although I am an urban dweller, part of me is a country mouse. A vacation is not necessarily a trip to another city, rich with historic sites, museums, and fine restaurants, but rather a sojourn in a quiet rural destination, preferably one with views, hiking, and a nearby body of water. Recently, we stayed in such a place. Downtown Tomales (CA), population 204, has a post office, a bakery, a Town Hall, a small grocery, a deli, an antique store, and some real estate offices. Add in a hotel and a bar/restaurant, and…

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September 14, 2019