It's Gratitude Friday, a day when many bloggers, inspired by Diana reflect on things for which we are grateful.

Today, I’m certainly grateful that my blog is up and running again – Slow Travel blogs have been down all week with technical issues.

And I’m grateful that my car repair bill wasn’t any larger than the $1,500 I had to pay yesterday. Crikey – that was painful!

It made me wish I was driving Purple Ed, rather than my Toyota Tercel.

Purple Ed is, of course, one of the vintage trucks my brother has restored. I’ve been learning to drive a standard on Ed (named after his predecessor Old Ed, a beautiful cream-coloured light delivery truck sold in haste by my brother during a fit of pique.) However, as sturdy as Purple Ed is, my brother assures me that his upkeep would likely be even more expensive than my Toyota.

And, in fairness to my Tercel, which is 18 years old, I haven’t had to spend anything on her in 11 years. Seriously. Since I moved here 11 years ago, I have paid for semi-annual oil changes, a new battery once, and that’s it.

So I suppose I was due. But still. That $1,500 could have paid for my next flight to Italy and back, with enough left to cover my share of the rent of the house in Anghiari in June.

However, I am grateful the car repair bill wasn’t any larger. Now, I just hope the damn car continues to run.......

I’m going to Anghiari!

Well, not right away, of course. But I just paid a small deposit to rent a lovely house in Anghiari with a friend in June. (The second photo above is the view from the upper terrace.)

I realize that June 2010 is a long way off, and as much as I love planning trips, this is a bit extreme! But I need a lift. I find November depressing enough, and I’m still feeling exhausted after a bad flu bug last week. So anything happy and exciting – such as thinking about a trip -- is welcome.

I don’t know a great deal about Anghiari. However, I do know that it’s a small town near Arezzo, on the border of Tuscany and Umbria. So, the location sounds great for interesting day trips. I would love to see Arezzo again, and revisit Piero della Francesca’s stunning fresco cycle, The Legend of the True Cross.

I fact, I’d like to follow the informal Piero della Francesca trail, including seeing works in Sansepolcro, which is near his home village and located only about 7 kilometres from Anghiari. I would also love to do a day trip over the mountains to Urbino, the family home of the great Raphael.

I think this area must ooze great Renaissance art!

I am so sick. I haven't been this sick in a long time. Is it swine flu? I don't know. I don't care. I just feel wretched. But not so wretched that I can't whine about in my blog!

OK, I don't believe there is a real connection between Piglet and swine flu; that's probably just one of the millions of misconceptions floating around about the virus. That said, I hope that my neighbours don't show up at my door with flaming torches to rid the building of my pestilence.

Actually, after a really wretched night, I now feel more calm. So long as I don't try to eat or drink or move (fingers flying over the keyboard don't count.) I think I have a fever but I can't be bothered to dig out the thermometer to find out.

If this flu was caused by one of those little piggies, I'm impressed by their ability to seek out my weak points. Amazingly, as the virus got its grip on me yesterday afternoon, it zeroed right in on every place in my body that causes me pain: it has completely settled into the tight spot on my lower back and has my ongoing neck and shoulder problems utterly in its evil grip.

I'm actually not that bothered by the nausea and all that goes with such matters, but the throbbing in my neck that burns all the way up my head -- now that bothers me.

Oh well. I'll live. But I'm beginning to think I'd like to see those little piggies turned into pancetta.

It has been a while since I've written about a book I've loved, but I recently finished this short novel by Canadian author Steven Galloway and was extremely impressed.

The story is riveting. Carefully and cleverly told, this novel conveys a powerful sense of what daily life in a war zone would be like, and the emotional challenges that one would be forced to deal with. It's also a story about the enormous importance of art -- in this case, music -- in every day life. As the author said, in an interview, it's about the necessity of "art and music ... to remind us of our innate humanity.”

And although this particular story is set in the early 1990s in the city of Sarajevo, in the former Yugoslavia, in some ways I think a similar story could be told almost anywhere during any war.

For I imagine that the enormous difficulties that people under siege would face trying to cope with daily life -- from finding clean water and food while navigatating treacherous streets, to living without heat and electricity -- would be somewhat similar, no matter the war.

And the very big question -- how do you retain some of your humanity under such enormous threats -- would also be universal.

The novel is fiction based on a few facts. During the siege of Sarajevo there really WAS a cellist, who in 1992 saw from his apartment window a mortar attack that killed 22 people as they waited in line outside to buy bread. In commemoration, he decided that each day for 22 days, he would sit outside on the very spot where the deaths occurred, and perform the mournful, stately Adagio in G Minor.

