On behalf my husband, my fellow co-chair, we would like to say thank you for the kind invitation to join you on your voyage without parallel, The Globe and Mail’s Mediterranean Odyssey. Your cover letter and 8 page colour brochure arrived in the mail last week with an impressive quote from Homer’s Odyssey on the front. Nice touch.
It is of great comfort to us to recognize that in times of great economic decline, some of the best minds on your editorial team will be wining and dining throughout the Mediterranean’s most lavish ports of call on Conde Nast Traveler’s best small ship cruise line next August.
Unfortunately, we will be unable to attend this luxurious voyage. Given the rough economic times, the passage prices ranging from $9,999-$31,449 per person are just a tad bit too high next year for our travel budget. Instead, we plan to hike for free on the trails of the Oak Ridges Moraine, dining on gourmet peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Perhaps Beppi Crosariol would be able to recommend a wine pairing.
Recognizing your kind offer, we thought it only polite to extend an invitation back to you and your editorial staff to enjoy a ‘staycation’, a voyage without parallel to the wild frontier north of Toronto known as ‘The 905′.
A special itinerary has been created to truly reflect the best of suburbia. Here are some highlights:
Imagine
Our small patch of suburban terra firma can seem underwhelming at first. After parking on the driveway, which eats up one-third of the backyard, you will find a small patio area sided by two brick walls and a dilapidated fence to the rear. Lisa Rochon will be ecstatic to discover the impressive attempts to intentionally disguise the brick and fence box architecture with anything that grows.
Fine Dining
Dine al fresco and find the fully equipped kitchen just inside the back door. Beppi Crosariol and Lucy Waverman are most welcome to bring groceries and we can all pretend we are in Tuscany. There will be no fee to use the kitchen if they prepare enough fare for everyone.
Things to See and Do
We offer two activity packages for your entertainment. The Relive Childhood Package provides a thrilling trip down memory lane and is a perfect editorial team building exercise on a hot summer day, especially if there is a pollution and heat advisory. Bring bathing suits, hook up the sprinkler, and take turns skipping through to cool down. Elizabeth Renzetti can enthuse on the hidden meanings in driveway chalk drawings. Chalk supplies will be complimentary if you agree to pay the fine for turning on the sprinkler during water restrictions.
Green thumb editorial staff will enjoy our Historical Perspective Botanical Garden Tour highlighting exciting backyard events from the past: the Projectile Cherry Tomato Fiasco of 1998; and the Overhaul Everything Project of 2003. Christie Blatchford will be captivated by the twists and turns of the most recent litigation known as Homeowner v. The Raccoon, regarding eco-friendly grass-keeping practices that have not kept pace with nocturnal turf assaults.
Excursions
Eric Reguly is most welcome to conduct an exclusive evening tour of the conservation area nearby where of sharp-shinned hawks conduct nightly ambush raids on the nests of red-winged blackbirds.
These are but a few examples of our hospitality as we provide your team with an odyssey to remember in the breathtaking scenery of the 905 suburban jungle.
We hope you can join us.
Yours truly,
Jane
I’m so rude!!! I/we too were invited and I never thought to RSVP or reciprocate. Guess we owe countless apologies to Paul Davenport of Western who continues to invite us somewhere almost every two weeks; and then there’s Ed Mirvish’s people and the JLC’s people and the Sanderson Centre people and, of course, the crew at AirTransat…it will take well into the new year to convey my apologies to all that I’ve ignored.
enjoyed the piece