The place to be

Not only do we have the fantastically laid-back and trendy Chłodna 25 cafe/bar/hangout just down the road, and the spot-on commie Red Pig restaurant with its beer tubes and red carnations across the way, we now also have the Chłodna bistro, next door but one.

I haven't been yet but these lovely people say it's great and the views I've got from the odd peek through the window have revealed a comfy-looking almost classy little place. Plus they have a great sign.

Just in case you thought I was getting bogged down in the winter blues, let me remind you I LOVE our new (how long can it stay new? we'll see shall we...) flat.

Doors!

One of the great things about living in an old building like ours is the way, if you look hard, you can see the original beauty of the structure (underneath the graffitti, peeling plaster, grim flakey woodwork and creaky wooden staircases of course).

One of the extra great things about paying a rather large amount into the restoration fund every month is the way that, if you are patient enough, you see it being used to bring little pieces of the original aesthetics back to the building.

When we looked around our flat there was no gate to the internal courtyards, now there is!

When we were decorating and moving boxes in, there were old wornout windows in all the stairwells, now there are new clean white wooden ones!

When we moved in we had ugly doors to the stairwells that clanked shut like prison cells. Our particular stairwell's door had a hole kicked into it, low down.

When we returned to our flat after New Year, we were greeted by this!

Slowly, slowly but surely.