Never Leave Your Wingman's Excellent European Adventure - Part 2 - Venice & Rome

Hello! It's me again, the Never Leave Your Wingman book. What a fun summer I've had. First, my publishers took me to Austria (my first blog) on my Excellent European Adventure. Then we headed to Italy.

I know! Exciting, huh?

So here's our look at the Italian Alps. 

Just about as beautiful as the Austrian Alps, but we did not see them up close. We kept on driving to get to that beautiful city of more than 100 islands separated by canals - Venice (Venezia).

The closer we got, the more vineyards and orchards we saw. A unique feast for our eyes.

There it is! Venice! Oh my gosh! We just had to go over a long, long bridge and....

...hop on a vaporetti (water taxi)....

...then admire all the wonderful old buildings along the water's edge as we made our way ...

...into the heart of the city.

This was the view from our bed and breakfast room. In the morning, we woke up to hear the animated voice of an Italian grandma (we're guessing) across the alley from our room giving animated, correct instructions (we're guessing) to the younger woman who also lives in the apartment. 

Ah, breakfast is served - Italian style. Yogurt, croissants, jellies, dry rye bread, fruit punch, strong coffee and hot chocolate (my publishers' beverages of choice for Day One in Italy).  

This is my version of taking a gondola ride. Beautiful, isn't it?

Gondolas, gondolas everywhere. What a pretty sight.

My publishers took a 'selfie' in front of this mirror along the Grand Canal. 

Selfies. What a strange word. In the old days, those would have been called 'creative self-portraits'. HUGE mirror, though, huh?

One of the many interesting shops I saw in Venice was this one, with very original, handcrafted books that were being purchased for use as diaries and journals. I just liked the pretty colours.

Too soon, it was time to say goodnight to beautiful Venice.

Then it was on to Rome!

Here I am, on my first train ride in Europe. This was a pretty interesting drive. I had a seat all to myself...

...and I even got to look out the window as the train drove through hills, valleys and tunnels to get us into Rome. I should explain that my publishers were told that it would be smarter to park their rental car in a town about an hour away from Rome, then take a train rather than drive in to Rome, so that's what they did. So we added train travel to our list of European experiences.

The Trevi Fountain, completed in the 1700s, is one of the prettiest sites in Rome.

Especially at night... as these tourists would all agree.

Then we rounded a corner some time later, we came upon this magnificent building...

The Pantheon. 

Are you kidding me? It felt like we'd walked into a movie set where this giant structure had been plunked down in the middle of modern-day Rome. It was a spectacular sight at night. The Pantheon was built between 27 and 25 B.C. as a temple to all gods and it stands where the founder of Rome died. Check out its many records here.

(Oh, that's my publisher Al, posing for a picture, by the way. Just in case you were wondering.)

I had a front-row seat (for a book, of course), enjoying the view of this enormous building from the edge of a fountain in that square.

On our walk back along the streets of Rome, we came upon this unique restaurant entrance. Upon entering, you walk over this floor panel that holds a number of wine bottles and corks. Fascinating.

Rome reminded me of my subject, seven-time cancer survivor Dionne Warner. Dionne loved her trips to Italy before she met Graham and then again after they were married. Here she is in Italy in 1994...

Pretty lady.

 Oh, and just a reminder of Dionne with Graham... here they are in July 2010, all dressed up to go into Dionne's chemo treatment as she fought Stage IV liver, lung and bone cancer.

The theme that day?

'Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy' of course.

Now, back to Rome this summer...

We visited the courtyard at Vatican City. No sighting of the Pope, but we did enjoy the buildings and people-watching.

Guess what this is.

It's one of the world's biggest and fanciest McDonald's restaurants. My publishers fluked into finding this extravagant building as they were looking for a quick supper. They just had to take some photos of the inside. Would you like fries with that?

Oh, here's me with my author. We're going underground in Rome. Literally. 

We got a kick out of this sign on the inside of the subway car door. You'd better not get caught in the door or your private parts - and your back - are really going to hurt! Ouch!

