(bi)weekly snippets #3

Finally, a holiday. As every year, we're spending the time in our country cottage in Kaszuby. The time goes on slowly, with petty things constituting the events of my weekly snippets. I'm not used to such a slow-down in my life, which makes me feel uneasy. Whenever I spend my time in a completely purposeless way I feel uneasy. Instead of enjoying the moment I start constructing duty-to-do lists Where and when to buy shool books for Mikolaj. Need to go to the cardiologist with Adam. Forgot to buy cheaper pre-sale tickets for Soft Moon gig. Make an appointment with a dentist. Medical check up awaits me, the deadline is September and I keep putting things off till the last minute.

Nonetheless, I feel pretty well rested, and the longer I rest, the more reluctant I am to return to work. Getting pregnant again may prevent me from working for another two years or so. Hate the elephancy of being pregnant, but might be well worth the trouble.

This year we're spending the time mostly on our own. In the previous years we mostly enjoyed the company of our friends, this year we're left to our own devices with some sociable interludes at weekends. First we were visited by Adasie, with whom we spent 2 lovely days, not enough to make up for the lack of time to spend together during the year. Then B&W paid a visit, it was lovely to see B blossom in her pregnancy and W suddenly adopt the role of a father. It's such a heartwarming experience to see happy people. The bliss was interrupted by Mikolaj throwing a tantrum about who takes shower first after our attempt to resolve the matter amicably with Kuba impersonating the Gruffalo and me pretending to be a Gruffalo wife (never mentioned in the story, why?). Had to kick the guests out early next day as we were heading to a family event, my father's name day to be specific. The party was as boring as ever with my father acting as if he was heading a sales reps meeting and my mum undermining everything he said. I was really happy to see auntie Manka, not my real aunt, but my mum's close friend and her son, my not-real-cousin, but better than the real ones and his wife. Though her infertility, as always, made me feel guilty I have two children as I caught her pensively stealing the sight of us cuddling Adam. Apart of that I felt reprimanded for my weight gain as my father-in-law asked me, quite seriously, when the baby was due. I see two solutions to the problem: either go on a restrictive diet or get pregnant again.

Inbetween these 'events' we hardly do anything. The weather doesn't spoil us really. Do you call 20 degrees Celsius in full sun a summer? Mikolaj insisted on learning to swimm, so I took him three times downhill to the lake, he seemed utterly frozen but didn't say a word, today he still wants to swim but mentions sore throat and coughs. Hope he'll be all right. I, on the other hand, absolutely enjoyed the extreme experience of immersing my fat body in the water which seemed so pleasantly warm, compared to the horrible exterior (chilly wind) and made me think 'why did I stop swimming?'. Maybe I should start going to the pool this autumn?

We made a couple of attempts to return to our last year's passion, i.e. geocaching. We found one cache, the other ones, however attractive, discouraged us with the fact that we needed to trespass somebody's property to reach the cache. Or we had to cover too large a distance on foot with two disobedient kids. Regardless of that, we went to some areas of Kaszuby which were previously unknown to us, which is always a great pleasure. In the area of countless of tasteless examples of human piety we found this little pearl. Christ hanging on his cross in a completely different manner, probably the realistic one, in fact.

Before we went on holiday we'd restored my old bike, which went with us to L. After a week of the bike uselessly occupying the hall and my endless deliberations whether I would make it to the village without killing myself and whether I would actually enjoy going anywhere alone I dragged it out and after some lingering I went to the neighbouring village under the pretext of getting the kids some rolls and doughnuts. God, how liberating that was. And how addictive. After years of being surrounded by the Hubby and the Kids I reminded myself of how I liked to be alone. Not lonely, just alone. I must admit it's true about the endorfins you get when exercising. Your mood improves instantly, as long you do something you like and want to do. I suddenly remembered how good it feels to be in an unfamiliar place with no one around you. going to Chmielno was just a minuscule of my solitary travelsd to London, yet it had the same taste. I'm a hunter and I like being on my own, yet I had to make a compromise with stereotypical society. Going downhill on a bike I felt totally liberated. I found it really hard to resist the urge to have a cigarette, which always accompanied the periods of my freedom, from my parents, from the boyfriends, husbands, kids...If the fags were sold individually, I'd definitely have one. Buying a pack was too expensive and unnecasary. In the village I found no place to tie my cheap bike to. I felt uneasy about it at first, cause in Gdansk only those who never owned a bike never had one stolen. But then I realised life is actually quite different in a place where everyone knows one another. I bought the rolls and the doughnuts and suddenly came across the idea of making strawberry dumplings. Bought some last strawberries of the season (insanely sweet) and cream and after my return I made the best dumplings ever. The weirdo kid didn't even try these. Adam ate meat dumplings and Mikolaj pancakes, both from Lidl. Nonetheless, I feel positively encouraged to return to the art of dumpling-making. Next on my list are blueberry ones, then, following my Russian grandma's recipes are pielmieni and sweet cabbage dumplings with soya sauce. What's more, I'm going to continue my bike trips over the next couple of days, until we return home.

Went home for one night to do the laundry and pick my stuff form the post office, it felt so weird. When you leave your humble dwelling for some time you suddenly see your own world from quite another perspective. I also realised that the Internet is the greatest addiction of my life. While I somehow manage to restrain smoking, drinking, eating and a couple other things, when staying away from the net I seem to manifest all the characretistic withdraw symptoms like restlessness, irritability or apathy and resignation. It's good to realise the problem, however, I for the time being I see no need for therapy as the problem has only a minor influence on my everyday life.

And, finally, a cherry on top. We spent a lovely final weekend with a lot of friends: G& Grzesiek and Maly Mikolaj and then A., K & Adrian and their daughter Zosia. I'm not sure whether the boys got on well with Zosia, their satisfaction with wallowing in dirt seemed incompatible with Zosia's fluffy butterfly antlers on Zosia's head. Adam seemed to enjoy her company most, but I'm not sure whether she accepted him that much as she kept referring to him as 'the boy' instead of Adam. On Sunday we went to a family gathering, with the intention of making all the kids in the family get to know one another, but my observation is that somehow they failed to get together. Each single one of them played separately, ignoring one another, with Adam following Mikolaj and the two brothers enjoying each other's company most.


Final statistics:

• we drank gallons of beer, the record being drinking 13 cans of beer one night just between the two of us without getting wasted
• hate healthy but put on a lot of weight due to massive alcohol consumption and lack of exercise
• we didn't do anything particular but seemed busy all the time and didn't manage to do everrything we'd planned
• didn't get enough sleep as the kids tended to get up too early
• the weather didn't spoil us, only a couple of final days were hot and sunny. Rained only twice.
• didn't do too much geacaching
• felt relaxed but missed home