Fascination with Mountains

It has been a long time since I wrote a new post. The delays are due to lower spirit caused by not the best stretch in the health department of mine. It is time for allergies to flair up and that added to my general health maintenance issues.

I wonder why I started my post in the way I did. Do I think my readers need an excuse from me? Has my old friend - guilt (I am working on getting rid of it) kicked in again? Is it that I have not come up with an interesting subject to write about and am asking for understanding? All the above? Looks like it.

Some time ago I concluded that my blog will be a series of essays or as my very European soul prefers to call it - feuilletons. “Feuilleton” seems to me more like literary type of writing while an “essay”  indicates something like a school assignment.

So, the subject of my feuilleton today will be – Fascination with Mountains. 

There are two things that brought the subject of mountains to my attention. One of them is the a series of posts by one of my favourite bloggers Hans the Hiker. He impresses me with his determination to put dreams into plans and then into action. From what I can observe he succeeds big way. His most recent writing relates to his Mont Blanc walk. New posts are still being added but the first ones were enough for me to get into the mood of the hike and want for more. I recommend his  site.

I do not think I am particularly pessimistic thinking that such trips and views are beyond me now. Actually, many years ago when I spent time in Polish Tatra I had some altitude problems and was advised to avoid high mountains in the future. But mountain views are stunning; on Hans’ blog and in my recollection from student days. As I lived in the middle of rather circularly shaped Poland, summer trips were usually planed with change of scenery in mind. That meant either the mountains on the south of Poland or north at the Baltic shore. The two of my closest student friends and I went few times to Polish Tatra staying near Zakopane, the most fashionable place in the Polish mountain region. This was a great time for bonding and building trust one thought will last for life. And this is one of my most  profound disillusions and the saddest experiences of the recent. I know it is time to let it go, so I salute to the old friendship. 

                                 

Back to Zakopane and our holidays. We walked a lot in beautiful valleys with refuges feeding us local specialties. Reading Hans’ blog I came to a conclusion that Polish Tatras are a small brother of Alps but they beat even Italy as far as feeding tourists is concerned. Now and in communistic times, I can remember.

This looks like enough calories to prepare for a long hike

The cheese is very special and you can buy it only in Polish Tatras. 

Being young girls, we laughed a lot (maybe all the time?), we talked a lot and we read a lot as well. Magic times…

This is Giewont. Can you identify a laying man? His head and torso?

The memory of my holidays in the mountains was triggered by watching rather silly old Polish series – In Stilettos on Giewont. Giewont is one of the most recognizable Polish mountain sites; it is often named a Sleeping Soldier. The TV series is really silly and I gave up watching it after a short while but it brought the memories that are very important for me. There is a very special climate around the place, very distinctive culture, even language is different and very melodious, architecture    and way of dressing.  Maybe a lot of that is the show for the tourists those days, but even if it is only a show it is a very good one. Back to Hans’ posts, I can not stop myself to put a little add for Polish Tatra and its resorts. They are wonderful walks there. Not of the magnitude or beauty of Alps, but there is enough beauty to be found on less strenuous walks that for many will be demanding anyhow.

How about that for a view? Valley of Five Lakes.

Or this one? This valley was our favourite walk.

With some luck I will get myself such a scarf to feel warm in Australia and dream of Polish Tatra.

In a sad mood

I am in a strange mood today. Down in the dumps, as one of my old friends used to say. Maybe it is because it is eventually raining and the temperature dropped to the rather unpleasant levels. A quick change came almost overnight. I should welcome the change and I do, but for now it helps me to justify not the best mood I am in.

Coincidently this afternoon I caught an old interview of Kerry O’Brien with Clive James. So very depressing.  Clive James who in the past put me in a good mood, uplifted my spirits and made me laugh - today he brought my spirit so far down that I have problem to shake it off. He suffers two terminal illnesses and talks about it candidly. His tries to stay his own old upbeat self, I saw as a considerable effort. This saddened me a lot and the sadness lingers on.

So many books, wonderful.

                                     

I was always a reader and considered books the way to learn about life. Was I possibly misguided? In my first months in Australia I thought that it would be good to read something Australian to prepare me for what’s ahead.  Unreliable Memoirs were my choice of Australian education. I think it was a great choice, I really loved the book. I thought that if the natives have such sense of humour as Clive James, they are really OK and I will be fine in this country. This proved a correct assumption.

At the beginning I had great problems to understand what Australians were saying. The language seemed to be somewhat funny, with a lot of question marks implied and it was spoken sooo fast. I really got depressed listening to broadcasts of horse races. I could not understand a word! At that time I did not know that most of Australians did not understand that either, unless they knew names of the horses in a particular race. It was a puzzling time and I was learning to love the country.

Back to Unreliable Memoirs. Such a great book! So funny! I remember my 343 bus rides from Double Bay to IBM offices in Rosebery balancing with the book in hand, briefcase held between my feet, handbag on my shoulder and laughing out loud from time to time. I must have really read the book in the first two or three months since my arrival to the new country as it was only a very short time we were renting the flat in Double Bay before we moved to St Ives. Boy, there were the times!

This a new better version of 343 than the one i traveled in 1979

                                

Then Clive James was on television with his Japanese stories. My sense of humour was not all that well aligned with that and I lost interest.

Many years have passed between reading Unreliable Memoirs and finding Cultural Amnesia. I bought the book somewhere in Paddington few years ago, my Mosman suburb is not too good in this type of literature.  I was surprised that Clive James wrote so many essays about Polish people of culture, science and politics. I read the Polish parts, but I have lost the book in my life travels before I read it all. Now, that Clive James appeared on my radar again it is time to get another copy.

Thank you, Clive James, for paining my first literary pictures of Australia. Thank you also for showing me four Poles from a new perspective.