Friday 14th Sept.
Got up nice and early and headed into the shower. Inside this old house they have this bizarre cylindrical cubicle. It is a complete unit, not built in that gets plugged in to a power point to get started. There is a circle of bright blue LED lights in the centre of it. It looks like a prop from Star Trek has been beamed down into the bathroom. Then I turned on the hot tap. The rankest foulest smell came out with the water. Rotten Eggs reached into my nostrils and grabbed the back of my throat. That was one quick shower. Into the cars this morning. Mum with Kazimiras. Audrey, Lauren, Romas and I in the Subaru. Romas driving. We headed for Sakiai - the town where Mum grew up. We saw the school she attended, a building her father built. He was a master builder and the building which was a shop downstairs and an apartment upstairs, is now the police station. It is one of the few old buildings left in the town. Sakiai was at the front during WW2. If the Germans weren't occupying it, the Russians were, and whoever wasn't occupying the town was bombing and shelling the crap out of it. Next we saw the apartment where Mum grew up. An old two story building, she used to live above a shop.
Then out of Sakiai and on to a large estate that looks like an artists cooperative.it is called Zyplia Manor Homestead. A large grassed central area covered in these amazing statues and carvings - surrounded by old buildings that may once have been brick stables. This was where my great grandfather worked as blacksmith and where my grandfather was born. Back into the cars and onto winding dirt roads, we drive past farmlands, large flat expanses fringed with fir and beech forests. Past old buildings with ancient tractors and trucks parked alongside. Then we turned and drove across a recently harvested field of wheat. We stopped next to a field of corn and looked out over an area where my great grandfather worked as a farmer.
We wandered around the fields and went to an old oak tree that my mother and aunt played under as children. This was special. My mother with her children standing in the places of her childhood that we had only ever heard about, on the other side of the world.
Then a bit of a drive to the house of Mindaugas and Adyita.
They live on the edge of the forest. The "wilds" he calls it. They have a two story, blonde brick house, then behind that another larger blonde brick house, that has 2 garages- the one that was open could easily fit 3 semi- trailers. Next to the massive garage is Mindaugas office, then guest accommodation. There is an upstairs section that we did not see but there is a dining room downstairs where we all ate with Mindaugas , Aditya and her three children. Mindaugas cooked up some pork outside on the equivalent of a Lithuanian barbecue. more like an outdoor oven. Aditya also has two massive sheds like aircraft hangers - like a half cylinder lying on the ground. These were filled with tools, vehicles, huge planks of rough dawn timber next to a massive bench saw. To say I had shed envy would be an understatement.
Then it was time to leave. Mindaugas led us through the wilds- fantastic dark, deep forests. You could imagine bears ( they do roam these forests) and medieval people milling about. Then back to Kriukai for the chair bed.