Just a Little Run Around the World: 5 Years, 3 Packs of Wolves and 53 Pairs of Shoes. Rosie Pope Swale

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       CHAPTER 7 Rip Van Winkle in a Snow-hole

       Poland, December 2003

      Everything is black. There’s a crushing weight on top of me. I’ve gone to sleep with the torch in my hand, and flicker it on to see the inside of the bivvi filled with a huge tangle of frayed rope.

      It’s not rope at all. It’s actually my half-frozen breath that’s been recycled, melted and refrozen, as there’s so little air. I grab the zip and have to force it open. A heap of snow comes in and mixes with my frozen breath. I burrow and dig my way up.

      The full moon is shining down on a totally white landscape and I’m in a snowdrift, 5ft deep. Again! The stars gleam into my snow-hole. Inside the bivvi, the sleeping bags and saucepans are covered with ice, my black bag with precious items has turned into a white bag. I can’t believe I just camped here last night. It’s as if I’ve been here for a thousand years and I’m Rip Van Winkle who went to sleep in a cave for 1000 years.

      I make the hole larger into a kind of cave, then get the stove out. I had it in the sleeping bag to keep warm as I’ve been having trouble lighting it. I stick the lighter down my front inside my clothes to warm up a bit too and lose it for ever. Luckily, I’ve got waterproofed matches in a tin. I chip ice from the saucepan, triumphantly making snowy porridge for breakfast.

      When the stove won’t go I spoon coffee powder into the mug, topping it up with cold water, thinking of it as Starbucks. It isn’t bad—great training for the imagination.

      Most things have to be done differently—most important, the chamber-pot. In eighteenth-century England even the grandest homes had potties under the beds. Nobody wished to walk down icy corridors in search of facilities in the middle of night. My pot is more of a mountaineer’s emergency pee tin, but has a good lid, which is its most important feature. I can’t wriggle out into the darkness and snow at −15°C, freeze my bottom and bring all the snow in with me.

      Vivid human encounter and deep solitude alternate like movements in a symphony. I love Poland. After the loneliness I find the people are so warm and full of fun, with the laughter and spirit of those who have known harsh times throughout their history but have never been conquered inside themselves.

      There were two days of golden autumn just before the blizzard. These last moments seemed brighter and stronger as if to give a memory for the winter that wouldn’t fail during the months ahead.

      The wind flying in ebullient little whirlwinds makes a merry-go-round of golden leaves. The last colours before the snows come are blazing scarlet, crimson and orange in the forests. The last dance of the leaves.

      The first town I reach, Swinouscie, is an Aladdin’s cave of markets, an extravaganza of life and colour. Hot-water bottles dangle above stalls in their dozens, top of the range in the colder weather, along with thick socks, batteries of all sizes, spicy-smelling sausages, vegetables brightly displayed, exquisitely etched glassware. People hug each other, laugh a lot, wear big furry hats. My heart is lifted by hundreds of beautiful little horses pulling taxi carriages at a canter, with bells jingling merrily, or standing with faces deep in fat nosebags. I’ve fallen for a bright bay pony with a wild black mane and four white socks.

      I’m patting the horse when his owner comes up, a white-haired energetic old man. He gets out his accordion and sings me a song. I don’t understand the lyrics, but it sounds great. I haven’t expected to arrive in Poland and be serenaded. I’m huge in damp coats and think my face is muddy from the lorries coming through the customs. The next thing he does is to get out a big clean white hanky, reach out and tenderly wipe my face. He then declares I have to marry him, he needs a wife and apparently I’m just right. I think he’s only asking me to make me smile, as I’m cold and lonely, but it does cheer me up. I imagine it’s typical Polish gallantry. He speaks in English but can’t understand anything I say to him. I’ll always remember the first words I string together in Polish with the help of the phrasebook: ‘Thank you very, very much, but I’m spoken for.’

      He kisses my hand and vanishes. He’d mentioned he was nearly 90, hard to believe, and glad to be still working. I never discover his name, but he’s wonderful and leaves me feeling all made up.

      I head off across the Wolin, practically an island linked by a tiny strip of land and bridge at a place called Dziwinów to the west of the north coast. There’s a spectacular nature reserve with majestic forests. The snows begin hitting hard. Deep winter arrives overnight. The holiday village buildings and campsites along the coast are ghosts. Buildings roar and shake in the blizzards. Doors to tourist cafes with tantalising signs for ice-cream and hot coffee are locked and barred, but the local farming community hang out in occasional cafes. I’m able to take off the wet kit discreetly and wring out my socks and vests. Nobody asks me to leave, even though I’m making puddles on the floors. Of course, the proprietors and customers are brilliant to me, as they have to be out themselves tending the farms. I buy pickles, black bread, wonderful sausage full of calories, and am fed hot beer—the locals say it’s the finest cure for the cold and everything else too.

      I’m managing in Polish because of their huge efforts to encourage me, as few people in the countryside speak English. It gets to me so much that in the small, struggling communities, in cafes and markets, people seem to understand what I’m doing, ‘this crazy marathon’, and why: the outer and inner journey, the purpose of it, without too many words.

      Cancer is a problem here too. I learn there’s a lot of it along the Polish coast. In Kosalin, someone calls the local paper and I do a stumbling interview in Polish to promote cancer awareness and health checks. I am so pleased that my message might reach someone here and help them. I think of Clive, still wondering how it would have turned out if we’d gone to the doctor earlier. The reasons for my run are not left behind. If you do something for a reason, I’m discovering, the reason itself gives back the help ten thousandfold, because it makes you so much more determined.