A little bit of nature

Sojka - A local colourful bird! Magpie type in Habit.

A local nursery getting ready for summer!

Sunset from the kitchen window

Caroline helping grandma with breaky

Local Froggy

Ania enjoying & testing the swing!

Just catching up on the pics. Lots of interesting things to photograph and check out. Food is awesome.

Spring Time

Tulips in Grandmas Garden

(click on any photo for enlagement)

Our bedroom view

Renovators Delight!!!

Romans log cabin

Enjoying the baby goats!

We have been so busy since we arrived and I have not had time to post. Some free time today at home to catch up on the paper work. Will try and get two post out today.

The Vibrant young green shoots are everywhere. Many of the trees are just beginning to come into leaf. There is a multidude of flowers on the property especially that Dorota (ma in law) is a hortculturalist/botanist by profession. The evenings and mornings are cool even dropping to 0 C and the days get up to the early twenties. Very nice and pleasant during the day.

On the first full day we took a walk around the neighburhood and visited a couple of neighbours. Life is here is pretty friendly between neighbours who generally help each other out. We first did a nature walk around the locality, saw a couple of 200 yo renovators delights and then visited a couple of neighbours. The first have built their own house next door form thick pine timber and have a litter of young schnauzers. The house was built on site (not prefab) and is also fully lined with timber inside. (Insulation in between). Then we visited Pani Stasia who lives across the road who has some goats. James and Caroline got lucky and played with them for a good while!

Caroline has her own blog now www.carolinesbestfriends.blogspot.com

Enjoy

Peter & Fam

Zig Zag Across Central Europe

Ready to Go!


When I won the raffle at Melbourne Airport we knew we were going to have a great trip!
“You have been randomly selected to participate in an explosives examination” WOW! So out come a big probe “again” and I & my backpack was thoroughly examined (violated) ;-) by two bomb squad security personnel, and that was without any bomb wise cracks on my behalf! Must have been the hat that I was wearing!

The small manicure set didn’t get through as the nail clipper was deemed to be a terrorist threat. My weapon of choice was confiscated!

After finally being declared clean of explosives we settled down for the late afternoon flight to Singapore. The kids had a great time and once again I got lucky by wearing Jamie’s HOT chocolate 2hrs into our flight!

Safety is first for QANTAS so when we landed in Singapore the next 747-400 we were to board blew a fuse and the flight was delayed by 1.5hrs, which enabled me to photograph every orchid @ the airport and the kids to finish off all the sushi rolls of a local eatery.

The queue for the next flight was monstrous and Caroline ended sleeping on the local bin.
After another 13hrs of flying and some sleep in the “roomy” seats and we landed in a huge airport of Frankfurt (has it’s own monorail) hurrying & hoping to still catch our flight to Krakow. We should not have bothered as half the travellers missed their flights, so we claimed our luggage and wondered what now. After going through customs and leaving the family under the QANTAS sign, I did another loop through customs, (the Germans were very understanding and nice) we rebooked the flight to Krakow for the afternoon via Munich! We ended up with two 20 Euro vouchers for our troubles with which we enjoyed some lovely German rolls, pastry and lots of Martzipan!

That was 4 flights in 36 hrs, finally arriving in Krakow civil / military airport @ 1630. As soon as we were ferried to the terminal we heard over the PA that the local authorities wanted the Debicki’s. Well no guesses here! We ended up winning again as the only travellers to have their luggage left behind in Munich! It was truly a win as it would have been tight fitting 5 in a VW Golf plus 4 bags & suitcases + 4 backpacks! What a blessing to have them couriered the next day to our residence and sleeping in some one else’s pyjamas!

Hi Windy PS Kids! Caroline has started the journal - see how she goes!

Hi to everyone!

Where do I go first?

Swarowski Crystals!

Why buy smokes? Just jump in and breath in deepley & get your free quota of nicotine! Cancerous Madness!

Meeting Grandad / Carolines Grat Grandad

Meeting Grandma!


Poland is in beautiful Spring! Something to write about in the next post very soon, with more interesting pics!

1/2 a sleep to go!

It's almost 2 am and so serene! Ideal time to Blog!
Almost packed also! I am sure I will forget something!

We had a busy day cleaning up and getting ready.
Late in the evening we went and picked some fruit. In some way a pity we have to go and leave some unripened apples on the tree, I am sure there will be a queue. Enjoy!



Got my first taste of Laxton's Superb (a tiny bit of russet around the stem) see if you can find it on the pic - beautiful apples.


The various strains of (Richer) Red Delicious , Ania's favourite, were zo zweet! Some still to ripen.

The Pear on the left is Keifers Hybrid - Crunchy almst a Nashi but tougher , could have hung around for a week but couldn't resist. Onthe right is packams Triumph - Good auzzie pear!



Will have to wait till next year now!

Wonder if Polish customs let you take some of these through? Test case?

Seven sleeps to go!

"Time to go overseas yet? Not long to go now!"

For those who want to see Europe on a shoe string (ours will be a long one) fly wizzair.com!
Last nite I booked two flights . One to Rome on the 24th May and another to get back form Milan on 2nd of June. All for around 150 Euros = $300 AUD for two. Toilet and a window seat will be extra! Basically get to the airport and sprint on the tarmac and hope for the best! Glad I had a few sprints leading this trip @ the sports day @ Learmonth!
No doubt will find out if this is a real airline on the 24th.... see if there are any planes left in the fleet as Hungary is going through a slight economic downturn.




OK , Got my passport after an official name change! I am now officially Peter not Piotr! Nice to know who you are after all these years.

Jamie & Caroline are keen as mustard and Ania (my organised wife) has already packed their bags adding a mothers touch by padlocking them and hopefully knowing where the keys are.

Will relay all some of the kids feedback on line later.

Till next time!

Hoping for no further earthquakes.

Still No Passport!

It's 18 or so days till we fly out and no sign of passport!
May have to stay back @ work and map the River Red Gum parks!
The feds must be checking on my name with the authoritoies in Poland via an Indian call centre!
I love living in suspense!
I also love tomatoes!
There will be plenty of them in Poland after I leave!

From Ashes to the Flightcentre

16th century Renaissance Cloth Hall - "Sukiennice" currently a large souvenir market @ Main Market Square Built in 15th Century by King Kazimierz the Great I think. Europes largest medieval squate (200 x 200 metres) This will be the palce to spend some relaxing hours under one of the many umbrellas drinking "Karmi" Beer. (Non Alc for those who are concrned about my wellbeing)
http://www.krakow-rynek.pl/v1/ - may be able to do some digging and help the local archeeeeologists


HERE WE GO!

While reading an article on the terrible firestorms we have experienced recently a javascripted add gently hovered ober the article and in QANTAS font and colour stated "Kids Fly for Free!"

Being one who never likes to pay the RRP price except for milk and newspapers the frugal mind raced ahead, called the boss, prayed silently and within an hour we were sitting down "enquiring" about the options in the "Flight Centre". The rest is history. Sure we got two free tickets based on the RRP + TAXES/... Two things in life are certain ......

So on Easter Monday the 13th of April we fly to Krakow, Poland via Singapore and Fankfurt.

So we will keep you updated on the developments and the state of the economy!

PS: They won't give me a passport unless I change my name from Piotr to Peter even though my expired passport states Peter. Work that out! The Post 9/11 world can be painful! Let's see If I get it in time to fly after a name change via BDM!