Happiness is a spring memory

 

So, as so often seems to happen here, after a sometimes dreary and cold and wet end to winter, spring arrived overnight.  The horizon-to-horizon grey clouds bugger off and fluffy white ones appear, and growing patches of blue sky break them up.  The leaves appear on the trees and are no longer green shoots but full blown foliage.  The yellow and grey and pink buds appear between the leaves and if you're lucky and in the right place you might see the odd bee lurching from flower to flower.  The sprawling patch of grass next to our block, a mud patch and waterlogged since November and used by dog owners - not all as conscientious as we are at picking up their mutt's leavings - for exercise and more, dries up and lo and behold there is green grass sprouting, studded everywhere with big patches of yellow headed dandelions and capped daisies. 

There are birds around, too: not only the dreary grey and black crows and pigeons that never abandon the city, but smaller sparrows and housemartins and others appear (and I'm not a twitcher, so they may be the wrong names for the birds now flitting around in the sun).  If you are really really lucky, and live somewhere with bushes and trees in a garden (rather than window boxes on a balcony) - say, in a villa in one of the city's outer suburbs, or a segment (that's a terraced house for my English readers) in a more inner suburb, or, like me, have a plot (dzialka) on a development of them (they are basically allotments big enough to put a small cottage on with power and water, and it's my bolthole from the smoggy city): ours borders the main airport and is close to the main ring-road that gives motorway access to all points of the compass (the Baltic coast to the North, Berlin and the Channel coast to the West, Ukraine and beyond to the East, or hot and sunny Croatia and beyond to the South) but is a surprisingly quiet oasis -  you could even see something exotic.  At our plot this weekend, we saw a hedgehog snuffling around in next door's plot, and believe she had a family of babies in a big patch of weeds between us.....it was something I haven't seen for many many years. Probably since my childhood 60 years ago in my dad's back garden, in fact.

It's a time to pack away the warm winter clothes and dig out the shorts and sandals.  It's a time to get out and about a bit, away from the virtual prison cell of your apartment: there is only so much pleasure from being confined to 70 odd square metres, no matter how cold and damp the weather, and warm and cosy the flat, when the view from the front window is a busy main road and from the back window the enclosed quadrangle garden of the block and, immediately opposite, partly concealed by curtains, your neighbour's front room.  Sure, in winter you can still get out for a walk, no matter the rain or fog or wind or snow - but, Christ, sometimes it's hard to derive much pleasure from doing so!

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I'll tell you story to illustrate this sudden change.  

In 2002, I was deep into my second year working on a project here in Warsaw.  I was settled into an apartment, beginning to make friends with local people rather than project and work colleagues.  I was trying to make a new life for myself in a strange new country where everything was very different, the language incomprehensible (as it remains still to my addled old brain), still not many years on from throwing off the shackles of Communism.  It had been a brutal winter, I recall, the snow had fallen deep and crisp and even in late October, piled a metre and more deep in the city itself and deeper still out of town, and remained thus until the end of March, assisted by temperatures that often dipped into the -20C range and a bitter wind blowing in from the East (and there are few natural obstructions between here and the Urals to slow it down and take the edge off it).  

I recall one morning walking from my apartment to the Metro, due East of me, into the teeth of the howling wind, and it felt as if my very eyeballs froze: certainly my beard and moustache did, much to the amusement of a work colleague who lived close to me and met me at the station.  My overcoat and cap, designed and manufactured to the standards of the average British winter, were hopelessly inadequate, as were the suit trousers and Oxford shoes I still wore to the office.  It took me til 11:30 to warm up and stop shivering.  Over the next couple of evenings, helped by a close (local) friend I invested in a local winter wardrobe, and what it lacked in style it more than compensated for in efficiency.  Some of it I still have - the black waterproof and quilted parka with fur-rimmed hood, a couple of pairs of thick woollen gloves and scarves, and a tweed, fur lined pilot's helmet complete with ear-flaps - but thanks to global warming or climate change (whichever term you prefer) winters are warmer now and I seldom have the need to wear any of it.

