A couple of confusions

Whats all that Jibba Jabba (grzyby zaba)

Earlier in the year, when the neighbours on our Eastern border visited their land to build a fence around some newly planted trees, I walked over to say hello as I always try to do. This despite the fact that collectively the grandfather, son and grandchild of around 5 years old, only have Polish and Russian in their linguistic chest.

On inquiring why they were building a fence we went into our usual miming routine interspersed with Polish, English, Russian and probably Italian and German thrown in for good measure. Apparently many of the unprotected trees that the had planted in the past had been damaged by jabba (frogs), or at least that’s what I understood. I remember at the time exclaiming that they must be big frogs! But of course what they had actually said to me was that mushroom (jibba)  hunters were damaging the young saplings whilst searching.

And before I’m corrected what I pronounce as Jibba jabba is spelt grzyby zaba, no wonder my Polish is so poor

 

Mouse dance

The spring is the ideal time to start chopping up the meter(ish) length pieces of tree that I have lying around from winter felling, each piece of wood is cut into two, tree or four pieces depending on how accurate my initial cut was. I then stack them Jenga style as high as I dare to allow the wood to season over the rest of the year.

On one occasion I was constructing a new pile from a loose collection of logs that had sat around for a month of so and as the pile grew in height I was developing quite a rhythm when I felt something under my t-shirt. I started to twist and wriggle to try and dislodge whatever it was when the movement went down into my trouser leg, around the ‘crown jewels’ and past  the ‘bike stand’. As you can imagine I was dancing like Michael Jackson by this stage and was hurriedly undoing my belt and dropping my trousers, this led to the inevitable and comical hopping around one leg in one leg out until finally the offending mouse took off in search of another woodpile, leaving me standing there in my boxer shorts checking for damage.

Only then did I hear the uncontrolled laughter of Gosias mum who was on the terrace looking down on the scene and by all accounts wondered what the hell I was doing! No chance of keeping this quiet then

More

I did have a few more to share but as I’m cooking the meat today then I better get my skates on. It just remains to say Happy Christmas to anyone who is still reading and a Happy New Year!

And a quick thank you to those of you who bought some of Gosias soaps, your support is much appreciated. www.zielonakoza.pl if you still haven’t checked out what’s on offer.

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