The cellist put himself at enormous risk. During the siege of Sarajevo, over approximately two years, troops fired on civilians trapped in the city. Hundreds of men, women and children were killed while they were shopping, tending gardens, fetching water from the river or otherwise trying to go about their daily lives.

The rest is of the novel is fiction, involving three different residents of the city who are trying to survive, and are all brought together in some way by the cellist. One character is a young woman who becomes a sniper, first to defend her city and later to defend the cellist whose performances are bringing people together and helping them reconnect with their humanity. Which is exactly what the attackers, described only as "the men in the hills" are trying to destroy.

The novel doesn't ever assign nationalities or religions or political tags to any of the people in the novel. The main characters are simply referred to as Sarajevans, facing their common enemy in the hills who are trying to destroy the multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan centre.

A very good friend of mine escaped Sarajevo in the earlier days of the siege, when she was a university student. She recently read the novel and was amazed at how well it captured the sense of the city, the people, the life she used to know.

I've just returned from an eventful week visiting family and friends in Alberta. There was much cooking (including a fantastic pound cake from Gina de Palma's Dolce Italiano cookbook); much eating; way too much unseasonably early snow; and far too much time sitting in Emergency with my elderly Mom who is fine but scared me half to death with a potentially dangerous nosebleed.

I also helped my brother build a kitty playhouse for the adolescent and oversized Timothy (nothing like the Martha Stewart house pictured above) and had my butt very badly kicked by a group of senior citizens-- several in wheelchairs -- during a game of shuffle bowl.

So, after all that, I'm now feeling a bit let down and even a bit bored with my regular routine.

The scariest part of the visit was sitting for 10 hours in Emergency with my Mom, who insisted she felt fine and was not pleased that I stuck a tampon stuck up her nose to staunch what could have been a serious nosebleed. But it worked well, and ultimately, the Emergency room doctor supported my action and left it in, just to be safe.

But poor Mom. She has been on blood thinners, necessary to prevent strokes but potentially dangerous. It's hard to get the dosage just right and recent blood tests showed her levels dangerously high; that is, her blood had become far too thin, meaning any bleeding could potentially be fatal. So when she developed a slight nosebleed last week, her local doctor sent us straight to the nearest hospital Emergency room, a 45-minute drive away from the small town where Mom lives.

Mom was feeling just fine, so the long wait in Emergency really irritated her. However, I stand by my decision. Her dosage of blood thinners is being adjusted and closely monitored.

Mom was very pleased, however, that I played shuffle bowl (a cross between bowling and shuffleboard) one afternoon with 16 of her friends at the senior's home where she now lives. I placed about 10th, well back of the winner, a very aggressive elderly lady who leaped out of her wheelchair to punch the air when she won the game. I was bitter over the loss, but I think I hid it well.

Meanwhile, my brother Robert has been feeling so bad over the recent death of Mrs. Cat, that he convinced me to help him build a kitty playhouse out of cardboard boxes for young Timothy. He's another feral cat that arrived in the summer as a kitten, and has stayed on. He's been bored, however, with Mrs. Cat gone and so Robert decided Timothy needed a playhouse. However, Timothy is a big boy and keeps getting stuck in the doorways (I should have carved them larger.) Perhaps I should have followed a formal plan, something like the blueprints that Martha Stewart is selling on the Internet. However, that seems a bit much -- do we really need formal Martha Stewart blueprints for a cat playhouse????

I did closely follow Gina de Palma's blueprints for her ricotta pound cake, and it was extremely delicious. I love pound cake, but this recipe is extra-good. Even Robert (who is a very picky eater) loved it, as did the rest of the family. I borrowed Jerry's photo, and his idea of adding cherries to the basic recipe. Yum!!!

During my visit, I did a lot cooking, which I enjoy -- roast beef one night, and a roast turkey for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I ran out of time before I could try a few other recipes, like Letizia's pizza.

We had quite a lot of snow, which shouldn't be a surprise in western Alberta in October, but it was still a drag. I am so not ready for winter!

In Canada, Thanksgiving comes this Monday, Oct. 12. However, I'll be taking a short break from blogging over the next several days, so I'll jump the gun now to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

It's Gratitude Friday, a day when many bloggers, inspired by Diana, think of things for which we are grateful.

Tonight, I'm feeling a lot of sadness, but also a great deal of gratitude for my short but interesting friendship with Mrs. Cat. She died Wednesday, alone and in pain, and that haunts me.

