Settling into a new life in Poland

I may not understand much of the language but, with Celine as my patient but long-suffering guide, I am beginning to absorb an understanding of the Polish way of life. Very obviously this is not Southern California, something for which I am extremely grateful; it would be a fruitless exercise to start listing the thousand and one differences but let me just say that only a very few of them cause me/us any real anguish and settling into our new life has been almost without exception a delightful experience.

Our return here in the first week of April introduced us to a different aspect of airline travel when half-way across Middle America our Lufthansa jet had to make an emergency U-turn to take an ill passenger back to Denver; arriving very late in Frankfurt we had the unexpected “pleasure” of spending more than four hours getting to know the Business lounge in intimate detail, as we awaited the next connecting flight to Wroclaw. A side benefit of this delay was that instead of having to deal with the usual heavy afternoon traffic heading south along the busy E67, we had the road to ourselves as we headed home in the wee small hours.

The house had been gainfully occupied by various relatives during our short absence, but in the few days it had been empty before our arrival, the tail-end of winter had managed to effectively cool the building fabric back down to the point where our central heating boiler was hard pushed to make the place comfortable once again. However, whereas we had found ourselves very under-dressed during our unscheduled extended stay in the previous November, we had returned fully prepared with suitcases bulging with all the winter clothing we never used in Long Beach CA. Anyway, Spring was just around the corner and even though early April did produce the occasional smattering of soft fluffy snow, we were soon bathing in the glories of buds appearing on every shrub and tree, the bulbs we had planted very late in November pushing their noses out of the earth, and the sweet sounds of wild birds continuing to welcome the arrival of the March equinox.

To our Californian family and friends, we appeared to have been heading into a war zone, with Putin’s totally unjustifiable invasion of Poland’s neighbour Ukraine being in full swing, and we did admit to some slight concerns about the possible consequences of this unconscionable action. As I write, some 80+ days since the Ukrainians’ terrors began, the future course of European history remains very much in the balance, but on a local scale, life in this small corner of the world is generally carrying on as normal, although being a bit more costly.

Our attractive little town, nestling in a valley at the edge of Góry Bystrzyckie, a low mountain range that follows a small part of the border with Czechia, thrives mainly on its reputation as a health spa where numerous visitors come during the year to “partake of the [mineral] waters” and the many associated services and treatments on offer. The surrounding forests are also popular with hikers, mountain-bikers, and a few rock-climbers, all seeking venues that are free from mass tourism; indeed, just last weekend the forest tracks and trails with which we are slowly becoming familiar were the location for “Weekend Aktywności” with some nine hundred mountain bikers from all over the country competing in a muddy rock-strewn bike race on the Saturday, followed by a half-marathon foot race over similar conditions the following morning.  However,  in the main visitors restrict their physical activities to strolling and “Nordic walking” their way around the town’s parks and the more easily accessible trails, leaving the forest paths we enjoy the most to the birds and ourselves . . . and those like us.

One of the frustrations of living in any foreign country can be that of proving one’s residential status for anything from car ownership to obtaining insurance; in Poland one achieves this by obtaining a PESEL number, PESEL being the Polish acronym for “Universal Electronic System for Registration of the Population”, something that every citizen obtains automatically. In my case, being a complete alien thanks to Brexit, but lucky enough to be staying in the country on an extended visa, this needed to be applied for at the local municipal office, and now that I have achieved this exalted rank I am starting to feel like a genuine “local”. Such feelings do of course come with their own added responsibilities, some resulting from being homeowners and some from a desire to see oneself as a responsible citizen, adding up to a comfortable sense of “belonging”.

As I write in the last week of May, the wet stuff is descending from an unusually grey sky, unusual to us insofar as we have had such “beautiful” weather this Spring.  Realistically though, a bit of rain was much needed and is very welcome in every way; the garden will become more exuberant than ever and our attention to all the plants and shrubs we have found in our new garden that are giving us so much joy, will continue to be duly rewarded. One occupant of the garden is not quite so welcome however, a fearsome extremely fast growing terror called Japanese Knotweed; for some strange reason this “aggressive and invasive weed” is well established in the neighbourhood and has been the bane of my life ever since we decided one small corner of our garden, once cleared, would be ideal for planting some currant bushes; three weeks later I am hoping my deep digging has eliminated the beast but having read further on the subject I am not optimistic.

One of the biggest hurdles that face me personally is to get a firm grip on the Polish language; I will admit to having been supremely lazy about this potential problem ever since, ten years ago, I assured my then bride-to-be that “ . . . of course I will [learn Polish], it can’t be that difficult!!” How wrong could I be?? And it is only thanks to my live-in interpreter that I can tell you how easy our transition to life here in Lower Silesia has been. Polish is complicated for the English speaker, as I understand the reverse is also true. We both have combinations of letters that have their own special sound, or no sound at all: think of the many ways “ough” is pronounced in English; Polish “drz” sounds like English “j”, “c” is pronounced like “ts” in “cats”, “ci” like “ch” in “chats”, and unlike us lazy Anglos, Poles pronounce every single syllable, and that is just the start of this Anglophile’s problems. Brung up to speak proper, and introduced to Le Francais at a tender age, I found many similarities existed between my own tongue and that of the predominantly Latin-based languages, and I could begin to guess the meaning of many foreign words; that is until I started to learn Polish. Anyway – big breath – I am persevering, and I am at last beginning to be able to pick out the odd word here and there as I listen to the radio or to Celine chatting with our new local friends, and I can exchange basic pleasantries with check-out ladies and waitresses, so I won’t starve. I will persevere . . . I promise!

To all intents and purposes, our new home is fully and comfortably furnished, we have our own set of wheels, a five-year old, strangely-named Opel Mokka 4×4 imported from Austria, tucked safely away in the garage each night, the garden keeps me out of mischief whilst trying hard to give me backache and afternoon tea on the terrace is a regular pleasure. I have a man-cave/garden shed/workshop to satisfy my inner need to potter and fiddle around, and Celine has her studio to pursue her artistic aspirations. Shopping can be a local walk down the hill to Biedronka where we gratify our every gustatory requirement; or it can be a more serious outing with a short drive through countryside that never fails to make me smile, to the Carrefour hypermarket, often accompanied by a foray into Leroy-Merlin next door, another French enterprise that fulfils most of our hardware needs. And when either of these activities results in minor hunger pangs there is always somewhere nearby to sit and enjoy a decent cup of coffee and to share a generous slice of “szarlotka” or “makowiec”. To say we are content would be the ultimate understatement. Long may our satisfaction with life in Poland continue.

Post script . . . the air is so fresh after the rain and rhododendron season in our local park is simply beautiful . . .