Thursday, May 10, 2007

VF FIVE PILGRIMS TO ROME - IN PRINT!!

Halleluiah! I collected our books today!

When we returned home from walking the ViaF I downloaded all the entries posted onto this blog whilst we were away. The blog posts needed numerous spell checks (all those foreign keyboards resulted in many odd spellings!) so I printed out three hard copies - each one was edited by each of us in turn; then I re-formatted the chapters which meant re-checking and editing; added Val's Food Report - re-editing - choosing from over 2 000 photopgraphs - re-checking - and the final product was copied onto a CD and taken to the printers a month ago. And today - almost 10 months since our return, I collected the finished product - our beautiful "VF Five Pilgrims to Rome" book!
As with most 'first issues' there are a few mistakes - an upside down 'mirror image' photograph and a few skewed pages - and, the gremlins got in and rearranged the pages of the Food Report resulting in the new chapter colour page being in the wrong place. But, overall, we are thrilled with the result, a 130 page journal, written by all five as we walked the Via for 28 days.
We have each had a hard cover copy done for ourselves and a few soft-covered copies to give to family. We will send one to the new 'Confraternity of Pilgrims to Rome' which was recently formed in England and to the Via Francigena Association in Italy. We are planning on having a 'Book Lunch' soon!