Sadly, we watched helplessly one night as a man getting onto the subway car had his wallet stolen by a pickpocket at the last second before the doors closed. Sigh. Real-life in Europe.

We couldn't help but feel the drama and the history of 2,000 years ago when we visited the Colosseum.

It was easy to imagine the roaring fans as the gladiators did battle in the Colosseum. Pretty incredible site.

I'll be back soon with the next part of my summer vacation.

Never Leave Your Wingman's Excellent European Adventure - Part 1 - Austria

Hello there. It's me, the Never Leave Your Wingman book. That's right. A book.

You're not going to believe what I did this summer. It was amazing! I can hardly wait to tell you about it...

So you may know that I am already a widely travelled book. I have been told by my author (Deana Driver) and her husband Al (who are also my publishers) and from my subjects (seven-time cancer survivor - oops, excuse me - eight-time cancer survivor Dionne Warner and her wingman husband Graham) that copies of me have been enjoyed by readers in Canada (where I'm from), the United States, Mexico, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, Austria, Australia, England, Italy, Brazil, France, Israel, and several other countries.

Personally, I am pleased that my happy story ... er, Dionne and Graham's happy story ... of love, courage and hope is being shared by so many readers in places far away from where I was created.

So imagine my surprise when my author told me this summer that she was taking me on vacation. And not just any old vacation to the beach or to see the family. She was taking me to Europe!

Wow. What an adventure!

I not only get to tell a beautiful, bestselling, fun-filled, inspiring love story about a multiple-cancer survivor who dresses up in costume and dances into chemo with her romantic wingman-husband at her side... I get to go to Europe, too!

You could have knocked me over with a feather when she told me about the vacation. Of course it would have had to be a very BIG feather because I am a full-bodied girl - at 272 pages (including the 32 pages of full-colour photographs).

Anyway ... I just knew this was going to be a marvelous adventure... so it only seemed right that I should share my experiences with you, my loyal readers. So hang on tight! We're going to have some FUN in Europe!

Here I am, peeking out of my author's bag, ready to go to the airport in Regina, Saskatchewan - my home city - to start my big trip.

I AM SO EXCITED!

Here, I'm waiting to board the WestJet plane to Toronto, Ontario - which also happens to be where the lovely Dionne Warner (the main subject of me) was born.

There's the plane! There's the plane! Oh my gosh, I can hardly wait!

Those WestJet folks are pretty nice - and funny, too. I can't say I visited with them much on the flight, though. I was resting up for my big journey.

Once we got to Toronto, we had a short wait in the airport before boarding our Condor Air flight to Frankfurt, Germany. 

My publishers have done a lot of travelling in North America, but this was their first trip to Europe, so they told me they were kind of unsure about a few things. They had not heard of Condor Air before this trip and they joked that they hoped the plane wasn't like the Condor Air from the Flintstones cartoons - a giant bird with a little seat on its back. Silly publishers.

To our relief, it was definitely not a giant bird. At least not a real bird. The flight was great and we all landed in Frankfurt safe and sound about eight hours later.

The first stop on our journey was the resort village of St. Johann im Pongau in Austria. Skiing in the winter, sweltering in the summer, pretty all the time.

I liked it in Austria. Of course, I like adventure and mountains and exploring new things, so I was a happy girl. My author was a little uncomfortable, though. Although she also loves the same things I love, it was 38 degrees Celsius outside and there was no air conditioning inside. Canadian Prairie girls aren't used to that much heat. Even on our hottest days of summer, it rarely gets past 35 degrees. Anyway, we all got through it just fine and enjoyed the sights in beautiful Austria.

First, we drove to Salzburg.

I didn't drive, of course. I'm only a book, silly. Publisher Al did all the driving for the three of us. Thank you, Al. And the rental car had a LOT more kilometres on it (9,348 to be exact!) by the time we were done our excellent adventure.

Anyway, Al drove us all to Salzburg for a day trip and I happily went along wherever and whenever my publishers invited me to come and see the sights.

