Peter Moore

That's me out of a job then...

WEAVING CAMO NETS WITH AUSSIE SUE

I’d only been in Lviv for a couple of days, but I’d already noticed that it was easy to forget I was in a country at war.

Until it wasn’t.

Here’s an example. After I’d finished my orange cappuccino at Svit Kavy, I made my way to Rynok Square, home to Lviv Town Hall and the historical heart of the city.

There, opposite an incongruous tourist train, I noticed a sign for a volunteer centre. They were looking for volunteers to help the army in weaving camouflage nets, and as I didn’t have to meet my guide for another hour or so, I decided to check it out.

The volunteer centre was set on the second floor of No. 9 Rynok Square, a beautiful old Secessionist building with high ceilings, ornate cornices, and intricate parquet flooring.

The nets were stretched out the length of a stately room, hung on frames made from old pallets, illuminated from the light that streamed in from the huge windows and the chandeliers overhead.

One volunteer was cutting camouflage-coloured fabrics into strips. The other was tying those strips onto the netting.

The one doing the tying was an Aussie called Sue, and on discovering I was an Aussie too, greeted me with a hearty “G’day”.

Sue was a seasoned traveller and equally seasoned volunteer. She had travelled the old hippy trail back in the day and now spent her retirement juggling the two. She had ‘wintered’ in Lviv, helping at a soup kitchen one day, weaving camouflage nets the other.

Once her three-month visa was up, she was heading to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago. Then, more likely than not, she’d be back in Lviv to help out again.

Sue showed me how to tie the strips to the netting using a simple butterfly knot. And advised me to be as random as I could with the colour of the strips I chose. That was the key to deceiving the drones, she said. Powered by AI, the drones looked for patterns.

“We have blind people come in twice a week,” she said. “They are completely random. And do a whole lot of nets.”

That was the standard I had to aspire to, and TBH, it stressed me out every time I delved into the box of fabric strips to pick a colour.

I did my best. But let me tell you, I’m no blind person.