Possibly One of Kotek's Relatives

A picture taken by my wife about five years ago, showing what is possibly one of Kotek's relatives, a young, ginger-coloured cat in eastern Poland.

More Experimental Vegetarian Food

More experimental vegetarian food here, this time, it's pierogi ruskie (cheese and potato dumplings) bought from the supermarket covered in my wife's homemade, black lentil and vegetable soup.

Not Great at Learning Languages

Have never been great at learning languages (did get a Spanish O Level many years ago, although this is nothing to shout home about, of course).

However, after years of (on-and-off) self-study, I can now feel myself reaching some kind of Intermediate level Polish, which I view as a bit of an achievement, as Slavic languages aren't easy for native English speakers to pick up. Still can't get my head round the case system in Polish, of course.

Have also recently started learning Irish, I'm just starting to get past beginner to elementary level here. Find it interesting that Irish has two forms of (emphatic and non-emphatic) subject pronouns.

Surprisingly, it feels quite good trying to have a semi-serious stab at learning two (not particularly easy) European languages in my middle-aged years.

Irfan Live at Warsaw Hydrozagadka 2nd December 2018

Two days before this gig, I checked out Bulgarian band, Irfan, and, immediately decided to go and see them.

I just quickly took to the band's wonderful style of music (what I would kind of describe as Bulgarian Folk music with a deep, moving sense of Byzantine-type melancholia/tragedy).

In the couple of days before the concert, I became familiar with quite a few Irfan tunes (Hagia Sophia; The Cave of Swimmers; Buruna etc.),

and it was an honour to hear such (and many other) beautiful songs live.

Think that the tunes the band did from their new album, 'Roots', went down really well with an appreciative and, at times, entranced audience.

Kotek's Handiwork

The picture above shows how Kotek turned part of the kitchen upside down in pursuit of his packets of meat and gravy.

Below, you can see that Kotek wasn't in the best of moods:

More Improvised Vegetarian Food

More improvised vegetarian food here, this time it's salad; pickled gherkins and cabbage/mushroom pierogi (dumplings) topped with aubergine/courgette lasagna.

Improvised Vegetarian Food

Have been eating too much meat recently, so I've decided to go vegetarian for awhile. Was quite pleased with my improvised meal below: cheese and spinach pancakes covered in pumpkin soup: