"Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin." ( 'Listen with Mother', BBC, first broadcast 1950. One of the many bits of British social history I inherited from my late Denis.)
Several themes emerge - my return to blogging after a hiatus. More on that later.
Solo travelling. So, who do you tell?
My need to find a place for travel stories, research notes and photos.
My sidestep into the heady world of WordPress and my struggle to find a Blogger address (how can they ALL be taken?)
The role my friend Larry played in my return to writing online. Ellipses and Parentheses.
I started my first blog, on Blogger, in 2010. Titled Ancestral Roofs, it is a collection of research notes, photos and related enthusiasms about the built heritage of Ontario. It ended, or should I say slowed significantly, with the onset of the virus which curtailed road trips, and the death of my travelling companion in 2020. I'll not go on about it - I am proud of it, and of the fact that it grew from a personal journal to gather a following of like-minded folks, and the formation of some fine friendships.
From 2012 to 2014 when I was a truly dedicated volunteer with the Al Purdy A-frame Association, I created the blog In Search of Al Purdy. The bit I liked best was finding the local connections between Al's poetry and places I grew up in and around, a sort of 'literary tour of Al Purdy country.' As the restoration of the famous A-frame cottage on Roblin Lake led to the enormously important writer in residence program, the blog also became a newsletter of events and celebrations.
So, today. Bernini's Elephant and Other Stories is launched. Annoyingly, there are a gazillion blog names floating about the internet, and it appeared that all of my bright ideas had already been used. So I apologize in advance for the rather obtuse address reference to the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, in whose square stands the intriguing sculpture-plus-obelisk. Find me at https://sopraminervaelephant.blogspot.com/.
So, let's begin.