..used to be going to the local ice rink, where you would join a couple of hundred people of varying degrees of skill, packed onto a small arena of ice, wearing hired boots which seemed designed to lean at 45 degrees to the surface of the ice, instead of the more practical 90. Don't get me wrong, it was fun as a kid, and I'm glad I went, but mainly because I was more able to enjoy what I now call the 'real thing'.

Poland has a lot of lakes, large and small, and loads of forest to hide them in. When it gets cold - bingo! Instant ice-rinks, but outdoors, no organ music, no-one to tell you that your hour is up, and maybe 5 people per square kilometre of ice.

It's different, like farmhouse cheddar is different to the squishy stuff you get in tinfoil triangles.