The Garden Party

Let us talk for a moment about Yorkshire village life. Today I wiled away the hours at the Danby Wiske Village Garden Party. This is an event held annually to raise funds for the village church. I lived in the village as a child and still have friends who live there. I went to meet my friend E and her husband R.

We drove to the village hall as it has been raining all day. So turn the Garden Party into the Village Hall Party. There was a tombola, raffle, bricabrac stall and you could purchase a variety of cakes. There is somthing so perfect and comfortingly English about these affairs. They are so calm and graceful. Unapologetic in their community base. It was a gorgeous way to spend an afternoon.

Many cream meringues and cups of tea later, I sat with E and R until the old ladies of the village began to pack away the tables and chairs. It was great to see my old childhood friend. She always pulls me to a part of myself that I never seem to touch otherwise. The village is idyllic, so was the company. The home made cream meringues are to die for. I hope I don't have to wait another lifetime before I taste them again.

"There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."
Henry James

"Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon...the two most beautiful words in the English language."
Henry James

"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information"
Oscar Wilde

Think outside the box

Two out of six of my boxes have arrived from Poland. The first two boxes that were sent, the biggest ones. The postman joked with Dad about how heavy they were.

I spent yesterday sorting out these boxes and trying to find space for their contents. Things were thrown out, things were put aside for the charity shop. The first bag has been packed for Paris. Winter jumpers, boots, scarves and a couple of handbags. I am getting there slowly.

It rained all day yesterday. Paris can't come too soon now.

"The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain. "
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Coffee Chronicles

Everyone wants to meet for coffee. There are tons of friends who I have not seen for months while I was living in Poland. The fact that I have another two and a half weeks in Northallerton means that I am able to meet most of them at one point or another to catch up. This means the familiar phrase: "Do you want to go for a coffee?"

Now, I am as guilty as anyone. As soon as anyone calls this is the standard response to meeting up. To go and sit in a cafe and drink overpriced cappucinos and lattes. The thing is that I love cafes, and I love coffee. I could sit on comfy sofas and chat up a whirlwind, whilst oiling the wheels of conversation with coffee. I don't know when this became a standard way to spend time. When I was growing up, we never spent time in cafes. We had bearly heard to cappucinos. This is a pastime that has popped up over the last few years.

I remember many holidays in Italy with a variety of people. One holiday to Rome with KL, one holiday to Venice with M, Rome again with S. All these holidays involved coffee, long afternoons and chatting. Is there anything more relaxing than letting time slip away like this? Another coffee this afternoon with L. Another couple of hours off the radar. Bliss.

"No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness."
Sheik Abd-al-Kadir

"Coffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical. "
Jonathan Swift

The Karachi

The Karachi is an Indian restaurant in Bradford. It has been open for decades. When we were little kids Dad used to take us there, telling us that it was the best curry in Bradford. I went there today for the first time in years.

When we were little I remember that there was no carpet on the floor of the Karachi. The linoleum was grey and the place is basically two terraced houses knocked through into one. We had a choice of chicken, lamb or prawn curry. That was it. No rice, only chappatis. This is a place that is for the pakistani community of the surrounding streets. You don't get knives and forks, you have to ask especially.

When I walked in today, there had been some major changes. There was carpet on the floor, chairs covered with red velvet and a menu that now includes some 20 different dishes. It made me smile to see that all the owners and waiters remember Dad. He still takes Mum when they want a curry, even thought it is an hour and a half from home.

The food is nothing short of superb. Hot, fresh chappatis. Rich, flavoursome curry sauces with good quality chicken. Rick Stein has recently endorsed the place apparantly, and I am not surprised why.

I am a Yorkshire girl. I was born in Bradford. Dad tells me that this sort of food is in my blood as much as black pudding. Visiting the Karachi again made me understand this. I felt at home there. There were at least 6 different religious and racial groups represented. All happy around the binding factor of fabulous food.

I have started to really clear out. I have made some plans and I am a few steps closer to Paris. She is getting nearer, and I am ready for her.

"There is no sincere love than the love of food"
George Bernard Shaw

"The truth is pure and never simple"
Oscar Wilde

"A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving"
Lao Tzu

Paris when it sizzles

You might be forgiven in thinking that I really don't care for Paris. This blog has not exactly been full of posts extolling the virtues of the French capital. There is no meter counting down the days to my flight and arrival in the city of love.

On a daily basis I get asked questions about Paris. Any person that I have a conversation with will ask me: Are you excited? Have you found somewhere to live yet? Are you happy you left Poland? When are you flying to France? Can we come and visit you? Most of these questions I just can't answer.

The fact is that Paris is not on my mind. Day to day, as I fumble through life without Warsaw and life with Northallerton, I find that my mind rarely wanders down the French path. My bags lie upstairs still waiting to be unpacked. I have 6 boxes that are somewhere between Poland and the UK. I haven't looked at my maps of Paris and my guidebooks for months.

Today I have decided that I will be excited about moving to Paris. I am going to get my books and start reading. I have linked to some fabulous Paris blogs that I will start to read every day. I want to think about what my life there will be like. I will unpack so that I can start to pack. My resolution will be to contemplate this decision that I have made and to enjoy the choices and chances that I have. Tonight I will be watching "Paris when it sizzles". Maybe a few pictures of the Eiffel Tower is all that it will take. Warsaw may be out of my grasp now, but Paris isn't.

"All I wanted was to connect my moods with those of Paris."
Ernest Haas

"I love Paris in the summer, when it sizzles."
Cole Porter

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
John F Kennedy

Normality resumed

I have been at home for nearly a week. Today, the skies are cloudy and it feels like the start of Autumn does in Warsaw. I will put my jeans and trainers on and probably wear a cardigan. Things have turned from novelty to normality very quickly and it almost seems like I have never been away. I am the girl from Northallerton who has always been here. I bump into people I know on the street or in the supermarket on a daily basis.

Yesterday I went to the wedding of a good friend. Seeing him get married reminds me that there are connections here that I tried to forget when I was in Poland. When I got on the plane to leave the UK I imagined that I would leave the place behind, emotionally and physically. This has not been the case. Here I am.

Coffee, lunch, watching TV, gossip on comfy sofas. I have three more weeks of catching up to do with my friends. I am sure that I will be settled back into Yorkshire life by the time that my flight to Paris trundles around. Such is my life. A constant round of looking back, looking forward and standing still. I only ever understand where I am. I never understand where I have been or where I am going to.

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questionning"
Albert Einstein

"A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one"
Heraclitus

The old and the new

I am one of those people who has a very wide circle of friends. Friends from school, university, work and other stragglers that I have picked up along the way. I find value in each and every one of the people in my life, I love each of them for a special reason. Something that we have shared. A holiday, an experience, a workplace, university. Each of my friends knows something about the part of my life that was shared with them.

I have not even been home for a week and I am missing my friends in Warsaw already. This is because they are the only ones who really know what my experiences there have meant. They are the only ones who understand my feelings about moving away from Warsaw.

The friends that I have in England give me something that my friends from Warsaw can't. They give me perspective. At this point in my life, in the middle of this movement, they help me to understand where I am coming from and where I am going to. The old and the new sit side by side.


"I'm not one of those complicated, mixed up cats.
I'm not looking for the secret to life...
I just go on from day to day, taking what comes"
Frank Sinatra