Being deprived of any sort of holiday this summer has made me ... well, kind of nostalgic. Dreamy. Yearning for a summer of long ago. A balmy, sexy summer back in communist Poland of the 1980s, deep in the heart of the Tatra mountains. And here’s the weird thing. It’s a summer I never even [...]
Is it something about the month of June? Is it the heat? The provocative birdsong? Is that why these wayward memories have been taking me down meandering lanes I haven’t trodden in years? So here’s one that’s been assailing me today. One from 25 years ago, when I was dizzily, crazily in love. Ah, those [...]
Monk and schoolgirl? Hmm, that title sounds a bit naughty, now I come to think of it. Maybe I should change it. But you must believe me when I say it’s honestly not meant to be naughty. It’s just meant to convey the bitter-sweet pangs of young love, from a dewy-eyed schoolgirl’s point of view. [...]
I wrote this poem one Valentine's Day many, many years ago, when my heart was full of longing for a forbidden love. I never sent it to the man in question, because ... well, I just didn't. I couldn't. So here it is now, several decades late. Wonder if he'll finally read it? LOST LOVE [...]
I’m staring out of my frosted kitchen window right now, gazing at the white-coated garden that has been rendered Siberian after last night’s heavy snowfall. And while drinking in the wintry scene, I’m remembering another freezing February day, all of four decades ago and a thousand miles away from where I am now, as I [...]
Here's a not-your-average Christmas story. I should know. I was there. The crackling strains of Silent Night filled the room from the antiquated radio. It was a German recording of Silent Night, very close to the original score that had been composed by Franz Xavier Gruber in December 1818. ‘Could you turn it louder?’ I [...]
It all happened one Halloween night, when the silver steeples and pinnacles of Kraków gleamed in the light of the full moon, and the stars shivered from on high. In the midst of this chilly world sat my Uncle Dariusz, huddled in the twelfth-century tower atop St Mary’s church, getting ready to open the window [...]
