Pilgrims’ Progress

Krakow, Poland

“We should take a picture for Grandpa!”
”And one of the sticker too”
”I know! Why don’t you put it on your ear?!”

It all started in Mongolia. We stayed in gers, and gers are not renowned for having very high doorways. Even though he cognitively knew this, poor ol’ Grandpa would knock his head almost every time he came out of his ger, something you do fairly frequently due to the fact that there is not a lot to do inside one of those tents other than keep the fire stoked. Unfortunately for Grandpa, he does not have the protective covering on his head, called hair, and in its place ended up with both a large lump (making him effectively taller than usual and so even more prone to knocking his noggin) and a nasty graze, that turned the stomachs of anyone, who saw it uncovered. Whenever Martin, the big burly ranch owner, saw Grandpa, he called out “Duck duck rubber duck!” – but deep down I’m sure he respected the almost-eighty-year-old man for actually managing to swing himself up on a horse. More than once.

(I *could* insert a picture here as proof of the horse mounting, but it ain’t all that elegant)

That was the beginning. After that, any surface that *could* be used to graze the head, was. Bunks on trains. A suitcase lid. A kitchen bench.
Then there was the motorhome. Again, there was a slightly lower than usual doorway. Donk. And there was a bed in the canopy, which was at just the right height for knocking your head on as you went from the living area through to the cab. Donk donk.
Grandpa looked like he would not be scarred for life, but permanently grazed.

There was not too much to be done about the doorway, but the alcove donking-ground lent itself to some solutions by kind-hearted grandchildren. First of all a piece of foam was fastened to the fairly sharp edge. But it didn’t last. Neither did it work – graze number who-knows-what was scraped in spite of the foam.
Next the kids studiously coloured a danger warning strip black and yellow. Failed.
Daughter-in-law found a pinecone and hung that, embellished with some heather to make it look like an intentional decoration, a bit lower than the edge. It got knocked about a lot, but at least it didn’t leave a graze. No-one knows where it disappeared to or when, but one day Grandpa found himself grazed again.

In desperation he went to Canada, where he was certain he would be immune from such experiences. Turns out it wasn’t to be, but the funniest episode of all happened en route.
In an email Grandpa described the scene succinctly, never one to exaggerate:
“BTW I munted my cell phone - cracked the screen so I have to look for a new one tomorrow.”
Rob’s sister, who was travelling with him, filled in the hilarious details:

You’ll laugh when you hear how he damaged his phone.  We were walking around town taking  photos and had found a quaint medieval street called The Shambles.  The buildings lean over the street toward each other and Dad leant up against a building to get a better angle when he was clonked by a large sign that fell off the wall as he leaned against it.  He quickly stopped it from falling onto the ground and hooked it back up though it was a precarious hold.  He then leant against the same wall to get the same photo as he had been unable to previously and the sign not only fell off the wall it clonked him on the head and fell to the ground.  I turned around just as he was picking it up and putting it back up for the second time!!  As he did a bit of a shuffle when he got clonked he must have leaned against the wall and the hire car key must have pressed hard up against the screen of the phone which broke the LCD display.  It looks like a picture of a shattered window!! :( 

After two weeks Grandpa returned to us, still grazed.
More of the same (and we visited some cool castles and mountains).
But in the end he went home! Where he fell off his bike three times in a month, his account of which brought much laughter to our hostel room across the other side of the world.

And so when we were at the Wieliczka salt mine with its reasonably frequent red and white danger stripes on low ceilings and some without any warning whatsoever, our thoughts did not have to move far to turn to Grandpa. He’d have loved it!

But what about the sticker?
That story goes back even further.
In 2001, we were in Malaysia for a family wedding.
We also went to a butterfly park, where we were issued with a little tag on a rubber band for attaching to our cameras to prove we had paid the camera fee. Grandpa had missed that part of the entrance instructions, and so when Rob told him he had to hang it over his ear, he did. Unquestioningly. We saw a good many butterflies, scorpions, lizards and other miscellaneous wildlife samples before he realised he was the source of our out-of-proportion enjoyment at this particular attraction!
We had almost as much fun with the Wieliczka sticker - aren’t memories grand?

Now you know.

Krakow, Poland

Look how nippy it was this morning:

And last night it was –11*C in Brasov, where we are soon headed, so everyone is hoping the forecast snow will be a biggie!