Anyway, by the end of April, the temperatures had got up to a balmy +9 or 10, the snow had gone and we were now suffering a wet early spring.  It was dreary and rained pretty much every day and was worse than any wet spring I could remember.  Awful.  At this point, one of my new-found local friends and his girlfriend invited me to the coast for the early May Bank holidays.  In Poland there is the traditional May 1 holiday, common to all Eastern European countries, and then another on 3 May that celebrates the country's Constitution Day (signed in 1791: feel free to check Wikipedia for more on this important historical event).  In a good year, when the 1st falls on a Tuesday and the 3rd on a Thursday, these essentially mean an extra week's holiday - unless of course you work in a shop, drive buses and trains, or work in essential services like hospitals, the police and so on.  In 2002 it was close: May 1st fell on a Wednesday, the 3rd on Friday, so Monday and Tuesday were work days.  As we weren't heading back until the Sunday, I booked the Thursday 2nd as vacation and looked forward to the trip.

On the last day of April, the day before we were due to leave, it was cold and wet and not in the least bit seaside weather.  I watched the rain running down the window and said to my friend. "Is it really worth going tomorrow?  Look at the weather, it's awful!"

My friend laughed.

"Don't worry, tomorrow is May 1, the weather will be better.  Summer starts."  

I had no answer......

The next day, sure enough, the sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky, and the temperature in the high teens, with a good forecast for the next week...  

We set off for the coast.

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We were staying at a hostel place in the Baltic port of Rowy.  I had never been there before, but it was a beautiful little place. with dozens of brightly painted little trawlers tied up preparing for sea, or returning laden with fish (mainly cod and halibut).  There were plenty of restaurants selling this fish, grilled to perfection, with fresh salads, lovely chips and cold local beer.  I hadn't eaten the Polish version of fish & chips before, and although totally different to what you get in Margate or Brighton or wherever your local chippie is, it was delicious.  There were also many souvenir and discount clothes outlets, and several excellent bars - a typical Polish seaside village in fact.  I love 'em.

The beach, as every one I've ever visited on the Baltic coast, was golden sand, swept clean and not a pebble in sight.  Being the Baltic, the sea was bloody freezing (no surprise this early in the season: while remaining chilly, it does warm up as the summer progresses) so I settled for a paddle and that was quite enough, thank you very much.  But my mate, the weekend's host, was mad enough to dash in for a quick swim, in and out in about 30 seconds flat.  The following summer, on a similar weekend at another resort close to the German border and a bit later in the year (I think early July?) I emulated him, and was mortified when one of the girls in our group managed to drop my towel in a big puddle of sea-water, which made getting dry an interesting experience.

We travelled out of Rowy for a couple of day trips. Close by is a national park that has the biggest moving sand-dunes in Europe, so of course we paid it a visit.  The dunes are indeed colossal, Saharan in scale, and climbing to the top hard work.  But the views from there, across another picture perfect sandy beach stretching that weekend deserted as far as the eye could see, were well worth the effort.  Rolling and sliding back down the face of the them to get to the beach, while possibly dangerous, was fun as well.  

Another day we drove westerly to another fishing village, called Ustka ("mouth" or "little lips" in Polish, depending on whether you trust Google Translate over local knowledge). Very similar to Rowy, it was the usual mix of bars and fish restaurants and souvenir shops, and a host of campsites and great value (i.e. cheap) b&b places to stay.  And of course a superb long, clean and sandy beach.

It was a great few days, we ate too much excellent food and drank more than was good for us, and enjoyed a lot of fun and laughter.  

And in almost twenty years, I've never returned to either place - and it's my loss.

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Now it's time to plan, things to do.  The dzialka needs a lot of work, flower beds need weeding and tidying and re-planting, and a rockery needs building and planting in one corner.  The grass needs weeding too, and cutting and in places re-seeding.  A roof repair on the tool-shed.  Some of the boundary fences need attention as well.  

We have trips to plan and organise, to other parts of this country. Maybe some further afield, to Germany and Switzerland and England, if funds allow. Perhaps even back to Rowy and Ustka....

That would be nice..