EXPLORER OR JOURNEYMAN
For someone with the childhood nickname of ‘Pyjamas’ you can imagine that I didn’t ever seriously want to leave my bedroom as a youngster - preferring instead to dream away a life of adventure securely pressed under the heavy-weight bedcovers which, before Britain saw sense in adopting the duvet from Scandinavia, seemed the only sensible option!
With the advent of lightweight bedding, and what I thought of as the odd easy move or two, it came as a bit of a surprise this morning then to realize that after totting-up all the places I can remember living, the grand total added up to over twenty addresses since the day I finally kicked off those restrictive blankets and night clothes alike – these estimates - this very morning I might add - from the bed of a great guy I’ve met only once before when I first fell in love with Dominika way back in Cambridge all those years ago - Grzegorz, who at extremely short notice has been kind enough to rent his empty flat to me for the next four months or so while he is away doing his own form of journeying and I find something just a wee bit more ‘permanent’ up here in ‘dyed-in-the-wool’ Białystok.
So, it’s do widzenia to Warszawa and the Alley of Liberation then, and dzień dobry to suitcase living for a while again. It’s all of course in the grand design, but, at the age where most I know of a similar age are settled at home either planning the best futures possible for their little’nes, or watching their grown-up bank balances reach golden proportions in their maturity, then I do wonder when, if ever, the plan will come together?
Or, is this where it’s at for me? Explorer am I now?
Right now, while I sit with a cup of tea cupped to my lips staring out of the window at a very unfamiliar scene, it feels more like Journeyman – for although

you’d think I’d be used to all the upheaval after so many moves, then in most ways I am, but the initial wrench each and every time always knocks the stuffing out of me and drops the emotions into the pot to stew for a bit! Thing is though, I love moving on, and up until the time you perhaps truly come across that special place on the planets surface which matches those secure coordinates you find within and with friends and the people you love, then perhaps there’s no need to fret – learn to accept who and what you are and stop worrying about how well the rest of the world’s doing!
Leaving Warsaw however is of course wrought with a certain amount of sadness. A city which for me resembles most closely ‘the place’ of my youth, it has come to represent the closest thing to-date to a place, (since a predominantly great time growing up in Sunderland all those years ago), which I could just about think of as home!
But, sadly bidding farewell to some of the most amazing people and characters I’ve had the pleasure to meet aside, together with leaving behind the streets and places I grew to love, then the place just wasn’t home, and for all the genuinely wonderful memories left me, with just the occasional comings and goings of friends etc., it never could have been; and it gradually became apparent that it lacked some fundamental aspects – like a Greggs for Stotties and Pies to gobble on together with the prospect of enough supplementary work to buy the alternative - Add to this the lack of a truly current and vibrant art scene, then..?
Now I’m not sure Białystok will prove to be any more pulsating in this respect, and I know Pies and Stotties are forever to be placed on the back-burner, but the move here is a relatively temporary solution, with Białystok being much less expensive to survive in than Warsaw, and with ‘conversation work’ to supplement the painting hopefully being easier to find as and when, it should prove a much better platform from which to launch this ‘resurgent’ career of mine..!
With the advent of lightweight bedding, and what I thought of as the odd easy move or two, it came as a bit of a surprise this morning then to realize that after totting-up all the places I can remember living, the grand total added up to over twenty addresses since the day I finally kicked off those restrictive blankets and night clothes alike – these estimates - this very morning I might add - from the bed of a great guy I’ve met only once before when I first fell in love with Dominika way back in Cambridge all those years ago - Grzegorz, who at extremely short notice has been kind enough to rent his empty flat to me for the next four months or so while he is away doing his own form of journeying and I find something just a wee bit more ‘permanent’ up here in ‘dyed-in-the-wool’ Białystok.

Or, is this where it’s at for me? Explorer am I now?
Right now, while I sit with a cup of tea cupped to my lips staring out of the window at a very unfamiliar scene, it feels more like Journeyman – for although

you’d think I’d be used to all the upheaval after so many moves, then in most ways I am, but the initial wrench each and every time always knocks the stuffing out of me and drops the emotions into the pot to stew for a bit! Thing is though, I love moving on, and up until the time you perhaps truly come across that special place on the planets surface which matches those secure coordinates you find within and with friends and the people you love, then perhaps there’s no need to fret – learn to accept who and what you are and stop worrying about how well the rest of the world’s doing!

But, sadly bidding farewell to some of the most amazing people and characters I’ve had the pleasure to meet aside, together with leaving behind the streets and places I grew to love, then the place just wasn’t home, and for all the genuinely wonderful memories left me, with just the occasional comings and goings of friends etc., it never could have been; and it gradually became apparent that it lacked some fundamental aspects – like a Greggs for Stotties and Pies to gobble on together with the prospect of enough supplementary work to buy the alternative - Add to this the lack of a truly current and vibrant art scene, then..?
Now I’m not sure Białystok will prove to be any more pulsating in this respect, and I know Pies and Stotties are forever to be placed on the back-burner, but the move here is a relatively temporary solution, with Białystok being much less expensive to survive in than Warsaw, and with ‘conversation work’ to supplement the painting hopefully being easier to find as and when, it should prove a much better platform from which to launch this ‘resurgent’ career of mine..!
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