Ring-a-ring-a-Ringley...

Sunday was a very warm slightly humid day, so we went for a walk along the canal and back through Ringley woods. It was lovely and I enjoyed it a lot. Such a pity the weekend is only two days long.

The wilt alternative...

Although I wouldn’t say it was my dream home, our little house in Farnworth is comfy and, since they put the insulation in, cosy. It’s big enough, except for the long thin crappy kitchen, it isn’t too full of junk and we have pretty much everything we need. Once I remove the bee hives from the front room, we’ll have space again, so all is looking good.

The yard, however, is another story. The house doesn’t face due south, so the amount of sun we get is limited and despite the wall now being as bright as I can get it, it is still chilly during the afternoon. This has affected the plants with the result that tomatoes are stunted and yellowing at the edges, the ogórek have wilted and died and some of the flowers are listless and slug food. This time last year we had a glorious crop of plants, all brought on in the garden of my parents and strong enough to survive – until the rain blighted them all away – in a sun-free yard.

It’s an almost desperate task to bring plants to maturity. The greenhouse we put up on the allotment is almost complete and I am frantic to get some of the tomatoes into it to try to get them growing properly again. Going out every morning to inspect is a sad and depressing job, as they don’t seem to be growing or even looking any stronger week on week. I’d like an allotment of our own but I read a piece in the Manchester Evening News this week that said the waiting list in Bolton was around three years. So far we’ve done three months or so. A few years back you’d walk straight onto a plot, not now. What irritates me is those people who have taken on plots in times of low demand are still managing to hold on to them despite long waiting lists. Surely it’s one each and those who have two, three or more should give them up.

One alternative is a community plot but I’m not convinced that’ll be a good thing. Have to find out more about it. Until then, I guess it’s struggle on and do what we can. Learn from experience and try to do better next year. It’s a depressing thought, though, no tomatoes for a second year.

As there are no photos of plants to look at, here's a couple of us putting up the greenhouse on the allotment.

Four candles...

When I bought the two spare hives from Matlock they came with a lot of frames with old foundation in. Gradually, over the weeks, I have been clearing it out of the frames and putting it into a big tub. I decided, after taking advice at Stoneleigh, to melt it all down and get it ready to exchange for something useful.

So it was, on a dreary Sunday morning, I took out our best saucepan and filled it with a little water, put it on the gas and warmed it up. As it warmed I added some of the old comb and started to melt it down. It’s amazing how much comb can melt down into such a small amount.

Using a plastic herring tub from Lidl, an old tin that once held Cadbury Heroes and a pair of tights we managed to turn a load of dusty and spider-web-ridden comb into a selection of wax moulds. I’m quite pleased at the result and hope that subsequent melting days will be easier, quicker and, from a cleaning-up point of view, decidedly less messy.

Take a box of old comb...

Melt in your best pan until liquid...

Get the wife to donate her old tights and then burn her fingers on hot wax...

Produce a selection of odd-shaped blocks of wax for various uses later.

The only mould I have specifically for wax and which you can buy for £1 a 1oz block.

Stoneleigh and the bee show

Saturday 19 April saw the UK’s premier bee keeping event at Stoneleigh in Warwickshire. As I am new to beekeeping and mildly curious we (yes, I made Agnieszka go too) got up at 5am to make sure we were in Sale on time to get the coach. Only a dozen people went from Manchester – six didn’t turn up – which seemed a poor show, but left plenty of room for us.

The show is at the National Agricultural Centre, south of Coventry, and we arrived just after 9am. Even at that hour there were plenty of people scurrying about, armed with hive parts and tools, bee suits and wax. On entry, we handed over our tickets and got wrist bands to wear, which Agnieszka managed to stick to my arm hairs, giving me something to moan about for the rest of the morning. Inside was a warren of different rooms all chock full of bee keeping equipment: hive parts, tools, smokers, suits and associated paraphernalia. After being shoved and buffeted by tweeed-clad middle classes - who are always the rudest, despite their ‘breeding’ - we found a stall selling mead. A short while and three taster glasses later, we felt mellow enough to continue…

About the only thing I bought was a Fresnal lens to help spot the bees.
The mania that was the Thorne's offers. Talk about territorial and aggressive...

Bee suits now come in any colour you like, at £98 a pop.

And equipment to extract and process honey - this one is four grand, and it's on sale!

