Blog No. 6

Gee, the most difficult part of writing this blog is thinking up the title for each entry!
How are you all anyway?

It is 1.45 a.m. in Poland now, so high time to start blogging!
I’ve just finished reading today’s post from Sophie about her weekend. It’s good that the Brits get a sunny weekend once in a while, too :-)
So, Sophie, you say that you had to move – do you mean move to a different location, or are you still living in Portsmouth? Anyway, it’s good that you can get online now, because I already started worrying if there was something wrong...
Your sunny seaside weekend reminded me of a book I started reading recently – Brighton Rock by G. Greene; so far, I only got to page 20 or so, because the language is far from simple, and I hate it when I come across words that I’ve no idea what they mean, or even how they are pronounced – I try to check every single one and it takes time... But the feeling of a bright esplanade with people in deckchairs enjoying their free time was quite similar!
Your photographs and your descriptions also stirred some memories – I was reminded of those few times when I had a day to myself while in the UK, and travelled around a bit (very small indeed) – the furthest I got to was Windsor castle, and I also spent a sunny (!) Sunday once at Hampton Court. Somehow those little attractions – like a brass band playing live in a park – seem typically British to me, in the way they are more ‘refined’ than anything we might enjoy in Poznan...
The thatched cottages, on the other hand, looked just like houses in Loosdrecht – the Dutch village where I lived for two years... So, a bit of travelling back in time, owing to your photos :)
I had to look at my atlas to see exactly where Isle of Wight is, and all the places you mentioned. Looking at the map I realised I have a friend living not far from your town – in a village called Lymington. She is a woman from Poznan who moved there last year, to join her son. She showed me photographs of the neighbouring area once, I think it is called New Forest – looked really nice in the pics.
Now, let me ask a linguistic question, if I may.
Today I was reading something in English and it struck me as odd that you say ‘part (of something)’ without an article. So you say: „For part of the day...” and not „For a part of the day...”. The reason this seems odd is that ‘part’ is a singular countable noun, and such nouns (as far as I remember some old rule) should not be used on their own, without an article, possessive pronoun etc. I think ‘half’ is used similarly – again a countable noun in its singular form, but one would say „I spent half of the day” and not „... a half...”. If you can see my point, then maybe you could help me with this...
The other thing is, you use adjectives „twee” and „chocolate-box” to describe the place you visited in a rather positive way. I had to look up those two (before I got to your explanations at the end of the blog!), and my dictionary said they both sounded rather negative, or derogatory. Could you comment on the fact that many adjectives in English seems to have either a positive or a negative idea behind them (which is often very hard to get to grips with for a foreigner!), and would you agree with my dictionary – or do you think this is more of a subjective matter?
Right, I’ll have to go now (3 a.m. again!!) but hope to return soon, and finally reply to some of the comments! :)
Good night!

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