Today is St Nicholas' day which means that Santa Clause (or The Artist Formerly Known as St Nick) is in town giving out pressies to the kids. This solves the mystery of how Santa can travel to all those different countries in such a short period of time on Christmas eve, plus, here in Poland there's no getting stuck down chimneys he just turns up in the town square. Of course, presents are also exchanged on Christmas eve, but on that day, while Santa is making his way round the rest of the world, the gifts are brought by a fairy or the baby Jesus. Not sure how that works, as the baby Jesus would need a lot of pocket money to buy everyone something.

Two days ago was St Barbara's day, she's the patron saint of many things, including miners, so this also is a time for celebration here in the region of Silesia. You know, here in Poland, and in Russia also, the Saints days are also known as name days, so if you are named after one of the saints then you celebrate in a birthday-style way. In some regions the name day is more important than the birthday. So, brother Nick, happy name day!

It's quite pleasant to see the pre-Christmas season from a different perspective. Obviously everybody here is Catholic and so they take this most-important festival very seriously, sticking to their family traditions of preparing for the big day. Some people go to Church every day for the whole month and some clean their houses and bake seasonal cakes. It's all about the religion and tradition for them, unlike in our unholy sales-driven corner of the world. If James Blunt gets to number one with his lame song which screams of 'I want a Christmas hit' then I am emigrating here for good. Fact.