Last month we headed east to the town of Bialstok, near the Polish border with Belarus. We’d been invited to the wedding of our child minder, who strangely hasn’t been put off the thought of marriage and the near-inevitable consequence of children by looking after our spawn for the last twelve months. The wedding was to take place in an Orthodox church, beginning at 5pm on Friday evening.
The Parent Currently Known as Mum (TPCKAM) had a day off work, the kids had a day off school - they needed it after all, after having endured the first three days of the new term following two months off - and we set off from Warsaw at ten in the morning, only an hour or so later than planned, which isn’t at all bad, given that we had two kids and hadn’t packed the night before.
It’s no more than a three hour drive, so we decided to stop off along the way at one of Poland’s Holocaust memorial sites, at the former death camp of Treblinka. Even in this day of kids being seemingly desensitised against the worst horrors of humanity, a former death camp is no place for the under-10’s, but the camp at Treblinka was destroyed by the Germans long before the end of the war, and there are no empty buildings left standing, no relics of the gruesome past. The site, in a beautiful, peaceful, secluded forest, is made of standing stones. The perimeter of the camp is marked out with large Stonehenge-like blocks, and inside there are thousands of small stones, marking the victims and the towns from which they were taken. We gave the children a brief explanation of events, they weren’t at all interested, they charged off into the forest and played.
800,000 people were killed at Treblinka, which is just too big a number for anyone to really comprehend, never mind small children. It is a beautiful memorial.
We arrived in Bialstok two hours before kick off. Checked into the hotel and discovered a children’s play area across the road. We bundled the spawn in that direction, and they charged off, shoes to the wind, and let loose the dogs of war. We settled back with a cup of joe and watched the mayhem. At the heart of the play area was a giant, pink and yellow inflatable breast. Perhaps it was intended to make small children feel comfortable, and ease any separation issues they might have when their mother tries to get fifteen seconds to herself.
High up on the wall was an advert for another children’s recreational joint in the city called Fartlandia. Extra beans optional.
At T minus 60 I returned to the hotel. At some stage, and even before I looked in the suitcase, it suddenly dawned on me that I’d forgotten my white shirt. This is the kind of thing that would have you shouting at your kids for their carelessness. Fortunately my own mother wasn’t there to shout at me, and I was at least able to contribute to the stress of the groom and his mother by asking if there was anywhere nearby that I could buy a white shirt. (Good thing I hadn’t forgotten my sporran, which might have been a bit more difficult to source at short notice in eastern Poland.) A spare white shirt was dredged up form somewhere, and I was saved. The kids told me off, but they’re not as good at it as I am.
The wedding service lasted about an hour. A choir chanted melodically almost throughout, responding to one of the many chanting priests on hand. It was a beautiful service, and One of Two and Two of Two managed to hold themselves in check for the entire time. They looked angelic, and maybe they fooled some of the people some of the time, but they weren’t fooling the parents. We were like Gregory Peck in the Omen. (I mean, we could see through the mask, not that we tried to sacrifice them on the alter with two thousand year old knives.)
The service over, they went on the charge. However, later, when the chips were down at the wedding reception, they once more behaved themselves.
This was a wedding reception like you’ve always dreamed of. No speeches. Frankly, that’s what you want out of a wedding reception, as a groom, father of the bride, or as a guest. When One of Two gets married, I now have an alternative to insisting she runs away to the Dominican Republic.
The food was brought out at a tremendous rate, one course zipping quickly into the next, so that if you didn’t get your cutlery in your hands quickly enough, the plate had gone and you were looking at something else which required a completely different set of implements. The object of fast food and no speeches was clearly to get everyone onto the dance floor with as much haste as possible. And so, within about twenty minutes of everyone sitting at the table, and after several ad hoc localised vodka-fuelled toasts, the music was on and ninety percent of those in attendance were boogieing on down to Boney M. Seriously, Boney M. There’s no escape. Resistance is futile. Despite Brown Girl In The Ring, we danced and danced into the small hours.
Ok, I danced for about ten minutes, and then only because TPCKAM pulled a machine gun on me. Soon enough, however, the long tiring day of mostly behaving himself got too much for Two of Two, and the wee fella started complaining of tiredness. We retired hurt to the bedroom, and fell into a deep sleep, only to awake to the cries of Ra-Ra-Rasputin ringing through the hotel at two in the morning...
To be continued...
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