February was a very busy month. We had a weekend away in Lancaster, of which I blogged about this month. After that I spent 10 days in Ukraine, volunteering, as usual, although I did attend a fantastic event with lots of people who are doing amazing stuff in Ukraine. Many soldiers were there and talked about their experience fighting for their country. In addition, I was invited, as one of the volunteers helping him, to a very special meeting with a soldier. It was incredible to hear him talking about his life on the frontlines, a humbling experience for me.
After that I’ve been volunteering to a special event in Portsmouth, where 200 paintings made by Ukrainian children were shown to visitors of the cathedral. I volunteered for 5 days and my husband joined me for 2 of those, during the weekend. We had a bit of time to visit Portsmouth and we had a volunteer road-trip, which was fab. For the 24th, I was in Trafalgar Square with my husband and friends. It was great. When Valerii Zaluzhnyi [Ambassador of Ukraine and previously the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from mid-2021 to February 2024] arrived on stage, the crowd started to chant “thank-you”, in Ukrainian. I joined in, of course. The crowd chanted “thank-you”, this time in English, when Shaun Pinner was on the stage. Shaun Pinner was a British-born POW, a defender of Ukraine, who was literately defending his home [30 min drive from the frontline pre-2022], who is doing a lot of great work for other Ukrainian soldiers and Ukraine.
Our trip to Lancaster was lovely. I flew over to Poland the day after we returned from our weekend away. We had a lovely time, check the blog for the posts on the things we did: visit the Lancaster Castle, nice restaurants, and the 14th century Hall we stayed in.
In Lviv I spent many hours volunteering, 55 in total. 2 of those were spent in Poland, in a shelter for Ukrainian refugees. One of them asked me if I speak russian. Most of the people in the eastern parts of Ukraine are russian speakers. I don’t. I am learning Ukrainian, but I will never learn russian. We understood each other with pointing and I know the word for “thank you”. I am always impressed by how grateful Ukrainians are for the help they are receiving, even if it’s something very small.
I volunteered at the kitchen, to do camouflage nets for both personnel and materiel, and I went to the animal shelter to care for the cats twice. It’s so relaxing, I am enjoying that very much. In the picture are, from top left to bottom right – the Opera at night, a big portion of borscht that was the lunch at one of the volunteering places I went to, a gorgeous shop [there is a post on shop fronts in Lviv], and the last is from the animal shelter with a very special cat, one of the ones recently rescued from the frontlines.
I mentioned this event. Many of these people are in the military. Fantastic event, marked by a gorgeous picture by Iryna Rohovyk. The charity that organised this event, which took place in a bomb shelter, is called Dzyga’s Paw, after the name of the dog you see in front of the people in this picture. The ones who opened this charity, after the full-scale invasion, are a young couple. He is now serving in the military as he voluntarily joined last year. If you want to support them, there is their website. So far they have raised over $3 million in these 3 years. Dimko worked in IT, like my husband, so it feels personal. At least read their story, on the website, it is inspirational and uplifting.
Portsmouth was on my to-visit list for a very long time, maybe even before I moved to the UK. I finally went there for volunteering for a very special exhibition.
As the exhibition showing paintings made by Ukrainian children was organised by volunteers that have served in Ukraine, I knew I wanted to be a part of that. I will collaborate with them for 2 more exhibitions, this time in Liverpool. See a picture from the exhibition below and more in the post. Check that post, in which I showed 15 paintings, there are more pictures from the exhibition.
After 2 full-days of working, we were taking turns who was standing in the church to talk with visitors and who was having a break. During those breaks, we went to see a few ships at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, including the Mary Rose and HMS Victory. I will blog about them next month.
One evening we went for cocktails at Spinnaker Tower. The Sky Bar is open in the evenings for lovely cocktails. It’s ticketed, but the price of the ticket is reduced from the bill at the end of the evening, which is great. The cocktails are lovely too.
This is Portsmouth at night, seen from the Spinnaker Tower.
Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral were the 2 destinations we’ve been to on the volunteer road trip. After a short check of the exhibition, as it was a quiet weekday, 5 of us went on a road trip. It was lovely.
We had a chat about the poisoning in Salisbury, with the 2 Ukrainians who came to the UK for the exhibitions. They knew about Skripal, but not all the shocking details. I told the non-Brit volunteers about the Magna Carta. Of course I was very excited about seeing it, more than the rest.
