Politics: An objective assessment of your subjective reality

WRITTEN ON THIS, THE 37TH ANNIVERSARY OF POLAND'S TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY

So many people today get wound up by things that do not remotely affect their day-to-day lives. Migration is a good example. People living in picturesque English villages that have seen an influx of three foreign workers say they feel “swamped”. Young people with no direct connection to the Middle East drifting into anti-Semitism because of Gaza. The issues may be real enough, but the emotional weight attached to it is often wildly disproportionate to its actual impact on the individual’s actual reality.

This is not to say that migration, war, terrorism or national identity are trivial matters. Of course they're are not! But proportion matters. Russia is an existential threat to Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Poles in a way that Israel is not an existential threat to citizens of South London. Islamic terror is an existential threat across parts of Africa and the Middle East in a way that it is not to people living in rural Poland. 

The closer a threat is, the more materially it constrains daily life, the more rational it is for politics to be organised around it. If you like in Kyiv right now, the prospect of being killed by missiles or drones sent at you by a bloodthirsty madman is very, very real.

National politics should, at root, be about two things: the economy and security, internal and external. Citizens have a right to feel safe. They also have a right to expect that their hard work, thrift and enterprise should be rewarded by growing prosperity. When governments fail on these fundamentals, anger is justified. When anger is transferred instead onto distant symbolic causes over which neither the citizen nor, often, their government has much practical control, politics becomes emotionally satisfying but civically useless.

Sitting here in rural Poland, I see a country on the rise. That rise is not accidental. Macroeconomics are not just a matter of government policy; they're also the aggregate result of habits, incentives and behaviours of millions of people, earning and spending money. If people are entrepreneurial, hard-working and forward-looking, the economy moves in one direction. If too many people become comfortable sitting back on generous welfare benefits, it moves in another.

There is a simple test. If there is something you can do about a situation you dislike, do it. If there is nothing you can do, then moaning is pointless. And 'doing something' does not mean shitposting on social media. It means acting in the real world.

Don’t like massive increases in traffic, density and suburban overdevelopment? Move out to the countryside. That's what I did. Don’t like the direction of your country? Build something, employ someone, stand for office, volunteer, organise, write, teach, invest, persuade. Face to face, not online. [Ditching Twitter/X in November 2024 led to an instant improvement in my mental wellbeing.] Politics should not be a theatre in which people pin their frustration onto remote causes. It should be the practical art of improving the conditions of life where one actually stands. Delivering solutions rather than winning arguments.

This time last year:
Farewell, beloved grapefruit

This time two years ago:
Sixty-Six and Two-Thirds

This three years ago:
Marching for Openness and Normality
[We have it. Let's not get complacent.]

This time six years ago:
40th anniversary of the Osieck railway accident

This time six years ago:
Moonrise, Nowa Wola

This time seven years ago:

Awaiting the Summer Sublime

This time ten years ago:
4 June - a date remembered for...?

This time 11 years ago:
Corpus Christi, rural Mazovia

This time 12 years ago:
25th anniversary of Poland's transition

This time 13 years ago:
Poland's infrastructure progress

This time 15 years ago:
Wetlands in late-spring

This time 16 years ago:
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Puławska and Pozytywki

Jeziorki's flood of floods: Sarabandy and Karczunkowska

Jeziorki's flood of floods: Trombity and Kórnicka

This time 17 years ago:
Another time, another place

Chynów gets new eaterie!

At long last. After the sad closure of J&B Snacks, a Covid victim, in the summer of 2022, Chynów became a gastronomic desert for over two years. Nowhere to sit down and eat. Then, in November 2024, Luxor Kebab opened on ulica Parkowa, followed by Amigo Kebab (which doesn't offer eat-in dining) on ul. Wolska. Today saw the opening day of Loft Chynów, which I of course had to visit. I must also mention Zajazd u Latoszków round the corner in Nowe Grobice, by the TransOil petrol station, which opened late last year, and offers excellent value lunch menus during the week for 30 złotys (£6.11) for soup and main course.

Loft Chynów (below) occupies the last vacant space of the new retail development next to the Biały Dom ('white house') shopping centre, which was completed last year. 

