Settling In by Randall Sawka

 

Find this title at Amazon

The summer winds have blown us to our new home in the heart of downtown Toronto. Nancy and I are both prairie folk. Granted prairie folk living on Vancouver Island for the last 27 years.

A month has passed and we have to say, well, Toronto is, how shall I say it? Awesome!

It helps to be situated (thanks to our daughter's advise) in the ideal spot for us.

Across the road from our condo is a walkway with few lights or crosswalks. Perfect for walks or an early run, a coffee at wherever, or a picnic in a nearby park.

A walk through the area seen in the above photo brought an amazing surprise. The International Festival of Authors runs promotional events from September to June. Yes, I'll be looking into that!

As for writing. I'm standing at my early morning spot. I have found three places that I find comfortable for writing within a ten minute walk. The din of the city is everywhere. However, I've already tuned it out. Except the drama of the trolley trains below me blasting their horns when a car decides their tracks suits there needs. Note: The trolley always wins.

Settled in, have furniture, next book a blink away from completion. It took a few grueling weeks, but I have my website updated. I went green, but a green that might required sunglasses. 

-- 

Randall

randallsawka@gmail.com
randallsawka.com
randall@randallsawka.com

Around Europe with Randall Sawka

Rough Business by Randall Sawka


March brought Nancy and Me to other parts of Europe. For two weeks we hiked
around Malta. The weather was just OK thanks primarily to the heavy winds.
It limited excursions for a few days but did allow me to get a great deal of
writing done. My favourite place was the Starbucks knockoff. Here are Nancy
and me in front of the Lion sign.

The third week of March brought us to Budapest. This is now officially our favourite city in the world. Amazing food, amazing architecture, and very, very walkable. Thought I would show you our luggage for the trip. Actually, Nancy is lugging the luggage. Plenty of time doing laundry, but were able to take 6-7 discount airlines with just carry on bags and saved a lot of money.

Our final overseas stop in Paris (Not Ontario). I call it writing intimidation time. We revisited the Latin quarter where we had coffee at the "Les Duex Magots" the Paris cafe famous as a gathering place of James Joyce, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Ernest Hemingway, among others. I sip espresso while Nancy sits Beneath the Magots (mandarins, Magicians, alchemists)-your choice.

This morning we took a short walk past the Moulin Rouge and in to Montmartre
Cemetery. Here I am beside the resting place of another great, Alexandre Dumas.


The rain is now moving in for a couple days. Please see the sky in the above image. The flight back to Canada leaves in five days. The trip has been wonderful. I recommend it for anybody.

Hiking Trails and a Short Stroll to Wales by Randall Sawka

The heat and humidity of Taiwan restricted outside writing to a minimum. As I prefer to write in the AM, the heat was already building. This drove me literally (literaturally??) in to air conditioned coffee shops. Those four and a half months were interesting but typical highs in the mid 30's C that felt like 42 were a bit much.

What a difference roughly 9704.66 Km makes!

Here we are in a tranquil setting north of the Cotswalds in England. The scene is quite similar to Vancouver Island.

Here we have returned to drinking the coffee hot.

Lush green hills and valleys and dozens of walking and hiking trails-and a short stroll to Wales. (I couldn't resist the rhyme.)  Of course, we will be moved indoors once the cooler weather hits in about 4 weeks. In the meantime, off we go to pick some plums and apples for a pie. I know, I know, not healthy, but so tasty.

Find Randall Sawka's latest release at Books We Love:

and find all his titles here:

http://bookswelove.net/authors/sawka-randall/

 

Randall Sawka ~ More from Taiwan

Amazon

As Nancy and I have settled in for the long stay part of our adventure (two months) in Taichung, Taiwan, I have had to tweak my writing habits a bit. The weather is very hot. Every day is in the low to mid 30's Thus, I need to get out and write in the fresh air early in the morning and in the evening after about 7.

This was fine, but Nancy decided not to join me for the evening sessions when winged creatures swooped down on us. Nancy is not a fan of birds getting near. I told her to relax, because the were not bird. They were bands. Unsurprisingly, she dashed indoors and left me to writing in the company of our new friends.

I'm focused on the final rewrite of my next western I have titled Raining Trouble. Seems appropriate with the heavy rains we get most evenings. The thunder and lightening is loud and bright. I suggest it is even stronger than from my youth in Alberta. We knew it was typhoon season but we never expected to have to deal with a category 5 super-typhoon. One came at us last week. We had the food and water stored just in case. It ended up moving south so we did not get drenched. Unfortunately our friends in the south of the island had major damage.

This is super typhoon Nepartak. It means warrior.


So the writing continued until Mother Nature visited us in the middle of the night with a jolting earthquake. no damage but that took us back to life in Victoria.

Overall, life has been great here. People are very friendly and the Chinese food is Chinese Chinese food. We like it very much. Especially the noodle bowls at our favourite restaurant.

I have now acclimatized so we can handle the midday heat for a short period. The humidity is wicked but we knew about it after our last visit here.

Until next time.......Randall Sawka

http://bookswelove.net/authors/sawka-randall/