Kurma

Oh, I forgot to tell you. It's cherry season here. There are trees everywhere, groaning with fruit, most free for the picking. Cherries are my favourite fruit, but I rarely get to indulge since Australian cherries have such a short and expensive season.

I'm cooking a feast for the 250-strong crew here before I leave, and I'll try to make a cherry halava.

Today the Festival of India moves to Kolobrzeg. The largest town of Zachodniopomorskie province, it has a population of over 50,000, and is situated at the mouth of the Prośnica River. It is a seaport, seaside resort, and rail junction. A salt-trading center in the Middle Ages, it was chartered in 1255. It was besieged three times by the Russians in the Seven Years War before it fell in 1761. Kolobrzeg was virtually obliterated during World War II.

Today it is the favourite venue for the Festival of India tour, and always attracts record crowds. This year we will be visited by the Indian and Indonesian Ambassadors to Poland.

More news as it comes to hand.

Our last day at Ustronie was memorable in a number of ways. A wedding was conducted on stage for a couple from the tour - a security guard and the head of the art department, both from Ekatarinburg, Russia. It was greeted enthusiastically by record crowds, who cheered, threw rice and cried.

Our first class began, as usual, with our receptive audience 'lapping it up'.

It soon became evident, however, that the electrical cooking stoves were drawing too much power, and they cut out half way through the proceedings. We had to abandon attempts to fry most our crispy poorie breads, and we limped through to the end. As usual, the audience were kind and understanding, and they all got a full plate of our mixed vegetable curry, and half a poorie each.

The electricians had the stoves fixed by the time we set up for our last class for the evening, and, among other things, we made the best halava pudding I have ever tasted - full of toasted walnuts and juicy fragrant fresh forest raspberries.

I discovered that Polish people like asafetida - I passed around a tub of it, and asked for comments. Most gave the 'thumbs up' of approval.

I also got a chance to check out a few of the stage performances and other tents between shifts. The Balinese troupe were dancing up a storm, enchanting the audience with their colourful performance.

The pancake tents pumps out large, ultra-thin crepes on order, and can fill them with jam, or cream, or sprinkle them with sugar. I tried one with the lot.