It has been a while.
It had been a while since I posted.
It has been a while since this:
December 1999
"Do you want to go to Warsaw at New Year?"
"It's not one of those Christian things, is it?"
"Yeah, but come along anyway. You'll enjoy it."
"Well, I suppose there's not much else on. Alright then."
It was a long, unfomfortable coach journey, So I shall spare the boring details. France became Belgium. Belgium became the Netherlands, the Netherlands became Germany, and gradually I started to notice patches of snow through the window. Sometimes even in England I don't know my Kettering from my Kidderminster, my Huntingdon from my Humberside, but I still like to see the signs on the motorway go by. Trapped on a coach where I could only see darkness through my window, obscured by the reflection of the dim light inside. I didn't know where we were.
Is this Germany? Eastern Germany? It was about four o'clock. The lights from the coach made the smoke on our cigarettes glow whiter than the dark blue of the snow our achy feet were kicking in as the driver told us to get back in.
The Polish border involved a long wait. I couldn't sleep, so I just stared at the nothingness out of the window. The coach kept on moving. Cold dawn started to slowly bring light to the forest. It was still dark, but the whiteness of the mist in the air and the snow on the ground and hanging on the branches of the endless pine forest seemed to all merge into one. A dark glowing whiteness.
It was still not light when the engine of the coach ground to a halt. There was a large roadside restaurant. Everybody began to stir. I don't remember the building very well. I vaguely remember a lot of wood and brick giving the appearance of warmth, and the tiled floor and the rigid expression of the waitress were cold. She looked like a Russian in an old propaganda film, but not one where everyone has a jovial smile to show off how wonderful their lives are, but one where the seriousness of belief and the cold efficiency of work is everything. It might have just been a combination of too much make up, too early in the morning.
One of the coach drivers came round to our table to tell us what one or two things on the menu were. When I ordered, I just pointed at a jumble of odd consonants. A while later I was tucking in to two fat sausages and some slightly watery scrambled egg.
Hours passed. Countryside passed.
The air lightened still as we rumbled on through the countryside. I watched the pine forest roll by, like tray after tray of seedlings, blown up to huge size, with scrawny birch trees twisting their way through like weeds. As I realised the day was as light as it was going to get, the forest seemed to have faded into the dawn and we rolled past fields and farmhouses, snow-covered hedges and small villages. We rolled past little Fiats that hugged the side of the road, whilst occasional BMWs shot past us when the oncoming traffic gave even the slightest opportunity.
Hours passed. Countryside passed.
We arrived in Warsaw. The pavement was made of ice. We stood around like penguins. So this is the palace of culture? An imposing name and an imposing building. We stood amongst all the other penguins. I glimpsed a blonde girl with a swastika key-fob. I felt uneasy. A big girl with a loud, posh-end-of-Yorkshire accent had started clinging to my brother, telloing him he shouldn't smoke. I spoke to a bloke near me. It was almost the first time I had heard my voice since breakfast all those hours ago. I don't think I made very much sense. Punctuating my long train of thought with some occasional words spoken aloud in broken bursts of non-sequiturous observations.
Soon we were directed to board a bus with an address in our hands. The packed bus threw us around the corners. We clung to old peeling paint of the metal bars that seemed to have been placed randomly throughout the bus in an attempt to hold the thing together. We finally made it to a house. Steps led up to a front door on a long terrace. Inside was a warm yellowy glow, and a middle aged couple, she with a smile on a face that looked like it had been through a lot, he with a long beard like that of a Russian old-believer. Dogs barked and three of all different sizes came rushing up to greet the four of us.
... to be continued
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