And so it begins............

Right now I'm starting the process of sorting stuff out.    Do I have enough socks? What about warm clothes? Do last years trousers still fit? Will it all fit into my suitcase? Can I fit my tripod in aswell? And so it goes....

Yep....I'm off on my travels again. Not just the usual trip over to Ireland, or to somewhere in a field in the middle of the UK like I've been doing all year. This time it's a biggie.

My Father, who died in 1962, was born, grew up, studied and married for the first time in Poland. His whole family was there. Except for two cousins, and a couple of more distant relatives by marriage, he was the only survivor after the Holocaust. Until his death when I was 6, he would tell me a story every night about himself as a child, and his adventures with his cousins. Whether the stories were true or not it was always a very special time for the two of us, our time.

Later, a few years after his death, I attended Polish School on Saturdays and became quite fluent. That all finished when I was around 11 years old. Since then I've never used the language. Yet somehow, in the back of my mind somewhere, there has been the knowledge that part of me is Polish.

So, this is it, nearly 50 years after the death of my Father, I'm going to poland for the very first time. I'm going as an outsider, with the very minimal Polish I can still manage, but I'm going to places I can remember my Father talking about, and to places that are relevant to my Father's family history.

I'll be writing about it in this blog...once or twice a week (maybe even more when I get really excited!) Please read it and travel with me.