A to Z Challenge - Z is for Zowie!

zowie  -  exclamation, expressing pleasurable surprise astonishment or admiration.
   Origin
         North America, informal, natural exclamation

Fits me to a tee on this last day of April and the last letter of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I am pleasantly surprised that I hung in for all twenty-six posts. I'm rather pleased with myself. Prompted by a fellow blogger, I accepted the challenge as a way to re-start my writing.

For over seven months, my stories had gone unseen, not just on the blog, but anywhere. No work on my memoir manuscript, no blog posts, no story notes scrawled on scraps of paper. Would the A to Z Challenge be the rigorous exercise program that my flabby writing muscles so desperately needed?

Well, ZOWIE! It was all that and more! Thank you to all those who followed, liked, retweeted, and re-shared my posts. A profound bow of gratitude to all who commented. You made my day. My only regret is that too often I was unable to read and respond to you. However, despair not! Over the coming week, I plan to revisit your posts.

Plans are important, and beyond perusing the posts of fellow A to Z bloggers, I plan to return to posting on this blog twice a week. I also plan to investigate podcasting as a possible medium for the memoir stories.

What are your plans for blogging/writing in May and beyond?

Same time next year? You bet - God willing and the creek don't rise.

©2018 April Hoeller

A to Z Challenge - Y is for Yummy

It's a cool and rainy Saturday in my part of the world. Let's pop open the canopy and blast far away from the grey and colourless. Let's indulge in a feast of yummy things. And I mean yummy times five senses.

I know just the place!

Sail away with me to KaDeWe® (Kaufhaus des Westens) in Berlin, Germany.

image courtesy of KaDeWe website

This is a department store like no other I've ever seen. It's Nordstrom's® on steroids. A luxurious, sumptuous, elegant, eye-popping, mouth-watering, 60,000 square metres of retail space, second only to Harrod's in London. It attracts 40,000 to 50,000 visitors every day. A dose of yummy if ever there was one!

Coming in the main entrance, I found myself strolling along a kind of boulevard of luxury. Bulgari, Burberry, Cartier, Céline, Chanel, Chopard, Dior, Fendi, Gucci, Hermès, Miu Miu, Montblanc, Longchamp, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Rolex, Tiffany & Co., Tod's, Vertu, Wellendorff and Yves Saint Laurent and more, vie for my attention. But it is the Guerlain® fragrance counter that captured me.

The sculpted glass bottles drew my eyes to wander over and around the shapes and colours of scent. My breath caught in my throat - Shalimar! My mother's favourite and the most expensive fragrance she ever owned. When I was a child I marveled at this shapely bottle that held pride of place on her dresser.

The salesperson noted my interest. I told her of my late mother's love of Shalimar. "We've been making this perfume since 1925. Let me offer you some." She spritzed the golden liquid onto a white card, particles of scent filling the air as well as landing on the card. Instantly I felt my mother behind me, heard her inhale deeply and her murmur of appreciation.



The experience of my mother's presence was warm and lovely, but truth be told, the fragrance on the sample card was not one my olfactory senses enjoyed. A little too floral, complex, and overpowering for me. But Mom, she still loved it.




Now let's stroll a bit more through this yummy store.
Gadgets anyone?

Or for the hard to buy, how about a little something from Fortnum & Mason?

Those who know me will be quick to tell you that fashion is not my thing, not at all. Much to my mother's chagrin, I did not get that gene. But I did find these shoes impressive, and entirely unwearable at least on my sixty-five-year-old feet.

















I'm more of a champagne (also craft beer and single malts) chocolate, and bread girl.
Oh! And look - they have that too!

And sausages, and canapes to take home.

Feeling a little peckish?

I'll settle for something Italian.

Saturday morning in KaDeWe - lots of people - inter-generational families, kids to elders all enjoying a grand experience.

If you are ever in Berlin, spend some time exploring this amazing emporium of all things yummy.





©2018 April Hoeller

A to Z Challenge - X is for X marks the Spot

The adventure addicts (the vintage edition - tee hee) are heading out again!  AND there's not just one X marks the spot, but 11 (including Reykjavik)! Oh, the places we're going!

Viking Ocean Cruises

We're following the midnight sun from Iceland up across the Arctic Circle to the northernmost point of Norway.



I'm busy exploring the official "X's" on the map and thinking about some of the nearby places where I'd like to add an X, or three. It's all very exciting but also time-consuming. Just what can be fit into the time constraints? How far afield dare we wander? What activities are as reasonable for us vintage folk as they are desirable?