So I'll think about the good times instead. Mrs. Cat, a stately Tuxedo cat, was adopted by eldest brother Robert several years ago. Her past was a great mystery -- she was feral, probably middle-aged even then. She skulked around his workshop for some time, painfully thin and suffering some nasty wounds. Clearly she had been on the run for some time and always remained quite nervous and jumpy, even after she allowed us near her and then gradually, took over. I suspect she didn't have much of a kittenhood; she never learned how to play, and her awkward attempts in her senior years clutched at my heart. She was terrified of brooms.

She and Robert got along extremely well. He adores animals and Mrs. Cat really became Mrs. Fat, very sleek and I think very happy. He will be heartbroken when he learns this news.

I still laugh at the memory of one near-disaster a few years ago when I was visiting. My brother had several lawn chairs and an old rocking chair on his back deck and one very sunny morning I was sitting with a coffee and Mrs. Cat settled in beside me, stretched out to her full length on the very hottest spot that she could find.

My elderly Mom came out with her coffee and was just about to sit in the rocking chair -- which she loved -- when I saw that, naturally, Mrs. Cat had arranged herself such that her tail extended under not one, but both of the rockers.

I yelped and Mrs. Cat, likely terrified, was off the deck in a single bound, just as my mother sank into her chair, sending the rockers forcefully rolling back exactly where Mrs. Cat's tail had been. That could have been extremely unpleasant. Especially for the poor cat!

My brother Robert is a truck driver and was on the road this week, so I don't know yet now long Mrs. Cat had been sick. My younger brother Kelly found her yesterday lying outside, very ill and shaking. He wrapped her in a blanket and tucked her inside because he had to take my mother to see her cardiologist about heart tests result (thank God, all is well on that front.) But when he returned an hour later, Mrs. Cat was dead. It's not clear what the cause was.

I'm glad I had the chance to know her, at least for a short while.

Welcome back to Gratitude Friday, a time of the week when fellow blogger Diana urges us to set aside a few moments to reflect on some of the things in our lives for which we are grateful.

Last week, my friend Mary posted about her feelings of gratitude for many wonderful guests that have visited her family's elegant country inn in central Umbria, Genius Loci. Today, I'm thinking -- with much gratitude -- of several wonderful days I spent there in June.

Genius Loci is in a gorgeous spot in the hills above Bevagna and Foligno, with Montefalco and Spello and Assisi all in sight. Mary's son Michael is a fantastic host, as manager of the inn, and her entire family really make guests feel right at home.

Each guest room was carefully decorated by Mary with beautiful antiques, like the large, curved wardrobe in my room, and lovely linens and very comfortable beds and bathrooms. Here are a few photos of my room, which was much more elegant and comfortable than these photos can convey.

Actually, this photo has nothing to do with my blog topic. I just liked it. It shows the fantastical facade of Venice's spectacular Basilica di San Marco.

It's Gratitude Friday, the time of the week when bloggers, inspired by Diana at Creative Structures, take a few moments to reflect on elements of our lives that we're grateful for.

Today, I'm reflecting on how really fortunate I am to have a well-paying, full-time job. Particularly in these times -- the latest stats suggest more than 6 million Americans and about 1.6 million Canadians are unemployed. That is a lot of people without work, and presumably without incomes -- and these numbers likely don't even reflect the total ranks of the jobless.

I'm also reflecting on how really fortunate I am to be able to write for a living. Imagine that -- I'm paid to think, and write. Not always in that order.

Occasionally, I'm required to put together Power Point presentations, which I dislike doing. I think Power Point is the work of the devil, but that's irrelevant.

I write, therefore I am (and eat, and travel.)

I've been going through some of my photos from my June trip to Italy, which included a week in Bologna, and a sweaty day walking under the 666 porticos that form the Portico di San Luca, which leads from the city's centre up, up, up to the very beautiful Sanctuary of the Madonna of San Luca (Santuario della Beata Vergine di San Luca.)

The 4-kilometre climb up the Colle, or Monte dell Guardia, was pretty grueling as the humidity level in the Emilia-Romagna region is extremely high, even when one is shaded from the sizzling sun by the porticos.

But I had read Girasoli's description of the climb and the sanctuary, and was anxious to see it for myself. (I urge you to check out the link to her blog, Girasoli's photos are always fantastic!)

Along the way, I found some interesting art, icons, and tiny chapels tucked into a few of the arches on the route up.

And at the top, the views were fantastic.

For centuries, pilgrims have made this journey, seeking a miracle from the venerated Black Madonna -- an icon attributed to St. Luke, according to one legend -- which is housed in the beautiful and peaceful Sanctuary church. The church also boasts some wonderful art, including paintings by Guido Reni (a local boy who has an entire room devoted to his work, in Bologna's Pinacoteca Nazionale.)

