Vacation I Have Had by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

As you read this post I will be on a bus tour from Rome to London, the second bus tour of my sixty-six day long visit to Europe. How did this vacation come about? Well, it started three years ago when my dragon boat team, Angels Abreast from Nanaimo, B.C., found out that the next Breast Cancer Survivor International Dragon Boat Festival was going to be held in Florence, Italy. Although we voted to attend the festival, eventually it was decided not to go as a team. Since I had already begun planning my trip, I put out feelers to other breast cancer survivor teams who wanted to attend but didn’t have enough paddlers to fill a boat. I was picked up by Sunshine Dragons Abreast, a team from the Sunshine Coast.

     My husband originally planned on going with me and we discussed other countries we wanted to see, but he had to back out because of his health. By this time I had decided that since I was already in Europe, I might as well visit as many countries as I could. I didn’t want to travel alone so I asked the members of Sunshine Dragons if anyone was interested in travelling with me. One woman, Ev, agreed. I also spoke with a fellow employee, Heather, and she and her sister, Beverly, hopped on board but couldn’t join us until the beginning of the Rome to London tour on July 9.
     The festival was from July 5 to 9 so I began looking at tours and cruises before and after those dates. Ev and I picked a 16 day Spain, Portugal, and Morocco bus tour beginning June 15. Then we decided to spend three days in Milan before going to Florence. At the end of the festival there we headed to Rome.
     After this bus tour through Italy, Switzerland, and France, and ending in London, Ev is leaving to do a tour of Denmark, while Heather, Beverly and I plan on spending eighteen days backpacking and riding trains to Brussels, Luxembourg, Cologne, and Amsterdam, and then fly to Copenhagen. We will meet Ev in that city to take an eleven day cruise of the Baltic Sea. One of the highlights of that will be a two day visit to St. Petersburg, Russia.
     I wish the planning had gone as smoothly as it sounds, but that is how attending a five day international breast cancer survivor dragon boat festival in Florence morphed into a sixty-six day visit to Europe. And this isn’t the first time that has happened to me.
     In 2007, an international festival was held in Coloundra, Queensland, Australia. Angels Abreast attended the five days festival. Afterwards, the team split up, some going to New Zealand, some touring the interior and some, my group, spent three weeks sightseeing along the eastern coast ending in Sydney to see the Opera House, climb the Harbour Bridge, and go out to the Great Barrier Reef. Then we spend a week in Fiji.
     I missed the festival in Peterborough, Ontario, but in 2014, the festival was held in Sarasota, Florida. Rather than fly there with the team, do a little touring and fly home, I decided I wanted to see some of the country between the Pacific Ocean, where I live, and the Atlantic Ocean. So my husband and I bought a motorhome and spent four weeks sightseeing on our way to Sarasota and five weeks sightseeing on our way home.
     I could go on about all the other trips I have taken, like the nine week my husband and I took in our motorhome across Canada in 2017 to celebrate our country’s 150^th birthday, but that can wait for another post.
     My novel, Romancing the Klondike, is set in the Yukon, a place I have travelled to twice and hope to visit again in the next couple of years.
http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

Shakespeare's Globe

For more information about Susan Calder's books, or to purchase visit her Books We Love Author Page. 

Before this May I had been to London, UK, twice. Like most tourists I spent most of my time on the north side of the Thames River. But five years ago my husband Will and I enjoyed a short walk and café meal along the river's South Bank. So on this third trip we wanted to see more of this side of London and, in particular, visit the rebuilt Globe Theatre, which opened in 1997. On a sunny Sunday morning, we walked from Paul's Cathedral across the Millennium Bridge to Shakespeare's Globe and bought tickets for the tour and exhibition.

Me at St. Paul's

The original Globe Theatre was built in 1598. Actor-playwright William Shakespeare owned a share of the company that chose the location across the river because it was outside of the City of London, which had laws restricting unsavoury activities like theatre and prostitution. Plays of the time had to take place under daytime's natural lighting, which meant attendees couldn't be working.

The Globe thrived for 14 years and presented many of Shakespeare's greatest plays. In 1613, during a performance of Shakespeare's Henry VIII, a stage cannon misfired, igniting the thatched roof and burning the theatre to the ground. Records state that only one man was hurt, but he was saved when his burning breeches were put out with a bottle of ale. The company built a second Globe with a tiled roof. It's believed that Shakespeare never wrote for this new Globe, which was closed with all the English theatres in 1642 by the Puritan government. Two years later the Globe was demolished to make space for tenements.

Artist's rendition of the original Globe

On the tour we learned that the modern Globe was the brainchild of American actor and director Sam Wanamaker. When he first visited London in 1949, Wanamaker was appalled to discover the city contained no acknowledgement to the theatre intimately associated with one of the world's greatest writers. Wanamaker founded the Shakespeare Globe Trust, which raised funds and conducted research on the historical Globe. They discovered that the modern theatre couldn't be built on the original site, since a historically designated building occupies the spot. So the new Globe is about 750 feet (230 m) away. 

