I realise that I've been here for almost five weeks now and have done very little to keep you all up to date with my progress and that this has caused many of you to lose sleep etc.

One reason for this is that I can only blog from the PCs at work and I get distracted by other things. I hope to have a laptop after Christmas which will make things a bit easier.

I find myself in Torun more by accident than by design - I hadn't heard of the place two months ago. However, as places to live go, it takes some beating; the town centre is absolutely lovely and it's surrounded by forests.

That's Nicolaus Copernicus above (Nick to his friends). He was the first to suggest that the Sun is at the centre of our solar system, rather than the Earth (whatever next?) and is considered to be the father of modern astronomy. He is a bit of a local hero and has roads, bars and shopping centres named after him. From my point of view he serves as a jolly good meeting point when you're planning to go out ('meet you at Nick at 7').

As I said, two months ago I hadn't heard of Torun - I left St. Mary's Primary School at the end of July, had a week at home to sort out my house, and then began my CELTA course (Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults) in Manchester during which I got to practise teaching English to classes of students from all over the world.

One month later I emerged back into the daylight and started looking for a job. I had decided to stay in Europe for the first year and then to move further afield. However, a lot of jobs are snapped up during August so I didn't find too much at first. I had heard a lot about International House (a large company that has schools all over the world) on my course and so I decided to try for a job with them. Eventually this job came up and I was asked to go to London for an interview. This was followed an hour later by a phone call from Poland and so I had another interview by mobile phone while I tried to scurry for a quiet spot in the middle of London. At the end of the call I was offered the job and was asked to fly to Poland the following weekend.

So here I am - International House, Torun. I'm here until the end of July and can transfer to another school after that. I get a few hols - two weeks at Christmas and one at Easter so I'll be back in the UK then and hope to catch up with a few of you then (unless you fancy a trip to Poland!). We get a two week winter break at the end of January as well so I'll be nipping off around Poland at that point I expect.

I'll leave you with a view of the river that goes throught the middle of town. Rather annoyingly, I can't find anywhere to hire a kayak...