Madge Comes To Town!

Barbara: In our lucky blog-world, we haven’t had just one close encounter with a blog friend, but this week we will raise that number to three! We met Madge yesterday and will meet Mary-Jo on Thursday.

Madge is a LA-based blogger/writer and you’d know her well from our comments section here. Madge set herself an incredibly ambitious and exciting agenda—and we were happy to be co-collaborators in her big plan. She decided to take a kind of Artist’s Journey of discovery, a cross-North America tour, meeting bloggers and fellow writers that she’d connected with online, but didn’t know yet in “real life”.

Madge in Cabbage Town

Deb: First thing that struck me was how much I loved Madge’s speaking voice and I told her so. It is so interesting when you are blogging back and forth with people with just the typed word to represent them.  As we always refer to it as the writers “voice”, it is so wonderful to hear that voice out loud.

In The Beaches

Barbara: Exactly! So we spent the day with her yesterday and decided to make it an “explore Toronto” kinda day. When you show a newcomer your hometown, there’s always that double-edged thing of wanting to show it off and also wanting to see things you might not always get a chance to see yourself. As luck would have it, the weather was glorious and we were able to make several lovely stops as well as having a good drive around the parameters of the city.

Deb: The day was about getting to know each other with a backdrop of Toronto. Toronto was the forth character and it rose to the occasion on this warm, sunny spring day! In movies Toronto usually plays other cities in the world, but today it was Toronto. Outside of spring construction everywhere, it did us proud.

Barbara: We picked Madge up at her west-side hotel, then drove along the lake to the east side where we had lunch in Leslieville. Then we drove down to the Beaches, where we took a relaxing walk along the beachside boardwalk and then along the boutique-filled streets of Queen East. Then we drove northeast and discovered Cabbage Town (the largest collection of Victorian-era houses in North America). From there we drove over to Yorkville, which is Toronto’s downtown high-end area (with the Chanel, Escada and Tiffany, etc, boutiques). From there we went over to Casa Loma and took pics of the beautiful castle that a devoted husband—Sir Henry Pellat—built for his wife in the early 1900s. Then we went southwest back to Madge’s hotel’s district and enjoyed a yummy dinner and drinks on a rooftop patio.

Deb: At one point we were kinda feeling guilty about not taking her to the CN Tower. Barb and I had discussed it previous to the day and had no interest in going up again as we both have a height thing.  But ever the good hostess, Barb brought it up. Madge had NO interest (thank God!) and said that what we had shown her was right up her alley, so ... whew.

Barbara: When all was said and done, we’d managed a pretty good overview tour of the city and also gotten to know each other a whole lot better. It was a beautiful day of laughter, chat, sun and sights. Thanks, Madge, for making this a great visit and a great day!

Deb: I think it is just a fantastic idea this artist journey of yours, Madge. Thank you for your warmth and generosity. So lovely to meet you. Bon Voyage. 

(Barbara: Sorry, girls, my pix sucked, so these photos are all courtesy of Madge. Thank you!)