The street party photo diary

The build-up to the party started on Friday afternoon, when this band of merry men started getting people in the mood with their music making, and random kids rushed around handing out flyers.

I totally missed those enormous bras at the bottom right when I was taking this picture. I don't think they're related to the party, ignore them...

The flyers were something like this poster, taped up at restaurants and cafes up and down the road.

Nice aren't they? All audley-worldy and stylish.

When we finally got up on Saturday (late) morning and went out to get breakfast bread rolls, the street was full of this:

We don't usually have stalls lining our road. Suits it though don't you think?

with this kind of thing going up and down:

not to mention this randomness from the fire station at the end:


Later on, when we went for a second look, we realised the fire station itself was open. Well, you may remember how Marek and I feel about firemen... Ahem. We poked about the fire station's museum (now why haven't we gone there before?) and Marek chatted happily to the firemen about pumps and hoses and other fascinating fireman-related stuff.

They had all the old trucks lined up with the new ones - the old ones just look cute compared to the monsters they have now.

I was a little tempted to steal these, so I could dress Marek up in them later, but decided against in the end.

How cute...

Possibly the most terrifying wax model I have ever seen. Enough to put me off firemen for life. Almost.

Yeah, so we basically get to drive these big babies around, put out a couple of fires and wear the cool gear. It's all terribly important and I can see you wish you were as cool as me...

Enough fire station pictures methinks.

Later on there were concerts and grilled sausages and beer.

On Sunday Marek dragged me to the church basement to look at religious books (and experience the kind of fun you can only really have in Poland). I was idly watching a little girl play with a biblical toy, while Marek rifled through books that had Catholic services in Polish, English, French, German, Russian and Italian (well you never know which country you're going to be in when the urge to pray suddenly strikes do you?) Suddenly the woman supervising the religious book sale grabbed the toy from the child and snapped 'not like that!'

Her mother looked over, surprised and asked what the problem was. 'She was going to break it!' the older woman barked. 'I guess it's a little old for you' the mother explained to the girl, whose bottom lip was wobbling dangerously by now. The girl adopted a defiant expression and announced that she would wait for her mother outside. The supervisor woman looked on unemotionally.

Great, I thought. Nice way of teaching a child courtesy, Christian values of love and tolerance and involving her in the church. Would it have been so didfficult to demonstrate how the toy worked to the child? I mean honestly.

Oh damn. This was supposed to be a photo diary. Crap. Start again.

...concerts, grilled sausages and beer.

Concert during the day

Fire throwing at night



All rounded off with a load of noisy fireworks

Hoorah! The end.