The mind is a crazy mixed up entity. Even though it resides a few centi-metres above your eyebrows, you never get to know what it’s doing, how it’s doing it, or what it’s really thinking. It has secret thought processes that it keeps from you. Jumbles some of them up. Constructs Dali like playlets in the middle of the night. Disturbs your sleep. You wake. Confused. What was all that about?
It can fool itself too. Unintentionally. It can see things that aren’t really true. Is it two faces nose to nose, or is it an octopus holding a bucket and spade? It can associate noises incorrectly. Creaking floorboards in the middle of the night can only mean one thing. Right? Wrong!
Day 32 sees us set off for Camp-Wroc, just outside Wrocław (Warsaw to me – and to you?) – all Polish words harbour mysterious spellings and pronunciations. Hardly surprising with an alphabet that includes three versions of their favourite letter Z. As a result, Polish conversations tend to sound like a buzzy bee convention that’s been smoke bombed.
Our intention is for a three night stay. Two full days ‘down town’ on the cards. During the journey, Mrs S has been doing some forward planning for later on in the trip. Seemingly finds another Wrocław that sounds a good place to visit. “We could do that one in a couple of weeks, on our way out of Poland then.” I suggest. Mrs S considers it strange there are two Warsaws (Wrocławs). I just think it’s not uncommon. There are three Christchurch’s in the UK, for instance.
It becomes a long day in the saddle. A mind numbing fifty minutes of slow moving queues to get through and past Łódź, doesn’t help, We hit the city outskirts during rush hour. Beastie is coping better with the mayhem than we are. To make matters more unbearable, we find ourselves unable to find the site. We discover I’d put slightly wrong co-ordinates into Missy SatNav. It’s as if Beastie is on a gone wrong Apollo mission and plopped us down on the dark side of the moon. Missy’s having a field day. Laughingly pointing one way, then the other. Our synchronised pirouettes obviously in need of more practice. More by luck, than judgement, the massive camp sign appears miraculously on the only section of road we hadn’t driven up. Relief. We confirm our three nights at reception and Beastie clambers onto a lovely sunny pitch. Our spent energies soon revive with an alfresco steak and red wine dinner.
Day 33. We’re up bright and breezy. Looking forward to seeing what Wrocław has in store. The day’s itinerary at the ready. Mrs S has prepared sarnies and drink. We’re all set. We just need to establish which buses and trams to catch and connect, to get us to the Uprising Museum. Mrs S plots the route into MAPS. “I don’t understand” she says, “it’s telling me it’s a 3 hours 48 minutes journey.” I tap into my phone. Get the same result. The route is pointing back down south west. “That’s weird, why would it direct us to the other Wrocław?”
At this point my mind is resembling a whirling slot machine. Cherries spinning. Out of control. Unable to all fall on the same line at the same time. Hit the jackpot. Suddenly the penny drops. Along with my blood pressure.
Feverishly, I widen my search on MAPS. My mind can’t believe what it’s seeing. Warszawa (the real Warsaw and capitol) actually is 3 hours and 48 minutes ‘up the road’.
I not only put in slightly wrong co-ordinates yesterday, I mysteriously and obviously without thinking too hard, also put in the co-ordinates for the wrong site, in the wrong city. My mind didn’t think to question whether Wrocław was, or wasn’t Warsaw. It visually looked similar and in spoken English phonetically sounded even more similar.
An embarrassed and very hurried two night cancellation ensues.
After all, we need to get to . . . Wrocław? Warszawa? Whatever!