So my daughter’s 14-day quarantine period is at last over! When she came downstairs this morning I was greeted by a sleepy smile, rather the usual groan at the prospect of facing yet another day of house imprisonment. Let me clarify that the quarantine rules in Poland are far stricter than in other places, such [...]
This post is dedicated to my daughter, and to all others who are currently undergoing quarantine and self-isolation due to COVID-19. When she first spotted the message on her mobile, sent by the quarantine police (as she liked to call them) scarcely an hour after arriving back home in Kraków in the middle of the [...]
In these pandemic times of rising fear and uncertainty, I thought I’d try to infuse at least one small drop of positivity into the worldwide panic that is spreading as fast as the coronavirus itself. Right now, at this unique time of history in the making, virtually all corners of the globe are united in [...]
A year and a half ago I came back from an international school reunion in Vienna and felt so deeply affected, I wrote a blog post about it. Now, eighteen months on, I’ve just come back from a smaller but equally moving reunion (same school, different location) and ... well, here I am again, writing [...]
Today is Fat Thursday in Poland. (Tłusty Czwartek to the Poles.) A day of over-indulging yourself with greasy, fatty, calorific donuts to your heart’s content. All bakery shops will be stacked mountain-high with them; most work places will be offering platefuls of the melt-in-your-mouth delights to their employees; practically every shop window will have a [...]
One difficult aspect about living in Kraków as a half-Pole, yet often feeling like an expatriate even after 20-plus years in this place, is that it’s hard to link up with other English-speaking book lovers such as myself. If I were back in Britain it would be easy. I’d probably be a member of two [...]
I should imagine that most of us at some point in our lives have woken up in bed with that horrible morning-after feeling. And I don’t mean a hangover. No, what I have in mind is that sudden whoosh of awareness, of unwanted memory after the final dregs of sleep have drifted into oblivion. That [...]