The menu at opening is a cautious toe-dip into the tastes of local diners; though the logo outside says 'burgers', they are not (as yet) available. At present it's pizza and pasta, with one size of pizza, 40 centimetres (16 inches) – which is ample for three. Price-wise, excellent value at between 39 złotys (£7.94) for a basic Margherita and 56 złotys (£11.40) for the seafood version. A giant pizza being too much for one, I chose the most sophisticated option on the menu, the Tagliatelle sepia, loaded with prawns, and cherry tomatoes in a delicious garlic butter sauce. This was 45 złotys (£9.16), and it was truly delicious – I can recommend. (The bowl is looking a bit empty because I was halfway through it before I realised that my desire to tuck in had overcome the presence of mind to snap the meal as it arrived.)

Wine is available by the bottle only meant that a beer was in order, and as it was a hot and sunny afternoon, a half-litre of Królewskie, at 12 złotys (£2.40, yes London, you read that right), brewed eight miles away in Warka, was a good decision. 

More details and full menu on Loft Chynów's Facebook page, which reveals that there's also a lunch menu from 11:00 to 16:00, soup and main course for 29zł (£5.91).

I sincerely wish the very best of commercial success to the owners of Loft Chynów; may the menu soon expand (to include at least burgers and wine by the glass), and may the clientele grow in number.

From my motorbike trips around Poland, I can say that nothing defines a successful small town than its number of eateries. Sad places with nowhere to eat are just ride-throughs. No life, no vibrancy; people eating at home rather than partaking of social life and creating a sense of community. 

The opening of Loft Chynów reflects the rapid development of the village and surrounding district; a virtuous circle of investment public and private making Chynów a better and better place to live.

This time last year:

This time five years ago:
US Government's first tentative steps towards UFO disclosure
[It's one data drop a fortnight right now!]

This time 15 years ago:
Szmulowizna

This time 16 years ago:
Jeziorki's Storm of Storms

This time 18 years ago:
How to tell you're flying over Poland

This time 19 years ago:
Poppy fields

Post-coffee bliss

I wake up before six, having gone to bed around half past nine. The sun's already been up for an hour an half by now! I check the kittens – all five and mum are doin' fine. As soon as the shutters are up, the cats, who have spent the night outside, besiege the house. Before they're let in, I fill seven bowls with a tin and half of cat food. Céleste takes priority – she's feeding for six; her kittens are putting on ten grams of body-mass a day. Once she's tucking in, I open the front door and in they all charge. Like a shot they're all plugged in, tails wagging. Scrapper, Czester, Wenus, Hipek – and Arcturus, who brings individual chunks of food up to his mouth with his paw rather than simply sticking his face into the bowl. No sign of Pacyfik yet.

With the cats engaged, it's time for coffee. Out with the tin. I fill the grinder to the top with 40g of beans (currently, a mix of Colombian and Brazilian, 100% Arabica*, light-to-medium roast, Lidl's Bellarom brand). The task is to convert about half of the beans in the grinder into 20g of ground coffee – enough for my one cup. [Below: the equipment, the beans, the process. I cook on bottled gas; filthy stuff. Had I known in 2018 that I'd be installing solar panels in 2022, I'd have bought an induction hob, not a gas cooker.]

As I turn the handle, ceramic gears grind the beans into medium-fine grains with the consistency of table salt. I count the turns. The counting can be done subconsciously, but it must be accurate. The 120 turns are a precise value. They equates to 20g of ground coffee in the grinder's lower chamber. 

Meanwhile, the kettle has boiled. Some water goes into my coffee cup to heat it up. Then I pour 150g of freshly boiled water into the tank of my Bialetti moka pot**, right up to the safety valve (no higher!). I carefully transfer the freshly ground coffee into the basket, levelling it off gently, though not tamping into down. Steam must be allowed to flow between the grains to extract as much of the coffee flavour as possible

The top gets screwed on to the base; I keep a small black hand-towel to insulate the tankful of boiled water as I turn it tight. Now onto the gas. The lid – crucially – is up, so I can watch the expressed fluid, darkest brown, start to rise up into the upper chamber. And aroma begins to fill the air... Once the liquid starts to pour freely, I raise the pot above the flame, surfing the heat. I'm after a steady flow of coffee – I want to avoid the angry sputtering of superheated steam; this scorches the coffee and gives the beverage a burnt taste, and generates the smell of burnt coffee. The instant that the steady flow of liquid starts to turn into hissing bubbles – that's it! Coffee's ready! 

