Zosia goes to university

Zosia was keen to study outside of Poland and the UK and the Netherlands were considered. Thanks to Brexit the cost of universities in the UK rose considerably, even for someone with a British passport like her and they weren’t really offering a lot for it, so the focus was on the Netherlands. She applied …

The end of a generation

Once upon a time, there were two brothers in Ilkeston, Eric (born 1926) and Keith (born 1931) who married two sisters from Leicester, Margaret (born 1928) and Dorothy (born 1933). Keith and Dorothy had two children, me and my sister Diane. Eric and Margaret had no children and were my only uncle and aunt. A …

Coronavirus – hopefully (but probably not) the last word

Just over a week ago, on December 7th, 2022, China finally abandoned its zero-Covid strategy and shifted to “living with the virus”, like the rest of the world. This came just a week after protests in the streets against the continued lock-downs and other harsh restrictions the Chinese had been forced to live with long …

Coronavirus – the story so far

This written on my 49th day of home isolation….and it’s getting a little tiresome. As coronavirus cases pass the 3 million mark I wanted to look at what has happened up to this point before it is all lost in the mist of time. Firstly some terminology: Coronavirus – a family of viruses that includes… …

Cats like orange

We have this bright orange bag that we got when we bought some cookware and it is a cat magnet! Without fail, every time this bag is left out the cats are laying on it or touching it in some way. In the case of the photo below the bag was full and laying on …

For God, family & country!

It’s unusual to find a moment in time when such a shout would seem appropriate but the occasion, last weekend, of babcia’s 95th birthday party was one of them. For God, it all kicked off with a church service. Despite being a big church the congregation had overflowed and it was standing room outside only.  …

Looking back

I wrote the passage below over 19 years ago as a sort of “bio” for an online community. I happened to find it today while trying to work out how long I’d been there, on and off. I was struck by the feeling that whilst I recognise the things I do not recognise the person. …