According to Wikipedia (the source for the top photo) the monumental roofed arcade was built between 1674 and1793, and was meant to protect the icon as it was paraded up the hill. A yearly procession proceeded from the church of San Pietro in the center of Bologna up to the Sanctuary along this path.

Apparently, a church or chapel of some kind has existed atop the hill for about a thousand years.

Diana has challenged her fellow bloggers to take time each Friday to reflect on things that we are grateful for, and most of us take the high road. I've written about many, many things that have made my life rich: my family, my friends, the many travel opportunities I've enjoyed, good health.

Today, I'm thinking with much gratitude about things that make me smile, and laugh. Alas, this is where I step down from the high road to talk about something that makes me smile because it's rather silly.

This Annunciation, by Bologna artist Pietro Faccini, hangs in Bologna's Pinacoteca, or picture gallery, and when I saw it in June, I found it so silly that I actually burst out laughing.

Instantly, I pictured this painting on the cover of a steamy, bodice-ripper novel -- Women Too Beautiful for Their Own Good, perhaps. Gone with the Baroque Wind. Women who Fly With The Angels.

The rich, fancy clothes, the extremely exaggerated movements -- all seemed too over-the-top. And what about that turtle? The turtle really intrigues. Does he represent wisdom, which is otherwise lacking here? Did the artist misunderstand "turtle-dove" and think his patrons wanted a turtle AND a dove in the piece?

But honestly, to me this painting is over-wrought, perhaps over-ripe, so much so that I couldn't resist snapping a photo to document: Good Ideas Gone Bad. (BTW, I did NOT use a flash, I never would in an art gallery.This room was very bright -- all the better to see the oh-so-lush details!)

This piece was painted in about 1600, perhaps a point where the Renaissance had been left on the stove far too long and was beginning to scorch. Perhaps Faccini should have known better, because I believe he is a serious, recognized artist whose works hang in the Louvre in Paris and in Rome's Capitoline Museums (where he has a nice sketch of a dog in a field.)

I think this particularly caught my eye because generally speaking, I'm very fond of depictions of the Annunciation. Often, they're very, very beautiful -- such as these below painted by the great master Fra Angelico.

The first, a fresco in a main corridor in San Marco in Florence, was painted around 1450. The second, an Altarpiece of the Annunciation, was painted between 1430-1432, and now hangs in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain

In sum, I am always very, very grateful to Fra Angelico, for his many works that I find so very beautiful.

And, today I really should thank Faccini for making me smile, when I see his take on the Annunciation.

Okay, so it has a been a while since I wrote headlines for a living. But unlike a lot of tabloid headlines, this one is kind of true.

Restoration experts at the National Gallery of Canada have fixed up and fit together four very large fragments of this major altarpiece, originally painted by Paolo Vernoese around 1563 near Venice. Last weekend, I finally saw the restored and reunited Petrobelli Altarpiece on display at the National Gallery and it's a wondrous sight.

The Gallery has also done a smashing job on its website, carefully explaining -- in video and text -- the history of this beautiful work, how it came to be broken up and sold in pieces during the 18th century, and all of the careful restoration work as well as the efforts to piece it all back together, more than 200 years later.

Here's a link to the Gallery website, and to videos including a very interesting demonstration and explanation by Stephen Gritt, Chief Conservator at the National Gallery, of the physical history behind one very large fragment of Veronese’s work, The Dead Christ Supported by Angels.

The above photo is of another one of the four fragments, the face of the archangel Saint Michael, who appears in the restored altarpiece with one foot on a slain dragon.

According to the National Gallery website, the enormous altarpiece was commissioned around 1563 by the cousins Girolamo and Antonio Petrobelli, who wanted it for display in the church of San Francesco in the small town of Lendinara, near Venice.

"They turned to Paolo Veronese, a celebrated painter with strong ties to the region. The cousins hoped that the spectacular work would seal their status as one of the leading families in the town," according to the National Gallery.

"Set above the altar in their burial chapel, Veronese’s painting shows the two men protected by their name saints. The cousins are privileged to witness a miraculous apparition, a foretaste of the future: the archangel Saint Michael, who will weigh the souls of the dead at the Last Judgment. Above, we see the dead Christ, who according to Christian tradition died to redeem mankind. Veronese offered his patrons a compellingly realistic depiction of a visionary scene, and captured the hope of the faithful Christian for salvation."

