Polish festyn

It was Sunday, we were bored but luckily there was a festyn on down the road at the local church. I was very holy as a child being brought up a Catholic and being a skillful altar boy for many seasons, however this all waned as my teenage years kicked in.

A festyn is a church charity event to raise money through selling cakes, food, raffles etc. Not being a practising Catholic, I have since had a fear I will be grilled as to why I have not attended Mass every time a priest is in my vicinity or I attend anything religious in England. However my apprehension about this festyn being slightly uncomfortable disappeared as soon as I saw a monk on some kind of music equaliser system mixin' a tune!

In fact there was a monk band from Krakow who played instruments and sang while in their robes. They were actually good with songs resembling reggae intermixed with rock and indie. The place was rockin'. There were hand actions to one song in which everyone got involved. I have not uploaded the videos to you tube yet but I will soon so you can hear the saintly songs yourself.

Of course one thing I was looking forward to was trying the food on offer and I was not disappointed. I had just eaten breakfast but nothing was stopping me from trying bigos and pierogi ruskie but unfortunately I did not have room for kielbasa :( The food was delicious, the little girl in the picture was not strapped in for safety, it was to stop her nabbing the cakes!

We won a variety of prizes including two skipping ropes, and elephant and a green Copernicus hat (the hat was not only practical in the bright sun, but also educational because I learnt Copernicus was Polish!)

For recipes on Polish cuisine visit my site about Polish food and recipes and look for bigos and/or pierogi ruskie!

www.polishfoodrecipes.blogspot.com

In lwowek slaski for Kate Ryan concert

A group of us travelled about an hour out of Szklarka to go to Iwowek slaski for a concert. I had not heard of Kate Ryan but wrongly jumped to the conclusion that she is of Irish descent and famous in Europe because she failed to break into British culture. I found out however, that she was born in Belgium to Dutch parents but some of her songs are still OK, quite catchy but her false American accent became quite annoying after a while.

I got quite near to her though as you can see on the left. No kate is not the mature women in the polka dot dress but the tiny image on the screen behind the umbrella. Anyway a lot of people did not come here to see her. I think it's more of a drinking in public thing. That is illegal in Poland apart from at events like this where a blind eye is shown but I still found myself hiding a can as some coppers walked by. I have heard many stories of people being fined for this and consequently old men find hiding places in bushes or hay wagons (today while driving we were stuck behind a hay wagon in which there were multiple old men drinking in the hay! Is that classed as a public place?).

For most of the time I was sitting beside a huge transformer or some electrical appliance which supplied power for all the lights around me. The thing that worried me was the large amount of wires scattered all over the place with drunk people stumbling all over them while

balanced on one of those cheap barbecue stands from argos. If that guy on the right had let one off then.....well this picture would have been much brighter. I have noticed that I am used to the English 'nanny state' effect where anything slightly dangerous would be sealed off behind an impenetrable cage by Health and Safety. I often hear myself saying 'but how is that allowed, isn't it dangerous' about a mountain tourist pass that has no fence or this situation here. Now I have realised the extent to which paranoia about being sued has influenced British culture because I am always surprised and scared because the state is not protecting me with a fence! But I am happy to report everything was fine, that guy carried on along his merry way.

Here are some general photos of the night. I'm rarely in my photos since I take them all but I am there!! I particularly like the young boy in the England kit who was running around with a sword, he reminded me of St. George but he was a nightmare to get a photo of.