2023. This year, we both agreed, should be our year. The year Albina and I spend together, preparing for and experiencing the journey of a lifetime, which we want to to enjoy together while we are still capable of enjoying and and capable of affording it. It is a huge dent in our reserve funds emanating from the sale of our beautiful house in Inglis Road, Ealing, but it is an expenidture we both authorized to each other as a one off.
Well from that point of view we did not start well, as we celebrated the New year seperately. But at least that was by mutual consent. We were invited by friends who ran a funeral business to a party which inlcluded our friends Kasia and Agnieszka, among others. They were all keen to see us come. The party was in Basingstoke, which for me was an awkward place to get to by public transport (train from Brentford to Clapham Junction using my Freedom Pass, then a train from the Junction to Basingstoke by South West Rail after purchasing a ticket at the point where I changed trains). Agnieszka at least offered me a lift back by her friends' car. However, Albina opted not to go as she now wants to avoid all parties or social functions. Having failed to get het to change her mind, I offered to stay with her, but she insisted that I go to the party "as you will obviously enjoy it".
In Catholic Poland New Years Eve is referred to as St Silvester's Day, and in the afternoon we had invited Stefan and Ewa for a tea and cakes, and we invited them to take some of the plants we had inherited from Liisa, including the potted bay tree. Once they had departed I had a full meal to ensure that I would not be drinking at the party on an empty stomach. Then, armed with a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates, and burdened, at Albina's insistence, by a pair of slippers and pyjamas, I set off for Brentford station to catch the first train. The incessant rain of that day had finally stopped.
I had reached Clapham Juntion, that extaordinary Victorian transport montrosity, where the railway lines emanating from London's many rival southern train terminals were squeezed into a broad gap and intercrossed, before being let loose on to the near, far and distant corners of Southern England, as well as to their historic gateways to France and the Empire. The Victorian empire builders were so proud of this jumbled concoction of platforms created just south of the Thames by the XIXth century private railway entrepreneurs, that they used it as a symbol for their Anglocentric world view, so that they felt no hesitation in dubbing Singapore rather patronisingly as the "Clapham Junction of the Orient". That said, the broad gap I mentioned from the northernmost platform leading from Windsor and Weybridge, and including my line from Brentford, to the ticket office at the southern exit to the station, is traversed by an angled bridge which it takes 10 minutes to cross, followed by another five minute walk back after buying a tickey in order to reach the platform for Basingstoke and Southampton trains. Just changing trains there is an adventure in itself, provided you know where you are going.
I was picked up at Basingstoke station by the wife (a strapping young male) of the funeral director and joined the revellers at the house, only to find that there was a richly prepared food buffet on offer, including choice meats, pasta salads and bigos (a very meaty and cabadgey Polish hunters' stew), to absorb any alcoholic intake from the continuous rounds of neat, as well as concocted, shots on offer. Despite my earlier meal, I joined the others as we ate and drank and partied and chatted, against a medley of Polish and English songs. At the midnight hour, we exchanged calls to our absent loved ones (Albina did not even bother to answer, and Sandro was brief and terse) and by one o'clock, bloated and genuinely tired, I was ready to go to bed. The other revellers were were all much younger then me, in their 40's and 50's, and I was all of 76, so the mixture of two heavy meals, vodka shots, beer and a large gin and tonic was enough for me. I was given a room to sleep in, changed into my pjs and soon I was fast asleep. They partied on regardless.
