A Quarantine’s Tale

A Quarantine’s Tale

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 [...]

Fat Thursday, Pancake Tuesday and all that Gluttony!

Fat Thursday, Pancake Tuesday and all that Gluttony!

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 [...]

The Morning After

The Morning After

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 [...]

New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve

It’s New Year’s Eve in Kraków,  1992. Club-footed photocopyist Leo has allowed his homeless friend Ania to share the evening with him in the warmth of his post-communist bachelor pad. But what he longs to do, once Ania finally goes, is to continue reading the diary of the mysterious Tamara, who left her book in his [...]