There are glaciers, geysers, icebergs, waterfalls, mountains, horses, whales, sea eagles, and seals. And that's just Iceland! Hop across to Norway and it's fjords, fishing villages, fjords, waterfalls, fjords, king crabs, hikes with huskies, and did I mention the fjords? We'll be kayaking for sure!

Geiranger Fjord - image courtesy of Viking Ocean Cruises

Southwest to Scotland for ancient iron age settlements, ponies, puffins, and single malt scotch.

image courtesy of Viking Ocean Cruises

Then old London town for museums, Thames cruises, The Eye, and Westminster Abbey to pay my respects to the late Stephen Hawking. And so much more.

This is going to be great!

©2018 April Hoeller

A to Z Challenge - W is for Wine Country

The vineyards of Niagara wine country are an annual destination for us, set to complement our wedding anniversary in September. I'm pretty sure that out of 42 such celebrations there have been at least 30 drives over the Burlington Skyway through Stoney Creek and on to Beamsville, Vineland, and Jordan Station, then over the Welland Canal and into Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL).

image courtesy of VQA Ontario

Niagara-on-the-Lake

We always take up residence in NOTL - because there is more than just wine in wine country. There is the Shaw Festival. When not seeing plays, we set off on a wine tasting and buying tours.


It used to be a very simple itinerary, one that did not require much planning at all, but in forty+ years wine has come of age in Niagara and the list of wineries is nothing short of eye-crossing.


Over 100 great and small wineries offer up the classic cool-climate varieties such as Riesling, Chardonnay, Gamay Noir, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc flourish here, and the region now boasts over 46 thriving varietals.

Angels Gate Winery

So this annual pilgrimage takes some planning, about a week of planning. I research wine awards and wineries. I inventory our wine cellar to see what we need, and I review the tasting notes I've made (if we hated it, I'm not buying that wine again and if we loved it, I want more). All of this research comes with me and I take my papers with me into every winery we visit; not so much as to impress the staff as to signal that I am seriously interested in more than just sampling some wine - I'm there to buy.

Big Head Wines

I do not profess to have wine connoisseur's palate or experience. I'm often at a total loss as to how to describe the kaleidoscope of flavours I taste in a wine and I've never experienced the length and breadth of elements extolled by the winemaker. There is great rejoicing when I discover that the winemaker and I agree on just a single note. In other words, I am an amateur, albeit an organized one.

Winemakers can always be counted on to make the best of any year, come wind, come weather.

I can smell the grapes and hear the cannon shots that keep the birds away.

And did I mention the food?? Ah well,  that's pretty special too!

It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it!
Salut!

©2018 April Hoeller

A to Z Challenge - V is for Victorious in Violet

 I'm just back from a writing retreat. I'm calling it successful -- better than that, VICTORIOUS!





My goals were accomplished.  They were not as lofty as in previous years. I set no word or page counts, no outline, chapter or book completions.
Still, there was a mountain to climb and I climbed it!


I am indebted to Gwynn Scheltema and Ruth Walker for providing such a supportive environment. I am also grateful to my fellow writers at the retreat. There is nothing quite so inspiring, encouraging, and refreshing than to write in community with other writers.


Head and heart, I reconnected with the memoir I've been working on for a number of years.

Saturday morning, I opened the document box that had been untouched for nearly a year. Over the next two days, I sorted through all the bits and pieces it contained. I tossed some junk - multiple copies of the same chapters, irrelevant notes, and three pens that no longer worked. I re-ordered what remained, taking time to explore the stories one by one. And I enjoyed the process!

Monday, my plan was to keyboard the chapters written at last year's retreat, but I found that I had no desire to park myself in front of a laptop. But my "write hand" was twitching for exercise, longing to move a pen across paper. I abandoned the keyboard and picked up my fountain pen. I wrote - not a lot but several linking passages and paragraphs that tied up a few loose ends and secured the bond between writer and story.

In the midst of all this triumphant growth, Monday also brought a violet pall of sorrow as news of the tragedy in the beloved city of my birth unfolded. The apprehension and arrest of the van driver who had mowed down 24 people, killing 10, was accomplished without a single gunshot. Politicians kept their responses low key and the media did not jump to radical conclusions. We all waited for the facts and while we waited, as we were able, we offered care and compassionate support. And the outpouring of compassion continues. This is my Toronto.

Once assured of my family's safety on Monday, I took myself on a walk away from the news. I visited the lads up the hill.

The confident thumps of big hooves, snorts of camaraderie, and the quiet wisdom in those big eyes, did much to comfort my soul.

As I headed back along the lake to the main building, these crocuses seemed to sum up the weekend - victorious in violet.

Tuesday morning dawned with promise and healing colours.

©2018 April Hoeller