Outside were tents to exchange wax, melted down at home, for foundation to use in the hive for the forthcoming season.

Any mould will do, these look like they were melted into buckets.

Once the wax is melted and rolled into sheets it can then be used in the hive for the bees to re-fill with honey.
Someone making skeps in the traditional way. A relatively quiet corner, away from the hubbub of commerce and frenzied buying.

Photos, as ever, by Agnieszka - dziękuję serdecznie.

Peaks and tarts

I’m a relative newcomer to the world of e-bay. I don’t understand how people can spend hours and hours on the site looking for things. I agree that if you want something specific, then it’s a good way to start, but just trawling what there is for the sake of it… no thanks. I'm reminded of the poem about the tinker's wife, by Patrick Kavanagh: 'I saw her on the dunghill debris / Looking for things.'

I have, however, been watching it avidly over the last few weeks in the hope of picking up some bargains for a second, or even a third, hive. This has meant trying to gauge how good a piece of kit is and then decide how much I am prepared to pay for it, all from – often blurred – photographs. The first couple of bits I bid on went for way over what I was prepared to pay, so I lost them. The same thing happened on a full hive I was bidding on, that went for quite a lot too. I think one problem is that there isn’t that much available and when it appears, a lot of people – and most with more disposable income than me – are after it.

Still, I did finally bid on two hives and upped my bid in the last five minutes to get the lot. I was happy with the price and it meant I would have at least one extra hive of decent quality (I hoped) with a few spare bits too. As the following day was Good Friday and I was off, we decided to jump in the car to collect them and make a day of it. Unfortunately, the weather was still cold and very windy so the plan of a nice walk on the hills was scuppered.

The hives were down in Birchover, not far from Matlock. We allowed two hours for the journey and made it with a minute to spare. We were not helped by the slowly snaking line of traffic along the A6 through Stockport, Bramhall, New Mills and along, nor by the closure of the road after Buxton, which led to a detour and a heated discussion about maps and their reading. But we got there in one piece, eventually. Birchover is a small village with two pubs and a shop. A few stone-built houses lined the narrow, car-filled, main street. The guy I bought the hives from was only young and had changed type of hive because the new ones have a bigger brood body and this helps to over-winter bees, giving them more room to build up in the summer. This meant he was selling his old hives, which he had bought from someone else, and I was to benefit.

The two hives look ok, but do need a good clean

My two hives looked ok on first appearances. Slightly tatty, but serviceable. It’s only since I got them home that I’ve discovered the roof of one and a super have damp and rotted parts to them, but even so I still have enough to build a complete hive as a second, back-up one, plus I should be able to use what’s left as an ‘emergency’ hive. For swarms or something similar. I’m now spending my evenings sanding and cleaning, in readiness for scorching and treating with wood preservative before painting. I think they’ll be ok after that for a few years at least.

The new hive, assembled and waiting for bees

After this, with the car full, we decided to head into Bakewell and have a look around. It was very busy but not as busy as it could have been, had the weather been better. We went to a ‘craft fair’ and were talked into a bar of soap which the woman said could be used as air freshener as the aroma was so pungent. This is nonsense. It doesn’t smell unless you stick it almost up a nostril and I’m glad we didn’t listen to her claims about the other crappy products she had on sale. We dodged into the old scout hut to avoid some hail, and the remainder of our trip to Bakewell was spent popping into shops to get out of the rain. Not something we normally do, but nice to do now and again.

This week, the MEN reported that at least half a dozen people have had to be rescued off Kinder Scout because they lost their way, going up without maps or good boots. Maybe next time we venture out to the Peak District it’ll be fit for walking. For now we finished off in traditional style. Before leaving, to plod back up the A6, we bought a Bakewell pudding. Half got eaten in the car, half when we got back. Very tasty.

For Ewa

Dla Ewka.

Mam nadzieje, że gdieś jesteś, to jest dobre miesce. Ciepło i z słońcem. Spokojny śpi.

Easter brunch: a bit of breakfast, a bit of lunch...

We were talking at work and Helen, the secretary, asked if we had many eggs at home, in readiness for Easter.

‘We must have about thirty altogether,’ I said, thinking of the fridge full of them.

‘Not real ones,’ she screeched, ‘I’m talking about chocolate ones!’

