When my wife and I were dating, I would often spend the afternoon with her Sundays in her home village of Jablonka (which means “little apple tree” in Polish). We’d have lunch with her family (often her father would slaughter a couple of rabbits for a tasty Sunday lunch) and then we’d head out into the fields that surrounded the family home and wander around talking.

I was always fascinated with the drabinki — the strange pyramidal ladders that were leaned against each other until the spring and summer when they served to dry the freshly-cut hay.