1. Pure Vegan. 2. Aston Hall at Lancaster Golf Club. 3. Back in Lviv. 4. Volunteering. 5. Volunteering at Domivka. 6. Vegan dessert from the supermarket in the mall. 7. More volunteering. 8. Vegan option at the hotel. 9. What I bought (charity fundraising – the bag). 10. Dzyga’s Paw event (the day before, in a bunker). 11. Shop in Lviv. 12. The celebration dinner was at Traven, followed by drinks at the volunteers’ favourite bar (the following day). 13. 55 hours of volunteering in my trip to Ukraine. 14. Back home, celebrating Valentine’s Day. 15. Latvian vodka. 16. Mars. Artwork by Luke Jerram at Norton Priory. 17. Checking the air alert app, from home. I do that more often than when I am in Ukraine. 18. Preparing my luggage for Portsmouth. I took both Vyshyvankas and my Ukrainian T-shirts. 19. Helping set up the boards for the exhibition, they were heavy. 20. Sunflower Dreams Project is ready to receive visitors. 21. Volunteer road trip to Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral. 22. Cocktails at Spinnaker Tower, after a long day working at the exhibition. 23. People engaging with the artwork and chatting to us, the volunteers. It was a very special day. 24. London rally in support of Ukraine. 25. I am an honourary Czech fella. 26. Tip for travelling to Ukraine: get 2 special wallets. 27. 1% of War and Q&A with volunteer Denys Khrystov. 28. Books in February
In February I finished 6 books, which means that I am on track on my reading challenge. I plan to read a bit more in March, considering that I will have more free time for this.
From the books I read I think the biography of Marie Curie and Vatnik Soup are worth reading, for non-fiction, and the Orphanage for fiction. Vatnik Soup is a very special book, signed by Pekka.
Books in February:
The elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel – 5 stars
The Language of Climate Politics by Genevieve Guenther – 4 stars
The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan – 5 stars
A History Of Lancaster Golf Club by J.H. Shennan – 5 stars
The Mary Rose by Margaret Rule – 5 stars
Vatnik Soup by Pekka Kallioniemi and Morten Hammeken – 5 stars
Congratulations on the volunteering it sounds a very busy month and very rewarding. I love visiting Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge. Well done with the reading challenge also.
It does sound like February was a very busy month for you with your volunteering at the event in Portsmouth and in Ukraine. Glad you had a nice trip to Lancaster. The exhibition at Portsmouth looked interesting. I grew up near Portsmouth and remember visiting the Historic Dockyard on school trips. Lovely to visit Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral too. #project365
It looks like February was a very busy, productive and fulfilling month for you. Your volunteering sounds so interesting, It’s just awful what has and continues to happen.
This was an especially interesting look at your month, Anca, and I really liked the descriptions of the things you did and the photos you shared. What remarkable experiences, packed in so short of a time. I am in awe of your energy and certainly impressed by your magnificent commitment to Ukraine. The diversity of activities is really quite something. Thank you for all you are doing.
Wow! You’ve had so many adventures this week and did so much good in the world. I hope you are resting now.
Sounds like you have had a very busy time. The event in Portsmouth sounds wonderful and I love visiting the Historic dockyard. I remember the Mary Rose being lifted from the sea
Sounds like a busy and interesting month. I went to uni at Lancaster, so will be going off to read your post about your village. I like Portsmouth too, so much to see and do, although we didn’t get to go up Spinnaker when we were there unfortunately.
Wow what an incredible experiences here. And kudos to you for volunteering. I can not believe what is going on in this world. And what we woke up to here in the U.S. at the end of November. And what happened on Friday in the oval office. This was beyond shocking. And it is very bad. Very very bad. I sadly see a very dark future for the U.S. and the world.
I don’t know what to think anymore. Sometimes I think the U.S. would be better off if broke into two separate countries. It is just too divided. Although that said %78-%80 of the population do not trust Putin and do not want to be aligned with him. But teflon Don is doing just that…
Allie
Friday was worse than I imagined it will be. Like you, I also see a dark future for US, without its traditional allies. It’s incredible that now US is aligning itself with countries like russia. It’s heartbreaking.
Not only was your month busy, it was productive and beneficial to the causes you support. I’ve been to Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral a couple of times and loved both. I look forward to your review of The Mary Rose. I knew very little about it until it was featured in one of Sansom’s “Shardlake” novels.
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There is a series on the Sansom’s books. I found it and I’m going to watch it soon. It’s exciting.
Mary Rose is housed in a wonderful museum. I will make 4 posts about that museum, as we visited 4 of the ships there. There were more, but we didn’t have the time to see all.
What a great month! Your time volunteering in Ukraine sounds so interesting, especially meeting the soldiers.
The event in Portsmouth sounds fab and at Trafalgar Square. What an experience for you.
Fantastic photos!
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