Mal & Jolas Monthly Journal

JUNE 2009

“Dance, dance, dance…“
- Lykke Li

Hello friends,

Can you believe that it’s already June? The end of the Australian financial year, the end of the Polish school year (actually I started writing this about a month ago, I’ve been slack). We are almost half way through the year now; and about 95% of the way through the decade. I wonder what this decade will be referred to as in the future: probably the two thousands, as the norties sounds a bit contrived.

A lot has happened since the last journal:
- Easter
- Ela’s Birthday
- Jola’s exams
- School
- Oliver and Rebekah Jessup visited us
- We went to Prague
- More school
- Surfing the net
- Et-cetera

(Ela blowing out her birthday candles)

Part of the reason that this Monthly Journal is so late is that we have been quite ill with a number of different things. Personally I partly blame the weather (it has been manic) and our students (I’m sure we caught something off the couple of hundred people that we teach between us).
But anyway, if we went into too much detail explaining what has happened, then I would get sore fingers, so I thought I would just explain what happened yesterday. A bit like a day in the life of the Guy family…

Saturday the 20th of June 2009. Jelenia Góra, Poland

We woke up at about 7 in the morning when Chris decided it was time that he got out of bed. Because his cot is still in our bedroom, he likes to wake us up by throwing his blanket and teddies at us. It is normally quite effective. Fortunately he went into the lounge room and played quietly by himself for half an hour or so until Ela woke up. When Ela wakes up she is less quiet. She normally goes and plays with Chris for a short time and then comes into our room and wakes us up for a second time; normally by climbing on us or asking for juice.

Because Jola had school that day, she got up, dressed the kids and generally did all the things that good wives and mothers should. whilst her favourite husband rested his weary eyes...

Anyhow, Jola went to school at about 9 am and Daddy and the kids had the house to themselves. The kids played very nicely with their new scrap books. Ela asked for a screaming out (a colouring-in picture from the laser printer) of a dinosaur and they each coloured in very happily until about 10 am. At 10 am it was time for morning tea. Daddy wanted to give the children a banana, but Ela said she had a full tummy for bananas, and wanted a biscuit instead. Daddy, who is the master of negotiation, gave them some jelly with apple instead (that we had made on Friday because the kids weren’t eating the apples).

(A random picture of Chris getting ready to eat)

After the kids had finished eating their morning tea (it’s amazing how quickly kids eat fruit after it has been cooked and put in jelly), we went to the shops. Kids love going to the shops, and so does Daddy. We went to Kaufland which is a medium sized supermarket within walking distance of our home. Chris sat in the pram and Daddy and Ela walked. On the way, Ela sang Christmas songs over and over again - it was great.
Kaufland is not a very interesting shop. But the kids made it very interesting. They sat in the trolley and played with the groceries. Somehow they managed to build a tower out of mayonnaise and pasta sauce jars. Then Chris opened a chocolate bar and, whilst Daddy was looking for a glue stick, he tried to climb out of the trolley. One of the problems with Kaufland though is that the aisles are quite narrow, so we have to push the trolley down the middle of the aisle so that little fingers don’t touch/get the items of the shelves (much to the annoyance of other shoppers).

On the way home we stopped and played at a little park (there are about ten little parks within walking distance of our home) where Ela met a new friend. They played in the sandpit and made pretend cakes and food. Captain Rhubarb was happier climbing on the see-saw and sliding on the slide (our little monkey loves climbing, whenever he sees a ladder he goes up it – which is not always a good thing…) Ela’s little friend also did a wee next to a tree, which, unfortunately, has inspired her to want to do the same.

We got home from shopping at 12:30. Just in time for Daddy to cook pasta for dinner. Unfortunately he forgot to buy mince meat and he bought the wrong vegetables (let’s just say that the children were a little distracting in the shops). But the kids ate it anyway – they love pasta. Whilst Daddy was cooking dinner and washing the dishes Ela played Pet Society on Facebook and Chris played with his toy animals. When they are separated they play very nicely and quietly.

After dinner, Chris collected his cars, picked up his blanket, and went to bed. He is very attached to his blanket and likes to have it close to him all through the day. Fortunately he doesn’t want to take it outside with him.

Whilst Chris was sleeping, Daddy and Ela made cherry jelly. We were given about four kilo’s of cherries from Jola’s parents, but unfortunately they were starting to go bad. So in order to make the kids eat them, we pitted them and made some jelly. Ela loves cooking (if you can call making jelly cooking) and stirring things (Part of the reason that we didn’t eat them is because we also got about 2 kilo’s of strawberries at the same time).

After Captain Rhubarb woke up we went and played outside again. The kids met some more new friends. Ela always surprises the other kids with how well she can speak English (and her Polish is getting better too). Ela and Chris both had ice cream in a cone. Unfortunately Chris’s Ice cream fell on the ground and then he started stepping in it.

(Only a two year old fully understands the joy of ice-cream cones!)

Jola came home from Uni at about 6 and was quite happy to lay down and rest after the whole day of sitting on her bottom. I (Jola) was supposed to have an exam, but somebody stuffed something up and our teacher felt so guilty about it that without making us sit the exam he gave everybody A’s. Easy peasy lemon squeezy J

At 7 the kids watched their cartoons, ate their supper, brushed their teeth and got ready for bed.
Mummy and Daddy then had some time to themselves. Jola was supposed to study for her exams the next day, but she was feeling a bit tired so we watched some episodes of Scrubs instead.

And that’s the end of the story!

Thank you to the twenty four people from five different countries who have visited my blog (Malcolm’s Occasional Rant: http://malcolmguy.blogspot.com ).

Remember, if you are on Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/malcolm.guy ) or Nasza-Klasa, then look us up and be our friends. If you have Skype then send us your Skype address (our Skype address is malcolmjola).
Feel free to email us and tell us your own stories (and even send some pictures)

Best Regards,

Malcolm (mostly), Jola, Elizabeth & Christopher Guy