Therein lies the difference between English Easter and Polish Easter. In Poland, the run-up to Easter is one of anticipation. Good Friday and Easter Saturday are days of fasting – in that they are days without meat – which makes the Easter breakfast all the more special. In England it’s just an excuse for a country with a high proportion of obese / greedy people to eat lots more chocolate. I have heard that some people start stuffing their faces with chocolate eggs on Good Friday. Why? Are people really so ignorant that they do not know what Easter is about? So how did we prepare? The week before we visited the Polish shop on Derby Street in Bolton and stocked up on white sausage and ham and then I popped around the corner from work to the Polish shop in Manchester to get more white sausage in case that wasn’t enough. I like the shop near work, it’s one where the girl doesn’t – or claims she doesn’t – speak English, so I am forced to remember words and practice what I know. She asked me on this visit if I wanted some cake but as Agnieszka had plans I had to say no. Who, in their right mind, would buy a dry and crappy shop-bought cake when they have a wife who makes succulent, tasty, moorish cakes at home? Not me. As part of the table decoration, Agnieszka crocheted some little chickens that looked very cute but didn’t understand they were supposed to sit on the eggs, they insisted on slipping off. The table was full on Easter Sunday: ham, sausage, boiled eggs, cheese, tomatoes, gherkins, onions and I baked some rolls so that we would have fresh bread. A bunch of daffodils added some further colour. My mum and dad were invited and arrived with their own chairs as we only have two. It was a lovely meal and made me look forward to a year that should be full of joy and, hopefully, less trials than the last one.
The cake was a roulade-type, made with honey and spread inside with yoghurt before being rolled and covered in chocolate. It was – because it didn’t last very long – one of the most succulent and tasty cakes I have ever eaten. Even so, it still comes second to my favourite – the apple cake. We haven't had one of those for a while... hint hint.

Wesołych Świąt Wielkanocnych!

From grim to Greece...

There's been an advert in the Manchester Evening News a couple of times now, for a 'smile' clinic somewhere in the city. It shows two photos of a smile. The first is of a badly-lit, miserable-looking gurning face, while the second is of a bright, cheesy grin with full-on flash. The people who run the clinic obviously believe that potential customers will look at the two photos and see a marked improvement because of the fantastic dental technique, rather than differently-staged pictures. I am reminded of a similar tactic, where they show two bodies in side view, one obviously breathing out, relaxed, with a big stomach bulging over too-tight trousers and the other of the same person sucking in for all their worth. This, the advertiser would have you believe, is all due to their amazing slim product / lycra corset / elastic trousers. They must think people are stupid. And, in fact, a lot of people are, otherwise these companies wouldn't have the money to pay for adverts in national newspapers.

With this kind of tactic in mind, I now present my new, upgraded, tarted-up, glam wall. What was once a dreary and drab pile of bricks - as you can see here:
Has now been transformed, as if by magic (by only the application of some 'wonder paint'), into something straight off a Greek island.
I hope to use this tactic in the future when we come to sell the house and by clever camera-work and lighting, turn our modest two bed terrace into a glitzy four bed mansion. At three times the market value of course. Cynical? Me?

Like a big game of Jack Straws...

We had a trip out to Ruthin in North Wales last week to collect my first hive. It was a wild and woolly day – appropriate for a day out across the border. The farm was easy to find and in a lovely setting, nestling under a stone outcrop and flanked on two sides by barns. The house dates back to 1500 or thereabouts and came complete with a range in the kitchen which was radiating heat like there was no such thing as global warming but a welcome respite from the chill winds of winter blasting across the fields.

We spotted a wheelbarrow full of bits when we arrived and, sure enough, this was mine. I would need to transform it into a working hive. This is what it looked like when we got it home:

Since then I’ve started to put it together and it looks ok, even if I do say so myself. The front room smells lovely, though, as the wood gives off a slight aroma which you catch every so often when you walk past.

A sting in the tail

The pedigree of honey

Does not concern the bee;

A clover, anytime to him

is aristocracy.

Emily Dickinson

One half of Manchester Beekeeper's apiary

This last weekend saw the second part of the beekeeping course with the practical side, following on from the theory I did at the end of January. A chance to put theory into practice and, looking back, an opportunity to make sense of all the things I’ve been reading over winter.