Anyway, I digress, before I even begin.

Boys need their daddies.
Where did that come from?

We have a boy (not the youngest and not the eldest, which is saying little enough to ensure anonymity for the offending party, and he also happened to be the taker of the above photograph, which adds nothing further to his identity), who was sent down to the street yesterday to check the temperature on the display outside one of the shops (yes, the same one as in the picture above). It was warmer yesterday. 4 degrees C. You really can’t tell just how cold it is by simply looking out the window, and as our window does not have an outdoor thermometer like most other windows around town, we rely on the one up the road. We know to believe the thermometer. We learnt that lesson twenty years ago. One day in the middle of winter, a clear blue day greeted us, and we did not, for a moment, believe it could possibly be the minus twenty-something that our thermometer claimed it was. After weeks of murky grey, when we had needed the lights on all day long, the sun was now shining brightly.  It *had* to be warmer than that. In fact, we decided it must be over zero and so just donned jackets and headed out. It took less than a millisecond for us to be racing back up the stairs to find thermal underwear, an extra pair of socks, thick hats, long scarves, woollen coats and our sheepskin mittens to put on top of our standard gloves. Believe the thermometer.
Today I told everyone they would need hats and gloves. Said boy suggested *he* would be fine. I informed him no-one would be going out without a hat.
”Are YOU going to wear a hat?” he enquired of his Dadda.
I don’t recall if the Dadda merely grunted an affirmative or declared enthusiastically, “I’m definitely wearing one” – but that is irrelevant. The matter for the boy was now settled. His Daddy would be wearing a hat, and so he would too.

Boys also need daddies to teach them to be strong. To arm wrestle and promise that the day a child beats the adult in such an activity, there will be a celebratory dinner. That was the day before yesterday. The promise, not the beating.

Boys need daddies to teach them to be gentle. Gentlemen even. They need to watch someone, who will open the door for the girls, who will stand back and let the girls go first, who will carry the heavy load. It’s just not the same if it’s the mother always harping on at the boys to give preference to the girls – mainly, because then the little girls start demanding, “I’m a lady, you need to give way to me”, but also because the boys seem to learn so much more quickly if it’s their revered Daddy teaching the lesson. I’m not sure if this is normal behaviour, and I *do* know that it’s not desirable, but it’s the way it is in our family, and so the task of teaching the boys in particular to respect and honour their mother, to listen to her and accept she knows a thing or two that they don’t (like when it’s four degrees you need a hat, for example)  falls mainly to the Daddy.

Boys need Daddies.

Time for one more story.
Once upon a time about twenty years ago there was a young man, who lived on the seventh floor of an apartment block. One day in the middle of winter he pulled on his socks, fastened his hat under his chin, buttoned his long woollen coat, wrapped his scarf around his neck, ready to pull up over his nose before opening the front door….and out he went. This particular day the lift was a) working and b) on his floor, so he took it to ground level. As he emerged, he noticed it was cold, and he pulled his scarf up almost to his eyeballs. He opened the door that led from the stairwell to the little heat saving foyer, and closed it behind him, before opening the very front door. Even by now he was aware of something happening to him, but it would not be until he stepped out into the snow that he realised he was still wearing his slippers and his toes were snap-freezing.
Boys need daddies, who have funny stories to tell, daddies, who are not perfect, but can admit their failings and laugh at their mistakes.

I’m glad our boys are blessed with such a dadda.

As for the story behind this picture, you’ll have to wait til tomorrow to read that!

Krakow, Poland From ulica Batorego we used to walk to the Stary Kleparz (the old market you’ve seen in previous posts). This time we are staying virtually at the market and we walked back to Batorego, home to the second ... [Continue reading this entry]

Krakow, Poland  Letterboxes. You wouldn’t think there’s much to say about a letterbox, would you? But they symbolise today’s observations. Down in the lobby of our inner-city hostel, just like in all the other old buildings and new apartments in Poland, ... [Continue reading this entry]

by Rachael Uzerche, France We’ve been away from home for 300 days today! Jboy13 is keeping count <wink> In Asia we had a standard conversation with everyone we came across. Are you one family? Yes. How many children are there? Eight. Ah you are so lucky. Thank you. Where ... [Continue reading this entry]