Sonnet The Vallances

Sonnet The Vallances




for Judy, Meagan, Holly, Mitchell all the Vallances

Here's Richard Vallance, Judy Harris Vallance,
Meagan Holly and Mitchell, nieces and nephew,
Bill Vallance, Donna too and a fine chance 
plenty more abound, and you know it's true.

Our family crest bespeaks of Normandie
where we lived our lives in lavish wealth
where we were crowned as ducal royalty
and never had to hide from court in stealth.

The King of France was our next of kin
and Notre Dame our angelic home,
where the chartreuse Seine quelled the city's din
silenced by our cathedral's holy dome.

And though you wonder why we're Scots by blood
the fleur-de-lys is our indigo bud.

Richard Vallance

October 14 2019

This is my family on my mother's side, as my full name is Richard Vallance Janke. We are in fact descended from the ducal family, De Valence, in Normandy and were related to the King of France in the thirteenth century.

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winter haiku d’hiver – this waterfall = cette chute d’eau

winter haiku d’hiver – this waterfall = cette chute d’eau

this waterfall
frozen solid in time –
our ice cathedral



cette chute d’eau
congelée dans le temps –
cathédrale de glace

Richard Vallance

Great Photos to Welcome us back home to Canada from our grand tour of central Europe!

Great Photos to Welcome us back home to Canada from our grand tour of central Europe!

After spending almost a whole month in Europe (25 days), starting first with Budapest, Hungary for 3 days, then continuing on to Vienna, Austria for 5 days, thence to Prague, the Czech Republic for a week, and finally on to Warsaw, Poland for our last 9 days, we are finally back home here in Canada, though as you can all well imagine, not without mixed emotions.  It goes without saying that this was such an exciting vacation, visiting so many astonishingly beautiful locales, we must both miss Europe terribly, all  the more so considering that we added side trips to 3 more magnificent cities, Salzburg and Krakow for Louis-Dominique and Gdansk for myself. What a totally unanticipated and unimaginably rewarding dream come true! Words simply cannot express our profound joy at visiting so many famous European cities, all of which date from the cradle of European, hence, Western, civilization.

While even photos cannot adequately express the profound spiritual impact these amazing venues had on us, they can at least offer you all a glimmer of the fantastic experiences that await you should you ever decide to do a grand tour of central & Eastern Europe yourself. Beginning with this post, I shall be posting 4 of my finest photos for each of the 6 cities we visited, from the approx. 6,000 (!) I took during our voyage. You are going to love them!

So let us start with Budapest, Hungary: Click each photo to ENLARGE it:

1. Budapest Parliament Florentine cupola:

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2. Budapest Parliament by night:

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3. Saint Matthias church with location and detail of weather vane:

4. Budapest Museum frieze:

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5. Budapest cathedral frieze: Ego sum via veritas et vita = I am the way, the truth and the life.

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6. Danube River with Budapest Chain Bridge from our night cruise boat:

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Richard