Quite a few people turned up and we were split into groups. First off for our group was extracting. Into the extracting room we went, uncapped the frames from two supers and loaded up the extractor, which would spin the honey out. This is probably the stickiest job I have ever done and it gets everywhere. We had to wear white coats, hair nets and overshoes for health and safety reasons, but the amount of finger-licking that was going on may have made those precautions pointless. Once extracted, we were able to bottle a jar of our own - harder than it sounds - and keep it as a souvenir. Mine is in the cupboard at home now, stuck to the shelf.

Using honey to glue things together

After a brew it was time to look at making brood boxes, supers and frames. This was particularly interesting for me as I bought plans for building a hive from scratch and up to now they haven't made much sense, although spilling coffee all over them didn’t help. It was useful to see how things go together and to get a few tips, but I did feel that some of the things were a little over the top.

After hammering away and glueing for an hour or so it was time for dinner and then it was 'put your bee suits on' and get outside. It may have been the beginning of March but it was as cold as a witch’s tit outside, with strong winds and little sun. I felt sorry for the bees as they were disturbed half a dozen times on each day and I’m sure being exposed to the cold wasn’t doing them any good. Plenty seemed to be dead on the floor and within minutes of us opening the hive more were rolling around in death throes.

First job was to light a smoker. Despite putting paper, leaves and little sticks in and my penchant for pyromania, I still couldn’t get it lit after three attempts. We resorted to the blowlamp to get it going in the end and that’s the way I’ll go from here on. Braving the wind we were then allowed to inspect a hive and, starting with a super, go through each frame and have a look.

Looking at an empty frame of foundation like I know what I'm doing

Because of the cold we were only able to look at two hives, both of which had queens that were either not laying, or were laying only drones. I think it was the cold that kept them quiet because there was hardly any movement on the frame and I had a small pang of nervousness as I lifted my first frame full of bees.

Looking for the queen

Actually getting to grips with the hive, taking it apart, checking for the queen (which I managed to find twice, despite her being unmarked), prising apart propolised frames and learning how all the bits fit together. What I need to do now is get my own hive and bees and start the whole process on my own. The more I get into it the more fascinating I find it and think it will be something I can get years of enjoyment from.

The view between two frames

Thanks to Vinny for the photos.

Farnworth jest fajne!

Having bought a great head of broccoli in Asda last Friday, we decided to steam it with a few potatoes and cover the lot in a cheese sauce. Agnieszka pointed out we only had ordinary cheese in the fridge, so I said I’d go to Aldi on Market Street and see if they had anything more interesting. They had. Gorgonzola for 99p.

I took it to the till. The girl looked at it, scanned it, looked at it again.

‘Is it alright, that?’ she asked, looking a bit wary.

‘It is,’ I said.

‘Is it supposed to be like that?’ She said, still looking closely at the packet.

‘It makes great cheese sauce,’ I said, wondering how long this would go on for.

She looked more closely, almost touching the packet with her nose.

‘But… but… it’s FURRY!’ She exclaimed.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘If it kills me, I won’t be back.’

I wandered home thinking about how it can be possible that people go through life not knowing about the delights of blue cheese. But then, this is Farnworth.

On a different note, after weeks of faffing, I finally finished pointing the wall. All that remains is to seal it with pva adhesive and then paint it white. The idea being that the sun, if we get any, will reflect heat and light into the yard and make it warmer and drier. That’s the theory anyway

What's brown and sounds like a bell?

There seems to be something of the ritual about our weekends at the moment. Saturdays we do little jobs, like shopping in shops other than the supermarket, and Sundays are for walks in the countryside. This last weekend was no different, although for some reason we were both awake and up around 8am. Not unheard of for us, but not the usual nine o’clock rising.

I love my weekends. They are a time when I don’t think about work and forget all about Manchester and the walk down Oxford Road. Instead I think of my life away from the job and my life with my wife. That is worth spending time on. Unfortunately, two days of a weekend is nowhere near long enough. Still, it’s all we have at the moment and we make the most of it.

That’s why, after coffee and breakfast, we headed first to Lidl – oh, such excitement on a Saturday morning – and then to Wynsors for me a pair of wellies. Five quid for a pair seems pretty good to me and I know they’re going to get plenty of wear. Plus they have elastic, rather than string, to attahc them to each other, so walking is not quite so restricted.

So what did we do at the plot? Well, the huge pile of dung is still just sitting there, smelling, sprouting non-edible mushrooms. While my dad put some on the rhubarb, me and Agnieszka got busy clearing the last large space.

Shovelling some shite.

Then moving it...