In Salzburg, we took the funicular (a gondola-type elevator ride) up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress which overlooks the square.

...   

There's the fortress, behind and above this cool fountain.

Here's my author, showing me the great view of Salzburg from the steps of the Fortress. Nice, huh?

On another day, we travelled to Vienna (or Wien, as it's called in Austria). We ate lunch on a bench overlooking the gorgeous gardens of the Schonbrunn/Hofburg Palace, the former summer residence of the Habsburgs, rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This palace has 1,441 rooms! Can you believe it? And I thought cleaning my little corner of the bookshelf was a tough job.

Can you see me in this photo?

How about now?

Yep, I am hanging out with some cute little bums on the back steps of the palace. There's nothing like cherubs to make you smile.

It was pretty darn hot in Vienna, too, in August, so we cooled down with a tasty treat - gelato. I like strawberry. Yummy!

Then came my favourite day in Austria - with a day trip to Hohe Tauern National Park.

Grossglockner is the highest mountain in the Austrian Alps at 3,798 metres. The Grossglockner glacier is the longest glacier in Eastern Europe.

I loved the view I got of the Grossglockner from behind these two chunks of mountain. 

The Austrian Alps are gorgeous, aren't they?

Here I am again, taking a front-row seat while we head back to the resort. I soon discovered that every single road we drove on in Europe - even in the small towns and countryside - was paved and in either excellent or great shape. Too bad we can't do that in Saskatchewan, but we do have more roads here than in any other Canadian jurisdiction and we do have a pretty small population by comparison. Sigh. One can always dream.

But we don't have tunnels in Saskatchewan. At least, not like this one and the dozen or so others we drove through to get to and around mountains, hills and various other bits of European geography. Publisher Al did very well driving us around western Europe. I am very proud of him.

So where did we go next? I'll give you a hint...

Stay tuned....

Here's my next blog in this series

Words and Other Things In The Park - Regina

This has been an unusual summer because of a late spring, extra rain, and a late growing season. But the plants have finally grown and blossomed, and we are now enjoying all variety of outdoor experiences.

I've spent the noon hour for these past three Wednesdays in beautiful Victoria Park in downtown Regina - participating in Words In The Park.

On the first Wednesday, I was one of three writers who spoke, and I read from my non-fiction books Never Leave Your Wingman and  The Sailor and the Christmas Trees.

 We also heard from Marie Powell, who read some of her fiction...

 ...and Michael Trussler, who read some of his poetry.

(Here's a link where you'll see much better photos than we took that day. Thank you, Shelley Banks!)

For the last two Wednesdays, I was the host for Words In The Park, and I introduced these Saskatchewan writers:

Lt. Donald Aden Bowman wrote about his adventures at sea during the war.

Rolli read from his poetry and short stories.

Leah Dorion read one of her children's stories...

... and Bob Friedrich read an article about Regina's downtown temples.

On my treks in and around the park, these are the sights that caught my attention:

The skyline - showing off Regina's 'twin towers'.

The setting up of the space for Words In The Park, with the Wednesday Farmers' Market in the background. 

This pillow, sitting so casually on a park bench, surprised me. Did someone put it there for others to use? Did someone use it and then leave it behind? Maybe it's just there for a photo prop. Hmmm.... my curious mind wonders (and often wanders, too).

This gorgeous two-coloured rose also surprised and pleased me.

Proselytizing In The Park. A young man loudly shared his evangelical Christian views, while another man carried a cross that stated "Are You Ready?' and another videotaped the speech and surroundings. At one point, a vendor had a chat with the speaker. She was obviously not happy about the effect the loud speech was having on her nearby farmer's market stall.

And then I saw Yoga In The Park - from the back side only. What a wonderful use of this downtown green space!

When I returned home, I stopped to enjoy my lovely flower garden before going inside to my home office to continue what I do best - write, edit and help others publish and market their books.

Enjoy the rest of the summer, folks! We certainly intend to do so!