The hot water has been thrown out of the cup, now hot enough to keep the coffee warm for several minutes longer than a cold one. Carefully, I pour the precious coffee into the hot cup. About 110g of beverage comes out. [There's 10g of water left in the tank, the solid puck in the basket now weighs 40g, so double the weight of the dry ground coffee that went in; the remaining water has turned to steam. The coffee grounds go into the compost.]

Now, to drink. This is a solemn ritual. The internet radio is on; ideal coffee background-listening at this time of the morning happens to be the BBC Shipping Forecast, that familiar litany of sea-areas, compass points and numbers. "Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger"..."Veering south west, four to six, occasionally moderate... Background volume. Individual words don't intrude on my stream of consciousness, rather they wash across it; the reassuring tone, those familiar terms – "North Foreland to Selsey Bill, rain at first, thundery later, good occasionally poor"– offer me timeless comfort.

I am a coffee conservative. Not for me capsules, being locked into one system with a finite choice. Nor instant coffee – an abomination, a last resort. Coffee is not something to be corporately commoditised. The act of grinding coffee beans fresh each morning takes time and effort; extracting a good brew from the Bialetti requires care and focus, but the result is deeply satisfying, as long as complacency isn't allowed to creep in. Zen in the Art of Coffee-making. Beans, grinder, pot, stove, cup must become One.

The coffee is sipped, delighted in. It brings life and warmth and drives the morning, sweeping the cobwebs from the mind. The aftertaste lingers around my tastebuds. The whole house smells of coffee. All is good. The day is set fair.

* I noticed about a year ago that many coffee roasters stopped selling their beans as '100% certified Arabica' and replaced that wording with '100% certified coffee', having introduced unspecified amounts of Robusta into a blended product. I roundly reject such low deceit! I will only buy 100% Arabica. I don't care about brand, I care about the bean!

** My moka pot is advertised as being 'three cups'. That's, like, 40g a cup, dude? Ignore the one- and two-cup Bialettis, they make no sense.

This time last year:
Letters to an Imaginary Grandson (III)

This time five years ago:
Consciousness, memory and familiarity

This time seven years ago:
Classic Volgas, London and Warsaw

This time eight years ago:
Memory and Me

This time nine years ago:
Sticks, carrots and nudge - a proposal

This time 11 years ago:
London vs. Warsaw pt 2: the demographic aspects

This time 15 years ago:
Rail chaos hits Warsaw

This time 16 years ago:
Hurting and healing: a certain symmetry

This time 18 years ago:
I no longer recognise the land where I was born

This time 19 years ago:
A wet start to June

New batch of kittens at one week old

It's so wonderful; a repeat of last year's event. Again, the perfect mother, five healthy and happy little ones, growing nicely, gaining weight, although the smallest one, at 131g this morning, is still below the optimal range for a week-old kitten which is 150g-250g. The rest comfortably fit within the parameters, the biggest one weighing 171g. Céleste, like her mother at this stage, is eating like a horse, trotting out into the kitchen at regular intervals to remind me that she's feeding for six. Extra portions have been well and truly earned!

There is no room for complacency; for every miracle one must be truly grateful. Other than a bit of hissing from grandmother Wenus and uncle Pacio, the mature cats have accepted the situation as something that happens. Pacifyk requires a little extra attention to let him know he's not been forgotten, Wenus, meanwhile, has become a rare visitor to the house, popping by twice a day for a feed, and going back out straight away. (What is the English for 'obrażona'?)

Below: the entire quintet chugging away happily, making contented grunts and squeals as they do so. Grey is the colour. I miss an orange one here. Céleste is shedding fur in tufts; her long hair impedes the young ones' access to her nipples and is unnecessary for warmth as the temperature in the house is in the mid-20°Cs. I wonder how many kittens have inherited her long-hair gene.