I piled some muck onto the cleared soil, then we covered it over. I think we’re pretty much ready now apart from small clearing jobs and then it should be the usual round of hoeing and light weeding. I found some arches made from pipe so I will attempt to make a small polytunnel to give the tomatoes a better chance this year.

Where the potatoes will go in a few weeks.

The apparent chaos that hides a well-tended allotment.

Roll me over, in the clover...

After the last few days it is hard to believe that last year was such a washout. The air has been clear and fresh, the ground white with frost and the days filled with bright sunshine. The nights do, however, get a bit cold, but only just under zero, not the minus twenty Polish winter that was a feature of the last couple of years.

Because of all the moving that went on in 2007, my parents’ allotment got a bit neglected. So we said we’d take over half of it and try to help them out while, at the same time, get somewhere for our own produce and therefore reduce the risk of a crappy non-existent tomato harvest like we had over the previous summer. The last couple of weeks have been perfect for gardening. The sun warms the ground and, by the time we manage to get there in the early afternoon, the earth has warmed up enough to allow for some gentle digging.

How it looked before we started.

Last week we managed to plant most of our onions, and our garlic and they are sitting there neatly in the freshly turned ground. Trenches have been dug for the potatoes and were filled with some of the steaming great pile of dung delivered during the week. We have plans to add tomatoes and beans and also add a couple of patches of flower colour, to attract a few hoverflies – which eat aphids – and bees – which pollinate the flowers of any fruit and vegetables.

Sharing the plot is ok, but not ideal and there have already been minor clashes about what we’re doing and where, but a smile and a nod of agreement keeps things cool before we go off and do our own thing again. If the weather holds over the summer then I am sure we’ll spend plenty of time on the plot. Not ours, but enough to whet the appetite.

From the first weeks of digging. Agnieszka in her plastic bag overshoes before we bought some wellies.

2008 and all that...

Already it is February and I haven’t written anything here. I just don’t seem to have the inclination at the moment, and finding the time to sit down and churn something out seems pointless. Life seems to be a series of tasks to get from one to the next and plod along like that. No real excitement and no really interesting things to report.

Maybe I am being too negative. We do nice things. For me, work is a bind, a chore. I don’t like it. I am looking for something else but so far haven’t been successful. A couple of interviews, but nothing more. I need to concentrate my efforts. So the week tends to be a waiting game. Wait until Friday. At 3pm on a Friday I leave work, get the train back to Farnworth, jump in the car and go to Lidl, then Asda, then to Silverwell Lane to pick Agnieszka up from work. Then our weekend begins.

Saturday is a day for jobs. Trips to the tip or to the dreaded B&Q. It is also the day when we go over to my parents’ and dig on the allotment. We don’t spend a lot of time there, mainly because it’s an hour each way, but we do try to get an afternoon’s digging in. Last weekend we planted the onion set and some garlic but ran out of room. Reading up this week I think we planted them too far apart but I’m comforted by the fact that we can plant some carrots in between the rows and make a better use of the space. This will, of course, be commented on by Les, my uncle who has the plot adjoining, and my dad. I long for a plot of my own and was cheered yesterday by news that, after a year of mithering, I have now been added to the waiting list for one in Farnworth. Only another couple of years to wait I expect, before I become a plotholder myself.

So what have we done for the first six weeks of the year? A potted history:

• We celebrated Wigilia on Christmas Eve with barszcz and uchy plus some pierogi that we had in the freezer. On Christmas Day we entertained my parents and had our second dinner, giving them trout, boiled potatoes and veg as a mix of Polish and English dinners. On Boxing Day we went to my brother’s and had a third dinner, but traditionally English.
• A trip to Katowice at the end of January to celebrate Christmas again with Agnieszka’s family. A hectic time, trying to cram in business (trips to the town hall and bank) and pleasure (fizzy wine in a bar in Tychy), while at the same time relaxing. Not all achieved but it was good to get away. Not too cold either, although we did get snow on the Sunday, which was nice.
• We discovered a few new places to walk. A trip up to Sunderland near Morecambe to walk on the shore of Morecambe Bay, marvel at the size of Heysham nu-killer power station and watch black clouds drifting out at sea, spraying rain there rather than on us. Clifton country park, ok for emergencies. Heaton Park, bleak and cold but probably nice in summer with great views over Manchester. Chipping, which will forever be known as the muddy sheep walk.
• I took my beekeepers theory course, which was excellent. As we sat in the bowling hut in Heaton Park on the first morning, by a sign that read ‘no lobing [sic] or alehouse bowling’ and a table full of Nationwide Bowler, the snow streamed past outside turning the greens completely white. Needless to say by dinner time the sun was out and the snow had gone. But it was nice while it lasted. I will have a practical course at the beginning of March and am slowly collecting equipment. I bought a beekeeping suit in Poland for half the price of the cheapest one here, so that was a plus.
  

