Words For The Occation: before Annopol to beyond Tarnobrzeg.

September 30, 2013

The tall young woman says something. I am in a small grocery shop browsing but not seeing Cornflakes, which would be nice for a late breakfast. I know what she said as she opened with "prosze....." meaning can I help you? I reply "Cornflakes?" Eh-coorn-flakes?" she replies, and walks pass me to lift a packet from a corner I'd missed and returns brushing softly against me as she passes: my eyes follow her to the counter. I take a carton of milk and a bottle of water before meeting her smile over the counter as I pay.

There's a table outside where I sit and crunch my way through cornflakes from the pan used as a breakfast-cereal-bowl. There's nothing much on the cornflake packet which takes my interest, but, the large text on the milk carton is partly readable.

The third line, all one word, had me puzzled. I've since learned it means light resistant, supposedly, it can be left out in the sun.

I need something sweet. So, get up and go back inside where, I'd noticed home made cookies on a rack by the counter. The young woman beat me to the caramel filled ones, holding my gaze as she uses the tungs to lift one into the plastic bag I've ready, nods to motion another: I signal yes with a nod and when she has put four in the bag, I put out my hand and lower it to signal enough. I have already learned the word for thanks, dziekuje (do-zinc-qua) which I say after paying. I say it approximately how it should sound but still not correctly, so she repeats it syllable for syllable.

When I cycle on from the shop which is in a little place after the town Annopol, I turn right along a narrow road with a sign upon which there's a boat and another sign about a weight limit. The road is dead straight as the land is flat and open from the shoulder on either side and mainly stubble left after harvest, but there's also plots where there are rows of hop-poles, lease that's what I think they are. One middle-aged couple with bicycles parked at the roadside are stripping out dried-up hop-vines at one plot. There are also small plots of vegetables.

No cars pass, nor do I meet a car. When I reach the ferry I see why: there's a red and white stripped pole-barrier across the road and the small ferry, little more than a raft is moored by a concrete loading ramp on the riverbank. There's nobody about and it looks like the ferry isn't going to start up and cross soon.

I ride the few kilometres back toward the village; nice as its a still cloudless day looking along the road ahead of me to a clump of trees with a church tower. It looks a long way round to where the river is bridged, but a kilometre or so after the village there's a right turning which isn't marked on the map, with a sign to a place on the map, on the other side of the river, and there are no ferry signs. There is a bridge across when I get that far.

I am soon on a busy highway leading to a town, two towns in a row, beyond which there's a new divided highway with a cycle-path to the side. It isn't the nicest road except for the day which remains gloriously sunny. And apart from finding the usual forest campsite around five, that's all there's to write about today.

Today's ride: 116 km (72 miles)
Total: 6,949 km (4,315 miles)

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