Babcia i Dziadek

Above Kitzbuhel



Picnic at Ellmi's

Maciek had a nice few days of bonding with Noah while I was in England, dragging him up and down mountains to hidden waterfalls and mountain bike riding with Noah in the kiddy seat over deadly terrain (not really Mum, keep breathing!).  For three days I don’t know what he ate but starvation was kept at bay by the arrival of Babcia and her Polish kitchen, and Dziadek.  These are Polish names for Nanna and Poppy, Nanny and Grandad, Oma and Opa etc!  Milly and I arrived back from England very late Thursday night and Dziadek had waited up, a nice surprise for Milly!  They’d brought with them a couple of little pressies for the kids, including a hand held fan, a ‘Cars’ one for Noah and a ‘Hello Kitty’ one for Milly.  Noah called it ‘wind’!  “I’ve got cars wind and Milly’s got Hello Kitty wind!!”

Hiking to the Chapel

Time for a rest

Babcia and Dziadek spent lots of time relaxing on the balcony, and even bought us an umbrella which they bodged to a post with a belt to block out the very bright, very hot morning sun.  We spent most days out and about visiting various places and riding gondolas and even got them out in the woods doing a bit of hiking.  They really enjoyed this as it brought them back to days strolling through the forest in Poland picking mushrooms, and they knew a lot about the flowers and leaves and what could and couldn’t be eaten and Babcia showed Milly how to make a flower crown.  One day we hiked to the Chapel in the woods, where we lit a candle and had a picnic, and to our surprise they were keen to keep going, up and up, to the Chapel in the cliff, a very tough, steep, and little bit scary climb!  We all had sticks to help us with the tricky bits (of which there were many) and me and Maciek were more than slightly worried about whether Babcia would make it or not!  I was even quite breathless and my legs were shaking so I can’t imagine how they felt but to our enormous surprise they did it!!  At the top Dziadek declared “That’s the first and the last time I am doing anything like that!” The way down was almost harder, a killer for the knees and quads!  But Babcia made it by singing tunes from The Sound of Music at the top of her lungs, which got a few smiles from fellow hikers passing by!

Tricky terrain!

We took the Gondola up to Ellmi’s and the Magical Wood again, tried to frighten Babcia by giving her no warning about the cackling witches but she wasn’t the least bit surprised!  Enjoyed a beer on our own thanks to our babysitters!  We took the gondola in Kitzbuhel for 360 spectacular views and a coffee with massive apple strudel swimming in vanilla sauce.  Dinner at the Grander Schupf (sorry no pics of Babcia coming down the slide to the loos!)  Maciek and I took advantage of our babysitter and went out to watch the sunset one evening, with a flask of tea and some cake!  And another morning went on a hike together to the waterfall, so nice without having to continuously encourage the little princess the whole time!!

Babcia and Dziadek left us a bit early to spend some time elsewhere before returning to Poland for the wedding.  I didn’t know what to do with myself after Babcia left, whipping up delicious meals out of odds and ends in the fridge!  And I was grateful that she used up the frozen chook that I hadn’t found time to cook!  I had to get used to using the dish washer again after Babcia insisted on washing everything by hand, but that wasn’t too hard!  Amelia and Noah loved having them around, another little bit of home to keep them going a few more weeks, but they wore poor Dziadek out!

First man to the top!  Never again!

It wasn’t a teary goodbye though, as it would only be a week till we would see them again in Poland!

Unfortunately we don’t have many photos, as most were taken with Dziadek’s camera which we intended to copy onto our computer, but when we realized he had over a thousand on there as he hadn’t emptied his card for over a year, we decided it was too hard!  Maybe Dziadek can email some and we can put some up later??