Packing away my grandmother’s spectacles I came across this piece of embroidery. My father had obviously packed away her things when she died and gave them to me many years later. But I never really looked closely until now. I remember this cushion and I always knew she had embroidered it. There were some others […]Read Post ›
Today is the winter solstice. Only 8 point something hours of sunlight – but actually that would be a lot more than on other days if we actually had some sunlight. Luckily I’m not a farmer and don’t have to work outside. The weather usually actually makes no difference to me whatsoever. Except rain. I […]Read Post ›
For M Today is St Barbara’s Day. My namesday, as we post-war Poles say, or nameday as it apparently should be said. I only found that out yesterday whilst out celebrating this chance occasion. In Poland the custom of celebrating your name on the day of the Saint in the catholic calendar is actually much […]Read Post ›
About 35 years ago I was teaching in a boys’ school in West London, which was an experience in itself. The school was very rundown and staffed mostly by supply teachers like me, with very few resources. I was working there because it was across the road from where I lived. I had two small […]Read Post ›
This lovely picture is of my grandmother, Helena Łomnicka and my aunt, Alicja, taken after they were freed from Siberia and had recovered a little in Teheran before they were sent to the Lebanon in about 1944 or 5 Today is the 10th anniversary of my aunt’s death – I have written about her before […]Read Post ›
This is my grandfather as I never knew him. He was born in 1878 and died during the Second World War, a captive in Siberia. His story is a very interesting one, but one which I shall leave for another day. Today I was thinking about him as I was wrapping parcels to send […]Read Post ›
For LP Over a week has passed since Holocaust Day. 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz there is a great danger that people are forgetting – indeed some of us cannot remember, because we did not live through those times then – but that is splitting hairs. You do not have to witness everything […]Read Post ›
I don’t really know how I managed to forget to write about this place when I was writing about our four day trip to Kraków. We had gone to Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter of Kraków, not to do anything as exciting as sightseeing but to change my battery in my phone, which had been […]Read Post ›
Friday 3rd January. Having recovered from the excitement of the night before, I waited in forthe dishwasher man to arrive to mend my machine. A burly young Romanian, he could hardly fit into our kitchen – but he managed. He spent over an hour fixing the machine, keeping up a good line of chat and […]Read Post ›
Sunday in Kraków was cold. The hotel (Hotel 32) breakfast room was strangely laid out and we felt we had to keep on running backwards and forwards to get everything we needed, but the food itself wasn’t bad. we had lunch to go to anyway as we were going to meet a friend from my […]Read Post ›
Life Through Basia's Eyes 