I have started running this blog journal in late July as a build up to the biggest adventure of our lives. Should my thoughts be private? I genuinely want to share our experience of this, for us, unique and extraordinary holiday, both as a travelogue and as a record of how we survive it together as a couple, as we have never been so close to each other for so long before. We are used to my disappearing off to work or to community activities, while she basically stays at home and looks after our large and spacious flat in Brentford, to which she gives as much devotion and attention as she did previously to our recently destroyed beautiful house in Ealing. Even our super king size bed is spacious and embellished with an in built television at the foot of our bed. We actually have to stretch our arms and look for each other as we lie together in this huge space. Truly luxury. But now we are going to spend 80 days together in a small cramped cabin with only a double bed together, possibly fighting again over our movable bed cover. That in itself will be an adventure.
Having said all that, if I am to share this adventure with the public, I need a publisher. My connection with the publishing world is largely Polish and they would be no use for an English text. Even though I have contacted an Anglo-French literary agent I knew socially, I did not get any response. However, I contacted a self-publishing firm, Authorhouse, who published "Hello, I'm Your Polish Neighbour" for me twelve years ago. They initially made me an offer, which needs to be responded to quickly, otherwise it will be £600 more expensive. After spending a massive amount of my personal savings to help purchase Albina's expensive hearing aid, I shall have to get Albina's support to pay the publisher's fee and I know that Albina rather likes privacy and is not so keen on this journal. Let us hope I can convince her. After all, she knows I like to write, and it will be our joint adventure, after all.
We are still sorting out the tricky after effects of Sandro's sudden departure. On Sunday, we travelled again to Cambridge and filled the car with various possessions, including the beautiful Polish mountaineers' chess set I bought him years ago, and also many of Liisa's books, clothes and furnishings, so again our car was fully packed and I had to travel with my rear view blocked. Albina hates these journeys as she gets uncomfortable sitting anywhere for longer than half an hour and each journey takes at least two hours one way. But it is a necessary task and we will have to go again next Saturday, after coordinating it with friends and with the Emmaeus charity. Heigh ho! You are a parent for life, even if you have direct influence on your child for only the first twenty years. After that they know best, and you are brought in to the equation only when they need you.
Unpacking those goods in Brentford and carrying everything in at least 9 lift journeys into our flat was also a back breaking experience which we will aslo have to repeat next weekend. Albina cannot do any heavy lifting, or raise her arms above her shoulders, or grip anything with her arthritic hands, so the carrying is down to me. But she has managed with her usual flair to pack these intrusive additions to our flat tidily and discreetly, with only the heavier boxes lining our corridor. I do not know how she will manage the next invasion but she hopes that some of this will be collected by Sandro and Liisa in their occasional visits to England, and some of the rest we can distribute to friends.
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