There are probably other things too, but they are the main ones. I’m going to try and update the blog a little more regularly this year, shorter pieces more often. If I get my act together and take some photos I might even put some on. As they say, watch this space!

Food glorious food...

Bolton has recently been commended for its ethnic inclusion strategy, which is nice to hear. It still has to address gang culture, drugs, homelessness and several other areas but at least different minorities are getting on quite well. As one celebration, the council runs a World Food Fair at Bishop Bridgeman school a couple of times a year. For the last one we were approached and asked if we’d like to contribute anything.

‘Sure,’ we said, ‘We can do something traditionally Polish, no problem.’

But then we were told it must be something cold, as health and safety won’t let us use any kind of heater on the stall, and it must be vegetarian. During the day, one young Asian lad asked Agnieszka if the salad we’d made was halal, without realising how much angst went in to actually making something without meat.

Because Polish food is heavy on the meat. Who cares what kind as long as it’s dead: kiełbasa, parówki, schab, szynka, indyk or kurczak. Practically every meal contains some sort of meat. Although that made it difficult, what made it almost impossible was the ‘cold’ criterion. Salad was all we could think of. In November. Finally Agnieszka hit on her vegetable salad and we made that, along with one of celeriac, pineapple and sweetcorn. Both went down really well, except in the case of one little girl who tasted and then, very slowly, let it re-emerge from her mouth. The offending mouthful of salad was deftly caught and hidden by her dad, who looked sheepishly at us but grinned when he saw us smiling.

People seemed to like the salad, were confused about where Poland was, but on the whole everything went well. It was a shame the weather was crap, lots of rain and wind, as this affected the turnout. It would’ve also been nice to see more variety as, after the last one, we got the feeling it would be all the same faces at every one of these gatherings. We’ll miss the next one unfortunately, being in Poland when it’s on, but I am sure we’ll get another chance to show the world some ‘Polish kitchen’.

A star shone in the east, right over Ikea...

O gwiazdo Betlejemska,
zaswiec na niebie mym.

What with one thing and another going to a continental Christmas market this year hasn’t happened. To try to make up for it, we decided to go to Manchester’s ‘famous’ Christmas market, to soak up the atmosphere and to sample a bit of glühwein whilst wandering around brightly-lit stalls selling all manner of marzipan-coated goodies, where red-faced jolly Dutch people sold Christmas clogs and stout German frauleinen proffered sausages long enough to knoblauch your knackwurst.

Actually, it wasn’t that bad. By mid-afternoon the crowds were reminiscent of Köln’s horrendously overcrowded Weihnachtsmarkt as frustrated mothers pushed irritated toddlers through throngs of shopping-mad punters and light Manchester drizzle. Shopping isn’t my favourite thing, granted, but I do like to wander around a market, especially one full of interesting sounds (‘This garlic plate will save you time and energy!’), sights (man in Russian-style chapka pushing a pram straight towards the beer tent) and smells (sausages, burgers and generator diesel).

Manchester has a real snobbery, though, that masks a dark underbelly. I think this is best seen in the council’s choice of decoration for the town hall. For several years they had an inflatable Santa but, having patched and mended him, they decided this year they’d get something new. What they got is, without doubt, the most repulsive Christmas decoration I’ve seen in a long while – even worse than the gaudy red and black Christmas tree in the hairdressers on Market Street. It’s a big, fat, light-covered ‘Santa’ that looks vaguely like someone with a beard if you squint. It is foul. It is light polluting. It is as far from the true spirit of Christmas as it is possible to get. As a contrast, there is also a German decoration made of wood. Personal choice, I know, but to me the wooden decoration is so much more appealing than the light polluting Father Christmas plonked on top of the entrance to the town hall.

Watching all the shoppers pursuing the bargains made me sad. Yesterday on BBC 6 Music, one of the presenter’s sidekicks said something, hopefully tongue-in-cheek, about ‘Father Christmas’ birthday’ and, whether joking or not, made me realise how few people seem to know why we celebrate this feast. For me, the Polish way of family and meal with an exchange of token gifts is so much more appealing than the lavish shows of wealth here. As the one million Poles go back this year – some paying the extortionate prices, charged by easyJet, Wizz and the like, of up to five times the normal price – they will take a little of our commercialism back with them and slowly it will creep into what is still a simple, holy celebration of the birth of a life. I feel lucky and privileged I can celebrate the feast in this way and enjoy the experience whole-heartedly.

Nine bean rows and a hive...

A few weeks ago, as the summer started to wane, we went up to Coppull, near Chorley, to visit Mike Beazer, the secretary of the Ormskirk and Croston beekeepers branch.

http://www.ormskirkbeekeepers.co.uk/

We did this because I am thinking about keeping bees as a hobby-cum-small business and one of the things I have never done is get close to bees in their natural habit. There doesn’t seem to be much point in starting something if the first time you take the lid off a hive and a few bees buzz round you run for cover. So it seemed sensible to get in touch with a beekeeper and get him to show me what’s what.

Although Coppull isn’t that far from us, it seemed further as, after turning left at the huge Frederick’s ice cream shop, we made our way along the country lanes and back roads. The weather was perfect, a sunny and bright autumnal afternoon, the leaves turning different shades of yellow, orange and russet, but with the air slightly crisp, hinting at the winter that lies not so very far ahead.

After we’d (yes, much to Agnieszka’s surprise there was a suit spare for her to use) donned some protective clothing: green bee-suits with elasticated ankles and wrists, and the all-important veil, plus boots and gloves, we drove to the field where the hives were.

We were advised to zip up before we got out of the car, which we duly did and I was surprised to see the hives were just sitting at the edge of a field. There they were in a little row.

After taking off the roof of the hive I was allowed to inspect the combs of honey and I was really surprised to see how quiet the bees were. A few flew around and I was slightly nervous about one that decided to hover around my mouth but I was told they were just curious. I resisted the impulse to bat them away and instead tried to focus on what I was seeing and was being told. It was amazing to see the bees at work, concentrating on doing their jobs and taking pretty much no notice of us.
As it wasn’t too hot, despite the sun, we weren’t allowed to take the hives completely apart, but it gave me enough of an idea to know that I would like to keep bees in the future. I’d also like an allotment but that seems to be almost impossible in the current climate. Since going to Coppull I’ve been busy reading the definitive book on bees – A guide to bees and honey by Ted Hooper – and have found ever more questions to ask. Talking to other beekeepers has left me with the knowledge that it will be another year before I get to start, having first to go through a practical course, a theory course and a full year of shadowing someone else in order to understand what I should do and when, and how to look after bees properly. I’m keen to start, but understand how important it is to learn things in the right order, and I’m already looking forward to January when a course will start. No doubt there’ll be more on this…

The title of this post is, of course, from the William Butler Yeats poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree, the first verse of which is:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

Bring your own sheets and bleach...

Having spent some considerable time travelling throughout eastern Europe one of the things I like the most is the presence of people at the bus and train stations offering rooms for the night. This is a great way of experiencing the way people live in different countries and also lets you have a good nosy at the inside of some of the faceless blocks that cover much of the area of a town. In some ways it takes all the pressure of finding a place to stay, almost as if the room comes to you, although on the other hand it does expose you to an element of risk: will this room be affordable / comfortable / secure / full of men smelling of onions? Does the person I am going to stay with have a big knife / criminal record / schizophrenic tendancies / onion fetish? Will I, indeed, live until morning?

In my experience the risk is far outweighed by the benefits and I have stayed with some lovely people: watched over by countless photos of the pope in Poznan; squeezed onto a sofa in Moldova; treated to a display of star jumps in Montenegro. I wouldn't hesitate to stay in this kind of accommodation again, subject to a look at it first and some basic negotiation, despite some of the people I've seen looking decidedly dodgy, even though they (probably) weren't.

Take these two, spotted opposite the railway station in Zakopane. Whether I'd take a room from these two, I'm not sure. They seemed more intent on chatting and watching the traffic than actually touting for business. I imagine there'll be hell to pay when they get home though, without any lodgers. Decide for yourself...

