Just arrived in Kazimierz Dolny. Great hotel: huge room, fantastic shower, and uncomplicated WiFi, so here I am again.

Today was an inauspicious start. We were doing a pre-breakfast walk in the primeval forest with a local expert - 2.5 hours, leaving at 5am. I wasn't keen on the early start, but I consoled myself that there would be all sorts of cute animals coming up to say hello at that time of the morning - like in Snow White - and the light would be fabulous for photography.

It rained. No, it chucked it down, in bucketloads, for the whole way. And you all know how much I LOVE walking in the rain!! It was cold, I hadn't had any breakfast, and the nature bloke was hugely knowledgeable, but I was the class dunce and couldn't make head nor tail of most of what he was saying. I managed to avoid chucking pine cones at his head for entertainment, but only just.

Still, I really enjoyed my breakfast, when it eventually came! They had made us drop scones with apple in them. Yum. The bread and pastries are good here - very Germanic. Tomorrow is our free day, and if it keeps raining like this, I am spending it in the town's cafes with KuK and my holiday library!

Since my kayaking ecapades (it was a kayak, by the way, not a canoe), we have been doing a lot of nature. We were in a national park with lots of marshes, and we've had a lot of exposure to apparently interesting birdlife. I am struggling to keep up. Our tour leader is apparently one of Poland's leading ornithologists (the forest man told us that today), and I can see the disappointment in his eyes when I am trying not to yawn at the back! He is amazing though - he sees a tiny black speck in the sky and announces "That is a lesser spotted blue tipped moor harrier. Male. Likes Take That without Robbie." (I made that last bit up.)

Got to go - another walk in the rain coming up. And I PAY to do this??