Polish Consulate

8 more days to go.

 On Wednesday morning I travelled to the Polish Consulate near Blackfriars Station for my meeting with Vice Consul Anna Tarnawska. She wanted me to give her an impression of the achievements of Janusz Kochanowski, who was the first consul-general in London to represent a free Poland after 1990. Apparently, the Polish government is organizing an evening at POSK in April devoted to an assessment of his valuable, even pioneering, work as a consul at a time, when the old Polish emigres remained suspicious of the new diplomats from a free independent Poland. As the Vice Chairman of the Federation of Poles in Great Britain at that time, I had worked closely with him in building up a successful Polish lobby in the UK. In particular we had cooperated closely on the succesful campaign to abolish the need for Polish visitors having to pre-order their entry visas in Warsaw before coming to this country. 

Obviously, I would still be on my trip during this commemorative evening. However, Mrs Tarnawska recorded my account of events on her recorder, and said that she would play edited excerpts at the meeting. I gave her a copy of my earlier book "Polak Londynczyk" ("A Polish Londoner") which described events in Polish Londonat that time and a printed dated list of my meetings with Consul Kochanowski in the early 1990s. At last, another community task completed before my departure. That only leaves me with unfinished buiness with the Federation of Poles AGM next week and the prize winning cermony of the Union of Polish Witers in the nearest weekend. 

On my way home, I skipped through Ealing Town Centre. I also popped into Boots to get a smaller, more easily manageable, thermometer, as Albina had decided that our current massive and expensive aural thermometer is too large and too unwieldy to take with us. Pity, as I found it useful and it gave you an instant accurate reading after placing it in your ear. Eventually, I chose a smaller thermometer in a middle price range which showed different temperatures in different colours. Albina would like that. Only one problem. I asked a simple question. Where do we apply this thermometer. Is it oral, or aural, or under the armpit? At Hammersmith Hospital, for instance, they seem to change the routine for taking temperature every few months. Curiously, the packaging containing the instrument had a long description in English, French and German, of how to read the results, but with no information about how to obtain them. The counter staff at the dispenser desk did not know either. They consulted each other and even took the package to the head lady chemist, but all I could see her do was to shrug her shouldres. Finally, a junior chemist said it should be used under the armpit. I felt that for various reasons they seemed reluctant to clarify "where to stick it". Sorry, that is not just a rhetorical device. I remember a diplomatic incident at the beginning of the covid scare when the Chinese government had been doing anal covid temperature tests, and this all blew up in the media when it transpired that incoming American diplomats had also been subjected to being tested this way. 

Two close friends of Albina, Marysia and Wanda, came round in the afternoon for a final pre-holiday farewell and we had an enjoyable afternoon and evening drink with them. Albina had just come back a few days ago from a visit to her daughter and new grandson in Tasmania. However, their visit prevented me from making planned enquiries with the NHS staff how to obtain a covid printed passport for Albina. She has no email address and without it obtaining a covid passport required by Fred Olsen Cruises seems impossible. I shall try and ring 119 tomorrow to get this important document for her.