Victory Day. Briefly back in Kyiv, I attend a Victory Day wreath laying at the Park of Glory. I'm moved when an elderly woman, bedecked with medals, tells me how she gave blood as a 15 year-old to injured soldiers. "In those days we had true patriotism," she says, eyes glistening. Later I see her helping another, older, woman down the stairs at the obelisk. Teenagers approach them and give them red carnations. Soon the area around the eternal flame is heaped with wreaths, including one I have placed there on behalf of the United Kingdom. I fly back to Lviv on a veteran propellor-driven Antonov AN 24. This has the benefit of flying slow and low, its huge windows giving a fine view over the patchwork of tiny fields left by land privatisation in western Ukraine. I'm reminded of my plan to make a return visit this autumn to a former collective farm in Poltava Oblast, in the black earth region, where last September saw a record harvest. It will be fascinating to see if that was a one-off, or if agricultural reform in Ukraine is producing results. Back at the flat in Lviv, my host family are keen to know what I've been up to in Kyiv. I try to tell them; but the progress I felt I'd made in speaking Ukrainian in my first two days here seems to have evaporated during my 24 hours in the capital. Must try harder!