Szczęść Boże, my arse

After all the trials and tribulations of the past few months it was with a feeling of great happiness that I departed these shores for a week and a half’s holiday in Poland. Time to relax and spend with Agnieszka is indeed a precious thing and, although it was over much too soon, I certainly enjoyed it while it lasted.

After four days of almost solid rain, it was not without reservations that we set off from Katowice railway station around 9am on the Sunday. Here's the strange thing about PKP: no matter which train you take from there to Krakow, be it the express or the local, it always takes an hour and a half. Anyway, we were in Krakow half hour before our next train which was enough time to find the right platform before settling in for the three and a half hour trip to Zakopane. As we got nearer to our destination, and all mountains were hidden under low cloud, the train started pulling into stations, then leaving in the direction it had just arrived from. This happened half a dozen times and was a bit odd, but no doubt the driver had some time to kill and, trying hard, almost managed to get the journey time up to four hours.

It wasn’t raining when we arrived, but started not long after. After several attempts were met with shrugs from unhelpful drivers, we found a minibus to take us to Osiedle Krole, where we were staying at number 33a. No street name, just the number and area. Our driver was ok and let us out at the right place and off we stomped to find our accommodation. There were no signs and we were disheartened to find the numbers starting under ten and then, at a T-junction, no clue as to which way we needed to go. We asked at a shop and they helped us out and we walked along a narrow road, lined on both sides by large timber houses (and where, late one night we witnessed the aftermath of slaughter; several men standing round the carcass of a pig which had been strung up on a beam just inside the door) and accompanied by the smells of silage, sheep and resin.

We’d almost given up finding the house before it went dark but eventually we got there, entered the gate and were greeted by a small yappy dog, intent on harassing us. As I turned round, the dog tried to bite my ankle and as I let forth with a stream of expletives, one of the nuns (for it was with the sisterhood that we would lodge) appeared out of nowhere, smiling and trying to translate my flurry of four letter words. After reassuring herself that the dog hadn’t bitten me, and thus avoiding any adverse publicity, we were shown into our ‘B&B’. The line of pump bags on the wall started the bells ringing and this was not helped by the box of toys, miniature toilets and sinks and the news that downstairs is a kindergarten. Private, of course.

We were led upstairs to our room. ‘A very good room,’ I heard the nun say, as she opened the door and showed us in. ‘Good for what?’ I wondered as my gaze took in the room in a millisecond, because that was all you needed, it was so small. She left us to it and we dropped our bags on to the narrowest of single beds (of which the room contained two. We, however, squeezed into one. Partly to keep warm and partly because I was afraid of the crucifix over the other, especially after cursing their dog). The table and remaining armchair were soon covered with stuff and we then left to get into town to see what there was to see. You couldn't see anything from the window anyway as the cloud was too low.
Arriving back we realised that after dark, things could get a bit tricky. It was pitch black and there was the dog to worry about. But once inside things weren’t too bad. The old woman in the next room was very chatty and informed us that all the paths were muddy and that it hadn’t stopped raining for a week. Mountain walking holiday weather it wasn’t. There was, however, absolutely nothing to do so 9pm found us huddled together for warmth and falling asleep.
The next day we found no hot water in the bathroom and the most meagre of breakfasts – no coffee and only fruit tea. Where the hell was my morning caffeine? In addition, as we were sat nursing warm cups of weak tea, there came a thunder of sorts and it was several seconds before I realised it wasn’t a landslide or thunder, but the thump of little kids’ feet on the floor up above. Przedskole was in full swing. By the time we came to leave for a day’s walking I was fuming and calling the ‘hospitality’ all the names I could. Luckily for us, things moved up a gear and when we arrived back that evening, a different nun met us, said they’d been worried that we hadn’t returned, informed us there was plenty of hot water and wished us good night.

Although at first I was unhappy with the lodgings, they did improve gradually throughout our stay. Except for the singing and thunderous stomping. On our last morning we were brought a steaming dish of eggs and mushrooms and no-one said anything when they caught us making sandwiches from the breakfast offerings. We had, after that first night, plenty of hot water, no-one bothered us or tried to convert us to any kind of religion and when we wanted to pay for our stay it took twenty minutes to track someone down to give them the money. It wasn’t the most convenient of places to stay, but it was quiet and relaxing in a way. To get away was the most important thing, as well as to spend time with my wife, for this it was perfect and for this I definitely thanked God myself.