Monday 11 July 2011

What's in a name? Orchardy Haven...?

We were looking for a name for our future home that would be somehow poetic and evocative of the kind of place we wanted it to become, and also to have a sense of where it is now...

So, it's in a small village called Sadowo. This in itself doesn't mean much, but the root 'sad' means 'orchard' in Polish. If you add the suffix '-owa', this turns is into an adjective, 'orchardy'. So far I must admit the 'orchard' there is a bit old and in need of some tlc - there are about 20 apple trees, and quite a lot of raspberry and blackcurrant growing around. Here's a picture showing part of it: looking towards the house, facing north. It will get more orchardy soon...


Then there is the 'haven'. Of course since the place is in Poland, the Polish name came first, which is Sadowa PrzystaƄ. Apparently this meets all my poetic and romantic criteria, and a haven or przystaƄ is a shelter, a safe place, resting place, a place to pause and re-energise.

We hope it will be a pause from the more complicated city life we've been living. We think the pace of life will be slower there in some ways, even though there's lots of work to do. We believe that it will be a place where people will come and eat apples and sit in our garden (after a few hours voluntary labour) and feel inspired and re-energised and relaxed...

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