A tale of Blockposts.......

Here in Ukraine, a blockpost is where the authorities, police and army, set up checkpoints with chicanes and Czech hedgehogs. Passports are sometimes checked, but often, as an aid van, you are simply waved through.
Coming back from Uman today we were checked 3 times.This being somewhat unusual. They go from quite grumpy and officious, to giving us a friendly wave, as we go through after they have checked our documents. Be that as it may, and we will not make a comment as to how it makes us feel at times, however...

We had a quite unique blockpost at about 5pm. We stopped to have the last of our tea from the thermos, and of course a biscuit.  As we returned  from where we were parked to rejoin the main road, we were stopped by a group of children. They had drawn a blockpost sign on paper and waved us to stop, one of them holding a wooden toy gun. You can't make it up.
In a bit of English and a bit of Ukraine, they explained what they were doing.... actually collecting money for the army. We made a donation and then they took photos, of us in front of our van  and them at the blockpost. Then they gave us chocolates. And let us on our way. Really a wonderful moment, although consider that young children are collecting money to help Ukraine. How their lives have changed.

Today we made our journey back to Lviv, seeing first thing this morning, a dog outside our hotel window...
Followed again by many sightings of storks.
And finally a "swimming" cat....it might take another blog to explain that
So another aid run finished. Our friend and colleague, Staszek, is also home, having managed, who knows how, to get back to Krakow so that he can go to a reunion this evening.
And to all the other people who have made this run possible: Magda, Tomasz, and the people who unloaded the aid and who will ensure that it gets to the right places.
Many thanks to you all. 

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