Blogging...

'Blog'
What a weird bobbly word that is! Until a few days ago, I had heard the word, and knew what it meant, and had even ventured into viewing a few. But it wasn't until I was incapacitated and housebound that I discovered how addictive and self indulgent this can be! I had been looking for a way to record my travels that included some of the sketches, and this week I had the enforced time and leisure to figure it out. It wasn't easy. I rate just above 'luddite' when it comes to doing anything more than Googling, checking mail and using my Publisher programme. It wasn't until five years after I had bought it that I was able to properly use that programme, and now it is the foundation of my card producing, poster producing, and sign producing life!

So I decided to try and list places and years... not so easy as senility sets in:
Tahiti, 2008

Churchill, Man. 2007

Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, 2007

Dominica, St. Lucia, Barbadoes, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 2005

El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, 2003

Curacao, Panama, Cocos Islands/C.R., Galapagos/Ecuador, Easter Island/Chile, Bolivia, Peru, 2001

Colombia, 2001

Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, 1999

Mongolia, 1998
China kite festivals, 1997

Australia, kite festivals 1997

China kite festival, 1996

Kite Festivals, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Texas, B.C., Alberta, Sask., Manitoba 1990-2000

New Zealand, 1984/85

Cozumel, Mexico 1983

West Coast of U.S. to Baja, Mexico 1982

Antigua and Barbuda, Guadaloupe, 1981

New Zealand 1979/80

Hong Kong, Thailand, Nepal, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, England 1977

Tours, France - French Immersion 1975

Paris, France - Art History 1974

England, Holland, Germany, Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal 1977

Mexico 1965

England, Denmark, Holland, France, Luxembourg, East & West Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Yugoslavia, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland 1961/62

WHEW!

I am exhausted!

I get stuck when I write down the places. I can't remember where I went in what years. I have to go to my recent photo albums and read the dates on my photos. Then I remembered it's not just the photos. There are the letter and postcards I wrote when I first left home to travel back in 1961. Those were the days when airmail was an expensive way to communicate - we wrote tight little letters on pale blue, tissue thin, pre-stamped 'aerograms' Each country had their own design, and I delighted in putting as much as I could on its foldup, one sheet page. Long distance phone calls cost a fortune and mothers went mad worrying about their 21 year old daughters wandering aimlessly through Europe on their own, clutching the latest travel guide 'Europe on $5 a Day' to their breasts. And in those post war days it was possible to exist... to eat and sleep and tour around for even less than that.

My solution to 'mother angst' was simple: I would send her a postcard every day. She would recieve them several weeks later, but they would be coming more or less consistently, thus allaying her worst fears. Unfortunately, had I been kidnapped by white slavers, this would hardly be current, but it kept her off my back. My mother, a classic packrat, saved every postcard, and every letter. I found them when I was visiting Winnipeg and rummaging through some old boxes. I was delighted to recall the adventures of the novice traveller.

The challenge is, is to remember where and when, But these early letters express the beginning of what became my dromophobia, an islomania.