In the late 18th century, the church of San Francesco was demolished, and the Petrobelli altarpiece sold. An art dealer, seeking to maximize his profit, divided up the painting into four pieces. Their history was quickly forgotten, and the fragments eventually came to rest in public collections in England, Scotland, Canada, and the United States. Close examination of the fragments, years of study, and careful restoration were needed to reconstruct the altarpiece’s original form.

Inspired by Diana many bloggers have been taking time on Fridays to think about things that we're grateful for. This week, I've been thinking, with much gratitude, about my yoga classes. Now, I'm not very good at yoga. I'm not naturally flexible and as I approach 50, I seem to be getting a bit less flexible all the time. I work out at the gym five days a week, but I've focused most of my attention on cardio with some weight training.

However, I'm coming to realize that I need more balance, in every sense of the word. So last year, I began to drop into yoga classes. Not often, perhaps once a week. This week, for a change, I tried a hot yoga class and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I don't really like heat, and at 90 minutes and about 100 degrees F, it's pretty intense.

Yet I found the heat also helped me move into poses and hold them more easily. Strangely, it was also really relaxing, perhaps because I was so focused on how hot the room was, that I forgot about everything else!

The more yoga I practice, the more I can feel my shoulders and arms, and my core becoming stronger. Which is important; I'm not trying to cheat age, but I would like to be strong enough to stay healthy and be able to lift a heavy suitcase (is there any other kind?) onto a Trenitalia train for many more years to come!

BTW, this photo is from the Dominion Post in New Zealand showing a five-year-old trying the 'basket' pose.

Inspired by Diana many bloggers have been taking time on Fridays to think about things that we're grateful for.

I've also been inspired this week by my friend Letizia whose recent post about her mama is especially poignant.

So today, I'm thinking about how very grateful I am that my Mom, who turned 83 in February, is still enjoying her life despite many setbacks she has faced in recent years. Since moving into a seniors' home (which she loves) 18 months ago, Mom is spending much more time now with her sisters, including my auntie Jean, in the centre of the above photo. I think that makes them all happy.

I'm also very, very grateful for my brother Robert, also in this photo taken at Mom's birthday party last February. Rob is 10 years older than me, and an ideal big brother. He's very shy and gentle and loves animals far more than is good for him. Feral cats know that as long as he's around, they have a home and all the cat chow they can consume.

The June day when I visited the small Umbrian hill town of Todi was unusually cool and rainy. I did, briefly, work up a sweat climbing up, up, up from the parking lot to the main square, the Piazza del Popolo. I suspect this is a beautiful medieval piazza -- most of the time. Alas, the Sunday morning when I was there, the piazza shook with the sounds of a motorbike competition.

The entire square had been turned into a track and an unbelievable din was created by the roar of the motorbikes. The noise bounced off the three stunning buildings that all face the piazza -- the Palazzo del Capitano, the Palazzo del Priore and the Palazzo del Popolo -- as well as Todi's Duomo.

I have read that this piazza is one of the most picturesque in all of Italy and is often used as a movie set. I believe that, although I couldn't get a good sense of this from my one visit. Further, Todi has been dubbed the world's most livable city, based on a report in the early 1990 by Richard S. Levine, a professor of architecture at the University of Kentucky, who chose Todi as the model sustainable city, because of its scale and its ability to reinvent itself over time.

I didn't hang around the square long, but instead walked to the next hill and the church of San Fortunato, which is pictured above with reliefs from its unfinished facade. I found San Fortunato to be quite beautiful. Wikipedia reports that it was originally a 7th century Palaeo-Christian temple and two lion sculptures from its earliest days stand guard near the entrance portal.

I was intrigued by the reliefs showing humans, carved around the main doors.

The crypt beneath San Fortunato houses a sepulchre containing the remains of St. Fortunatus of Todi and other saints, as well as the tomb of Jacopone da Todi, a Franciscan poet.

Todi, which is incredibly hilly and steep, has many interesting sites but rain discouraged me from much exploring. I did get a chance to pop inside the beautifully domed Renaissance church of Santa Maria della Consolazione, which was begun in 1508.

The photo just above I borrowed from Bill Thayer's excellent Umbria website, because I loved the way it captures the steepled building of San Fortunato on the highest point of the hill while the domed building on the lower left is S. Maria della Consolazione.

Below are my closeups from the latter church.

The interior is much less spectacular than the exterior, but the apse is surmounted by a square terrace with four eagles at the corners, from which the dome rises. The altar houses a reportedly miraculous image of the Madonna, which, according to tradition, was discovered by a worker during early construction.