It was lovely to have Karen back. Big thanks to Michelle (temp support worker) who did all the to’ing and fro’ing dropping her off and picking her up.

I made the most of Karen being away and caught up with a backlog of dp stuff.

On the day after Karen got back, Michelle (Karen’s sister) came over with Freddy. We had a good catchup with them. One of the bits of homework we have had from Jane (psychologist) is to rekindle how we used to be (ie less of the carer and caree, more of the husband and wife). So, we have one day a week where there must be no talk of the accident, no talk of rehab, Physio, etc …. The idea is it should be like a normal day pre-accident. She also wants us to talk about the old days and relive the past. Well, with this in mind, I sent 25 hours of old video footage away to be converted to dvd.

We had started watching the first hour of this and left michelle and freddy watching it when rachel (ot) came for her visit. Half way through rachel’s visit, the living room erupted with an explosion of laughter and continued like that until rachel left.

We went back in the front room and michelle and freddy were watching me doing magic tricks in front of the camera talking to a fake audience. Highly embarassing but funny as hell.

On Friday, we came to Poland for a few days. It was karen’s birthday present from me. She had always wanted to go to see the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The hotel is lovely (radisson sas) and yesterday (saturday) we made the trip to Auschwitz and Birkenau. It was an unforgettable trip and quite moving. At the bottom of this post should be some photos. Not sure what order they will be in, but one is of Karen under the infamous “Arbeit macht frei” sign, one is of me that I took myself ‘cos Karen wasn’t there (more about that shortly) and one is of Karen next to the buildings where they housed 700-1000 prisoners in EACH building). I had told her not to smile so much but I think she took it to the extreme in that shot.

We started off at Auschwitz (smaller of the 2 camps) but the walk was very long and we followed our guide into 3 or 4 of the buildings and each had many stairs. It took it’s toll on kp and she was really struggling by the end. The minibus then took us to Birkenau (2 miles away). Birkenau was Auschwitz “perfected” or that’s what the Nazis would have said. Instead of housing 28 buildings, it had 300!! Instead of 1 small gas chamber, it had 2 huge ones with attached crematoriums plus a couple of small overflow ones. It was murder on a mammoth scale. At one end was the famous tower (just visible in the background of the “me” shot) and at the other end (at the end of the railway line) were the 2 large gas chambers.

The walk from one end to the other was probably about 2/3rds of a mile ( with all the detours you do). The tourbus drove around the complex and dropped us off at the gas chamber end and then it went back to the tower end to meet us there. The tour lady was great and could see Karen was flagging and “told” her to stay in the bus and told me that I would be walking to meet up with her. Fine by us. Yes, Karen wanted to see it all but her body knew it had done enough. So, we bade farewell and split up. I was happy that Karen would probably just stay in the minibus and sleep.

Birkenau isn’t tourist-ified at all. It has basically been kept in the original state whereas Auschwitz has displays explaining the horror of it all.

It was all very moving.

After about an hour and a half, I met up with Karen and was really pleased to hear that she had seen the other end of Birkenau and hadn’t missed out by sleeping in the van.

On the way back, Karen was exhausted (I was flagging as well). She kept falling asleep and snoring off the Richter scale. I even caught myself falling asleep into the rucksack on my lap.

I think the driver took pity on us and dropped us off first, which was nice.

So, a very good trip marred only by some ignorant people we shared the minibus with. A couple of them really got my dander up and unlike the usual dp, I let them know.

It started off when we got in the minivan. We were the first pickup so we had a choice of seats. Karen, understandably chose a front seat as she doesn’t do back seat since the accident. The driver had blocked off the other front seat with her bag, so I sat behind Karen.

When we got to the next hotel pickup, the old bloke wanted to sit in the front but that would mean Karen was squashed so I suggested she could come with me.

David :- “it’s not the backseat love”

As I helped Karen out of the front, the bloke had the cheek to say …,

Bloke :- “it’s safer in the back anyway”

Well, I was #%^**”@&£)(; seething !!!

David :- “that’s not the right thing to say. Karen was a back seat passenger and suffered horrific injuries BECAUSE she was in the back!”

I felt a bit better for my rant but then …..

As a little aside as he got in the front…..

Bloke :- “it’s still safer in the back”

Jesus! I was gunning for him from that moment on.

They were a party of 4 and with the exception of one of them, they were soooo ignorant. This sums them up …..

We entered a crematorium at Auschwitz where the sign called for silence (out of respect). This bloke constantly talked to the guide. And then, to fully sum them up…..

The womans phone rang and she took the bloody call in the quiet area.

Ignorant !

Anyway, we went straight for a snooze on our return and felt much better for it.

Then…….

Karen :- “I am going to tell you something and I don’t want you to be angry”

Karen proceeded to tell me that when she had got out of the minubus (on her own) at Birkenau and crossed the road to get to the tower, she had nearly got run over.

I was relieved she was ok, but a little annoyed as I have told her countless times that she shouldn’t cross roads on her own. She can’t take in all the information that is needed to be taken in to cross the road safely. To be fair, it wasn’t a proper road (more a car park aisle) but still…..

Anyway, we had a lovely day topped off with some nice room service and a hot bath plus some morphine tablets (just kp for morphine obviously. I am just sticking to crack cocaine and a little heroine)

Today we are going to do the main square if she wakes up .