We'll see you again in the fall!

A Journalist By Any Name

I began my writing career as a young child - writing poetry, short stories and epic-like letters to friends as a way to combat the boredom I felt as a farm kid with an overactive imagination. In high school, I used a 'Get Out Of Math Class Free' card to work on the student newspaper. I wrote whatever was needed to fill the pages of that monthly collection of trivia and drivel, after we'd inserted the gossipy sections of 'who likes who' (or more accurately - these initials likes these initials, and only four people in the whole school actually thought they could figure out the encryption) plus the artwork of an aspiring-hippy artist, of course. (He really was quite talented and he did go on to earn a living in that craft.)

Shortly before the end of my Grade 12 school year, the high school teacher who was our newspaper's adviser suggested that I should become a journalist. Honestly, I was such a naive country bumpkin (is that redundant?) that I had no idea what he was talking about. We only received two television stations and two newspapers in those days, which didn't really provide me with much inspiration or information of interest to a 17-year-old.

So I looked it up.

Journalism. Hmmm.

More or less, it's a profession of individuals committed to reporting the truth and informing the public of what is really happening in the world.

Well, I could probably do that. It involved writing, right?

So I chose the closest course to our hometown and spent the next two years swallowed up by the big-city goings-on of Calgary, Alberta - and engrossed in learning all I could about the big-city world of journalism, as taught by those who had experience in the industry. It was a great way to learn from the doers. It helped me jump into this industry with both feet - and I have only kind words to say about SAIT in Calgary.

During college, I met a young man from Regina, Saskatchewan, and we moved to that smaller city and married shortly after our course ended. We've made our home here ever since, enjoying long careers in the journalism industry - me as a writer primarily and he as an editor primarily.

In 2008, our occupational paths converged again when he joined me in our book publishing company. (You can find details of that exciting enterprise on our web page.)

But I really wanted to talk about journalism today - mostly because I saw some phrases about the profession recently (at Brainy Quotes, WikiQuotes and elsewhere as noted below) and thought I'd share them with you. These are among the phrases I saw that I could relate to (obviously), but there are many more - including several that are less positive about the profession that has been dear to our hearts for decades:

"I've always had standards about writing well. There is art in this business. There is potentially great art."
                                      - Gay Talese (Sept. 2006 in a lecture. Bullpen: NYU Journalism)

"I don't want to be part of the story. I want to be an anonymous, quiet onlooker who tries to work out what the hell is happening - it's not easy - and then tells other people about it. I don't like being a figure in the thing."
                     - John Simpson (October 2007 interview in Barnes, Nicky. BBC Norfolk)

"I think journalism gets measured by the quality of information it presents, not the drama or the pyrotechnics associated with us."
                   - Bob Woodward 


“We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective.”
                   - Humorist Dave Barry

And last but not least, I'll draw your attention to an article from CBS News called 'Best. Journalism Quotes. Ever.'  I particularly like Number One on this list.

Have a good day, all you writers - and journalists!

Keep on doing your best. That's all we can ask.

From Blanket to Coat to Book to Painting

One of the joys of publishing our stories of unsung Canadian heroes is the feedback we receive from readers, as well as the ‘ripple effect’ that comes from our books.

One such wonderful ‘ripple effect’ was the creation of a beautiful painting by Calgary artist Bev Tosh. She was so inspired by Alan Buick’s book The Little Coat: The Bob and Sue Elliott Story that she created a portrait of Sue Elliott for a collection that is now on display at the National Liberation Museum in Groesbeek, Netherlands. The multi-media exhibition called CanadianWar Brides: a one way passage to love runs from June 6 to November 24, 2013 and features 22 portraits as well as artifacts of Dutch war brides to Canada.