I woke around 8 in the morning, got dressed, and found the sitting room and kitchen deserted, except for one of the female guests aleep on an extended sofa. Because of this lady's sleeping presence, I could not switch on the downstairs TV, but neither could I use my phone as I had forgotten to bring my cable, and I could not initially leave the house as we were all locked in. Consequently, I was forced in the end to wake one of the hosts upstairs to let me out of the house, for my New Year morning walk. I managed to wish "Happy New Year" to the few blinkered passers by I met as I wandered around this remote residential street in a bleak Basingstoke suburb, until I finally found a newsagent where I could rejoin civilization by buying The Observer and (for Albina) her obligatory, Mail on Sunday. I noticed in the shop that only people of my age buy or read newspapers now, but I still hang on to them as the last vestige of an educated generation that enriched their knowledge and understanding of the world by a daily supply of information from various sources on equally varied subjects, presented in print form on paper broadsheets which had the advantage of permanence, as you could keep a copy as long as you wanted to. Anyone below the age of 50 seem to draw their information and link to the outside world purely from their phone.
When I got back to the house the hosts and the remaing guests were up and we were again subjected to a rich breakfast which left me replete and drowsy, so that I slept for the whole journey back in Agnieszka's borrowed car. By 2 o'clock I had got back home to wish a Happy New Year to Albina, as we settled down to watch some films on television.
While we rest, the rockets continue to fall on the power station in Ukrainian cities leaving the families and elderly freezing in the cold and dark, North Korea and Iran supply arms to Russia, the wars continue in Somalia and Yemen, the cruel repression in Iran continues, womens' freedoms go further backwards in Afghanistan, Taiwan remains under threat, China's health system implodes as unrestricted and unmonitored covid spreads, while Bolsonaro glowers, encouraging his many supporters to refuse recognizing Lula as the new president, just as he is being inaugurated today. Pope Benedict XVI lies in state in St Peters Church, with the secret of his extraordinary abdication still unsettled; Pele's coffin has been transferred to his home stadium in Santos; while borders open up between Venezuela and Colombia. Does that mean more democracy at last in Venezuela, or less democracy in Colombia with their left-wing president? Keep your fingers crossed on that. A third of the world is in recession at present. This includes the UK, as 10% inflation is likely to continue at least until the middle of the year, while rents and mortgages are likely to remain high and house prices to remain depressed for a good deal longer. Local NHS trusts are regularly declaring critical incidents as they cope with patients stuck in corridors with covid, flu and heart conditions and 7 million languish on hospital waiting lists. The president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has warned that emergency care delays are killing up to 500 patients a week. Last year more than 17,000 retail sites shut up shop. The strikes continue unabated. Sunak will have his hands full trying to retain support in the midst of this economic gloom, while families, who have muddled along until now, really begin to suffer now as they register now with their local food bank and their "keep warm centre". Suank still lacks the support of some of his more ideologically driven Brexiteer Tories, and they may still demand his downfall if inflation, the strikes and the 46,000 or so boat crossing migrants a year continue over the Channel. Who knows? Maybe the long awaited Age of Starmer may begin in 2023, rather than the following year, as he seeks a vote of no confidence against a divided government.
So anything positive to look forward to this year? Lula saving the Amazon forest? The PiS dominance overcome at last at the next election in Poland? Donald Trump indicted? Will the Scarborough walrus remain? Perhaps. But above all there is the sheer pleasure of watching Iga Swiatek winning another match in the United Cup and steadying herslf for the Australian Open. She is not only a brilliant player in terms of strength, agility and athleticism, but she has a high tennis IQ, can land the ball wherever she wants in the courts, whether with a forehand, backhand, lob or drop shot. She has mental strength too. I think the last is the biggest reason for her consistency. You never see her have tantrums, or have the hangdog look of defeatism when thing go wrong for her temporarily. She battles on with all those skills, a true tennis cyborg. She still feels uncertain on grass, and did not do too well at Wimbledon, but she should be able to overcome that. She is way behind in terms of earning power among female tennis players, but way ahead in terms of tennis match points, and, unlike her rivals, the vast percentage of her income comes purely from her tennis victories. She does not rely on vast PR machines and advertising income. Funnily enough, in England, she is virtually unknown to the general public, who see only the one off female tennis tournament wonder, Emma Radicanu, staggering from one defeat to the next. True tennis buffs know Iga well. I look forward to her bringing me and my fellow Polish countrymen joy for many years to come.
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