The Globe viewed from our Thames River cruise

The Trust's objective was to construct a Globe as close as possible to the original, using the old building techniques, while taking into account modern fire regulations. The building is open air, with a roof made of reed thatch, based on samples found during the excavation of the original site. I had always assumed the Globe was round, but research determined it was 20-sided polygon. Little was known about the stage, so the designers relied on accounts of other theatres of the time. In the end, today's Globe is as accurate a reconstruction as current knowledge could make it. 

Inside the theatre, we sat on the tiered seats while the guide explained that the stage was designed with three levels. Elizabethan theatre goers would understand that characters descending from the ceiling painted heavenly blue with clouds were good guys, while those rising from a trap door in the floor were evil. 

The guide pointed out that the most expensive seats in Shakespeare's time were located high up on the side tiers, rather than lower and facing the stage, because the wealthy were more interested in being seen rather than having the best view of the show. The area in front of the stage, called the pit or yard, allowed the poor in for a penny. This must have been a smelly place, since the crammed-in people were drinking beer with nowhere else to go to relieve themselves. The modern Globe honours the tradition by selling standing room tickets for £5, but provides bathrooms in the wings. Still, today's budget attendees must stand for three hours, among a crowd of 500 people and exposed to the elements. Umbrellas aren't allowed. I would splurge for a seat. Prices range from £19-47 for this summer's production of Hamlet, which is reasonable compared to London west end theatre. Since the Globe seats are hard with no backs, patrons can rent cushions and seat backs. 

I think it would be marvellous to watch a Shakespeare play performed in the setting the playwright had in mind when he wrote his great works. But with so much to do in London, Will and I limited ourselves to the tour, which included a peek at the associated Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, an indoor candlelit theatre inspired by the old Blackfriars Theatre. We ended with a walk through the Globe exhibition about the building reconstruction and the history of Shakespeare's time. It turns out the Globe name derives from a Latin quote by Petronius "because all the world is a playground," which Shakespeare evidently borrowed and changed to "all the world is a stage."  

    

Include, Preclude, Exclude--What's a Clude? by Karla Stover

 

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The more I read and the more I write, the more I am fascinated by words. I know that the English language has adopted words from many other languages: pajamas and bungalow from Hindu; alligator, burro and mosquito from Spanish; depot, chic and brunette from French; apartment, balcony and torso from Italian. But there are words out there that give me pause. Names, for example.

In the middle ages, when everything was hand written, names were shortened to save time and ink. Thus, Richard became Rich or Rick. And, at the same time, both letter swapping, and rhyming were popular so Richard to Rick to Dick, and William to Will to Bill. First names were also in short supply back then, so letter swapping allowed people to differentiate between others with the same name. It was common to replace the first letter of a name that began with a vowel, as in Edward, with an easier to pronounce consonant, such as T. That’s how Edward eventually became Ted.

Margaret to Meg sort of makes sense and Meg to Peg is in keeping with the practice of rhyming, but Margaret to Daisy? That’s a bit of a puzzler which no amount of research helped.

And the list goes on. However, when I got a paper cut this past week and needed a band aid, I wondered how “aiding” a “band” came to mean protecting my oowie. Here’s how:

In Old English, a bende was something by which someone or something was bound. At the same time, a bande was French for a strip, and bindan, was German for to bind. In old French, aide was a noun for help or assistance. Skip ahead to the 1920s, when Elizabeth Dickson, the wife of a Johnson & Johnson employee, came up with a band aid prototype for her various cuts, scraps, and burns. Her husband, Earle, then passed the idea on to J&J, which went on to produce and market the product as the Band-Aid. Earle rose to a vice presidency and J&J made a lot of money. Presumably, Elizabeth continued taking care of the house.

Another product I use a lot and whose name I found puzzling is Absorbine Jr. Why junior?

In 1892, a man named W.F. Young delivered cargo using a wagon and team of horses. During the day, his wife Mary took care of their home, and in the evening she cared for the horses. In those days, when a horse strained a tendon, muscle or joint, it was treated by “blistering.” Quoting "Wiktionary, "the practice of forming blisters on the skin, to promote blood flow and aid healing" since it was believed allowing more blood to enter the afflicted area through the skin helped the healing process.

The Youngs disapproved of this harsh method of treatment, and Mary, who was an herbalist, created a liniment of menthol, wormwood oil, and herbs in her kitchen as an alternative to blistering. She called her cream Absorbine Veterinary Liniment. “Ine” comes from the Greek and means “pertaining to” or “in the nature of.” Thus: a liniment that is in the nature of absorbing. The Youngs used it on their own horses and marketed it to neighbors. As its popularity grew, the couple founded W.Y. Young Company P.D.F. (I have no idea what P.D.F. stood for back then.)

So—things were going well; animal owners (and presumably their animals) were happy with the products. Then, Wilber and Mary’s son, Wilber F. Young Junior, suggested they create a version of the liniment for humans. Absorbine Jr. --the junior added in recognitions of its being their son's idea--was introduced in 1903 and is now a household staple.

Which brings us to clude. According to "Wicktionary,"  it is the “second-person, singular present active imperative of cludo. However, "Latin-is-simple.com" says its latin for limping, lame, defective/crippled/imperfect uneven/halting/wavering/uncertain. And Findwords.info” says it has no meaning.

How adding prefixes and suffixes to a non word is a mystery, and until I sold it, I must conclude.