Sussie Cretier, 1944 before receiving the 'little coat'

Bob Elliott, May 945

Sussie Cretier was 10 years old in November 1944 when she met Bob Elliott, a Canadian tank commander from Calgary who was fighting the Nazis across the Maas River in the Netherlands. Sussie became a good-luck charm and little sister to the Canadian soldiers, bringing them laughter, songs and hope during a difficult time. They wanted to give her a Christmas present, so they asked a seamstress in that little Dutch village to make a coat for her out of a wool Army blanket. The buttons on the coat came off of the soldiers’ tunics. On Christmas Day 1944, Bob Elliott presented Sussie with the coat – the most precious gift she had ever received.

Bob and Sue each went on with their lives after the war but reconnected in 1981. They fell in love and married. Sussie – now known as Sue – still had her little coat. She brought it with her to Canada, where author Alan Buick saw it and decided to write the award-winning bestselling book The Little Coat.

In May 2013, Bev Tosh contacted Alan Buick to let him know about her painting of Sue Elliott being on display in the Netherlands. In describing the display, Tosh said, “Over 20 new portraits on wooden panels – all with story panels on silk – stand shoulder-to-shoulder beside Hetty’s wedding dress and a short film of her wedding in Gorinchem in 1945. A veil of vintage handkerchiefs, each embroidered by the artist with the name of a ‘bride ship,’ speaks of ocean voyages and tears.”

She added that “Sue Elliott is not a war bride in the narrow sense but hers is a story of mid-life love that is based on wartime friendship. There are several such stories that expand the scope and enrich the display. This would not have happened had it not been for your book, The Little Coat, which, fittingly, was recommended to me by another Dutch war bride living in Saskatchewan who is also portrayed in the exhibition. The story keeps growing!”

See image of the painting

Thank you, Bev, for enjoying our book The Little Coat and sharing that marvellous story with a new audience! Best wishes on the Netherlands exhibition!

Pobody's Nerfect #4 - Common Spelling Errors

Have you ever seen a lovely hand-painted sign on a house or cabin and just cringed because of an incorrect apostrophe? It happens to me often - especially at this time of year when we visit lakes and see the beautifully decorated but incorrectly spelled signs announcing the owners of a particular cottage:

The Brown's

The Smith's

The Johnson's

Oh, dear. If you're thinking of ordering such a homemade sign, please check the spelling abilities of your painter before you place the order. Unless the sign ends with a description of what is owned by the individuals inside - such as The Browns' Cabin or The Smiths' Refuge. Otherwise, it should simply say The Browns or The Smiths - as in The Browns (the members of the Brown family) live here.

And here's a good word for you. Yuck. Or is it Yuk? In editing a document recently, I came across the author's word, 'Yuck.' It caused me to grab my dictionary and check for the proper spelling, since I had always spelled this word 'Yuk' in informal conversations. It turns out the word can be spelled either way, but I opted for 'yuck' in this case because the word without the 'c' has commonly been used in connection with comedy - as in Yuk Yuks Comedy Club - and that's not the kind of 'yuck' the author intended in the context of that story.

Homemade - This is another word that often causes me problems. I have to look it up every time I use it.

And while we're on the topic, here are some other words I've had to double-check in the dictionary recently:

Double-check. I often want to make it one word with no hyphen. That is incorrect. But since I am aware that this word is on my list of words that I have trouble with, I almost always look it up. (I say almost always because pobody's nerfect, and I make mistakes, too.) That's the key to good writing and good editing - knowing when to use a dictionary or, in my case, ask another great editor who happens to live with you. (Imagine my winking smiley face non-emoticon here.)

Seat belt. It's two words, but I can't seem to keep that detail in my brain. I have to look it up every time. Thank you, again, reliable dictionary.

In-patient versus outpatient. Don't ask me why one of these words is hyphenated and one is not. The English language can be really annoying at times.

Easygoing, roller coaster and payback. These are the correct spellings. It's hit-or-miss for me with these phrases, so I grab the Oxford Canadian Dictionary to be sure. We use the first version of the word as it appears in this dictionary.

So that's it for today's mini-spelling lesson.

Happy writing and editing!

Also see my Pobody's Nerfect blogs #1, #2, and #3.