Sarah's coming tomorrow! Hooray! I need a change. I think I'm actually ready for her too. The apartment is clean enough :) for a sister :) hee, hee. It wasn't as bad as it looked and didn't take too long to tidy.
Last night there was an emergency trip to the vet. Mommy was pretty scared. Winston had a cut on his upper eyelid that was bleeding quite a bit. I still have no idea how it happened. Arek and I hypothesise that it could've been a branch that whipped him in the face during the evening walk-about, but who knows? Anyway the vet said he'll be fine, gave him a shot of antibiotics and some drops to put in his eye twice a day. That's it, nothing new to report.
Becky out.

I'm back in Poland, miraculously. Somehow, I managed to go to the wrong airport in the wrong city!!! How does one do that, you ask? It must have been the 8 long exhausting weeks at camp. That is my only excuse :)
However, I think God meant it for the best. I ended up spending the day with 2 good friends, Sobhi and Jaafar, when otherwise I would have been sitting alone in the airport, waiting. They took care of me like I was their little sister. Very sweet guys.


Now I'm TRYING to get ready for Sarah (my sis) coming next week, but I've been sleeping a lot and playing with Winston. I haven't even unpacked yet and I've been home 3 days now.
Rich has been very understanding of how tired I've been, making me coffee and dinner.
We went out for Chinese last night, great new place close to our house! (Sarah, we'll be eating there at least once!) Then we went to see Transformers. It was actually really good!
So that's that. I'm really upset that I left most of my pics from camp on the desktop of Raymond house computer :( I was too rushed and stressed on Sunday :( Oh well. What can I do?
If anybody out there has pics from camp, please pass them on!!!

Hugs to all of you!
Becks

I know I haven't written in ages. Can you believe I've been busy? :)
Here are a few pictures and notes to give you a little bit of an idea where I am and what I'm doing.

Hugs to all of you!

Most importantly, this is the dining hall where we eat :)
The headmaster of Bloxham School lives here, too.
And it's also Crake House (boys' dorm) Wilson House (girls' dorm) and the computer lab.
Where the stained glass window is on the right is the chapel which is used as a classroom now.


This is the back view and parking lot.
And here are some pictures of the town of Bloxham. Isn't it just the picture of fairytale England?

I love that almost all the houses have names!

This is 'our' pub, at least until 11:30pm, then we have to be on-site in case of any incidents. Here I tried my first shandy with Carrie (another teacher) who I miss a lot. Carrie and I had some good chats here and watched some of the local play Aunt Sally (?), which is basically throwing sticks to knock a ball off some other sticks. Lovely.

I just can't get into blogging this past month.

But, just so you know I'm alive and what's going on, here's a list of updates.

1. I taught my last class yesterday!!!
2. I'm finished making horrible, time-consuming certificates for all my students.
3. The kitchen renovation is finished!!! Thank you Max!
4. There's a new front door on the apartment. (Unfortunately, there's a large screw penetrating the neighbour's wall...)
5. I leave for England in one week, June 30.
6. Sarah has bought her ticket to come visit me in September! (I hope this is true:))
7. My garden is overrun because I've had noooo time to tend it.
8. Winston likes pig ears.
9. Rich, Monika and I are getting into the cake making business, selling to a small cafe.
10. Dear Wendy is returning to Seattle :(
and I forgot,
11. Rich and I went to Germany (the border) to get stamps in our passports Wednesday morning before lessons. Our school submitted our applications for residence late.

Well, that's about it. I'm sure I'll have much more interesting things to report in a week or so, if I have time :)

Love you all, keep emailing!!!

5! Five! 5!

Yep, that's how many ticks I found on Winston Sunday morning. And, if you remember, I was at the vet the day before and neither of us found any. 2 of the ticks were really big. One fell off onto the floor it was so full. Needless to say, I called Rich and we went to a 24 hour vet and had those evil creatures removed and destroyed. Ugh.
We bought some more drops and now I'm so paranoid I'm brushing Winston about 4 times a day and afraid to go to the forest.

Which brings me to a question - I need feedback! What do you call a group of trees? Forest? Woods? Bush? I was teased for my Canadianism when I said I'd like a house on some land with bush out back. Is this Canadian? or Joslin? :)

On to other news. The hell of end of the year paperwork has begun. I'm making/marking tests and certificates, getting ridiculous signatures so I can get paid, preparing for England and Sarah (my sis) coming to visit. Luckily, next week is Corpus Christi (another holiday) and I'll have some time to organize and stuff - the worst is that I have to clean out my locker at school. My room at home is quite tidy, but my locker, yikes.

Also, if you're interested, here's the link to the blog I do for the school if you want to read about the cooking classes, etc., I've mentioned. The last one will be in June. One more thing to do :)
www.bellpoznan.blogspot.com

I haven't written in a while.

Things are busy around here. Between preparations to go to England, end of the year stuff at school, the kitchen being under renovation, gardening and removing ticks from Winston (2 today!!!), I just haven't found the time. So, yeah, that's it in a nutshell :)
Check out the video of Winston gone wild. He had a bath today because he was so dusty from the plastering that's happening in the kitchen. He goes nuts after baths, I think he's trying to dry off and we finally got it on tape :))
http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m154/pigeonspikes/Winston/
(And hasn't my little boy grown up so much?!?!)

What now?

It's nearing the end of April, not to mention the school year, which means...
more holidays. And we wonder why it's so hard to work these days.
Yes, next week on Tuesday is some old communist holiday and Thursday is labour day? (correct me if I'm wrong) So, of course, we get the whole week off.

We've been invited to Krakow for the holiday by some friends. They said we could have their apartment for a few days and they'll go to the mother-in-law's in the country. I really wanted to go to the seaside, but there's enough Sc---sh in my blood that I won't turn down free lodgings - as long as Winston can go too. That's my only stipulation. We're waiting for word on that.

I've been offered a job in England for the summer, thank goodness. Now, I can relax, sort of. I have to buy a ticket and then I guess just await further instructions. I feel funny (in a good way) about visiting the land of my ancestors and my queen :) It's so nice they let me in :)

We went with Monika and Marek again to Rogalin yesterday. Here are some pics (and some from the last time, too):
The 2 Yorkies are Monika and Marek's dogs. Pavarotti left, Queenie right.