No names for the kittens yet (though the fifth one – the lightest of the brood, the dark-grey tabby with long tail – is likely to be Quinto/Kwinto) At first sight it looks like they are all male. I hope so – a female will either have to be given away or sterilised, as I feel I am approaching the absolute limit of the number of cats I can optimally look after. 

Meanwhile, life for the other cats goes on; below: in the forest next door with Scrapper, Czester, and in the undergrowth, Hipek. They all followed me there, and followed me home for brunch.

This time six years ago:
I'm from the south – the south of Warsaw

This time seven years ago:

Summer day at school, 50 years ago...

[Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]

This time nine years ago:
Warsaw wealthier than most of UK shock!

This time 11 years ago:
Opening of the railway line to Warsaw's Okęcie airport

The Arms Salesman – a short story

{{ The first four paragraphs came to me as I looked down on the beige marble windowsill in my bedroom. The following scene flashes into my mind. What follows beyond, I composed. }}

James was asked to take a seat and wait. He looked across the beige marble floor. "Impressive," he thought to himself. "Real money here." In front of him, a wall panelled up to the ceiling with wood veneer stretched up some thirty feet, a huge clock behind the reception desk, consisting of a circle of Roman numerals in white, with white hands. Quarter to four. On either side of the clock – a white map, the same diameter as the clock, of the Western Hemisphere to the left and the Eastern Hemisphere to the right. The remaining three sides of the vast reception space were glass, wall to ceiling. James noticed a distinct lack of company logo on the wall.

Hush. One or two people crossing the enormous reception area. Sunlight sweeping in from the west.

He sat down in a low cream-leather sofa, by which was a glass table with reading matter: the New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and that same corporate brochure the recruitment people had sent him.

[AI image generated by ChatGPT, using above text as prompt]

An officer in an Air Force uniform, holding a clipboard came out to greet him, the sound of his metal-tipped heels clicking on the floor as he crossed the empty reception area. "Mr. Martin? Good to see you. Come on through." James stood up, shook the outstretched hand and followed the officer. Elevator up to the eighth floor, along a corridor and into an airy office, large window offering a beautiful view of Cincinnati in the late afternoon.

The officer joined three men in suits and a guy in Navy uniform behind a long desk; James sat down in a chair across from them as they shuffled papers.

The Navy officer welcomed James and began to read. "Drafted USMC, Pacific campaign 1944-45, Assistant Aircraft Mechanic rising to Master Technical Sergeant... Honorable discharge October '45, volunteered June '50 for service with USAF, Flight Engineer school, flying WB-29s and SB-29s over the Sea of Japan, and then RB-36s... Won't ask you where you flying those... Impressive resumé, Mr. Martin. You can keep planes flying... but, uh, can you... sell?" 

"I sure can sell if I believe in the product, sir. If I can trust my life to it. And that's why I'm sittin' here, and not at the offices of your competition." James gave a practiced wry smile.

"The job involves travel, Mr Martin. Europe – NATO member countries. England, West Germany, Spain, Portugal. And some Latin American customers – Argentina, Chile. Another team handles the Far East. You'll meet people from ministries of defense, air ministries, air forces; all of them are sufficiently proficient in English. They are conversant with the technical specs of our products and the products of our competitors – American and foreign. The foreign competitors will be typically be from Britain. The domestic ones, you know 'em well. 

A civilian guy introduced himself. "It's all about handling objections. It's about future promise. Upgrades in the pipeline. Service levels. Maintenance and overhaul schedules. And budgets. Can you tell a good story, Mr. Martin? That's what we're lookin' for... A sharp guy – smart guy  Got the patter, as well as the technical ability to diagnose any malfunction."

"And budgets" repeated one of the suits.

"Brought up on a farm, huh?"

"That's right. That's where I learnt to keep engines running."

"Martin - I'm rootin' for you here," said the Air Force guy. "Prove to us that you can sell."

James leaned forward. "See, if they really wanna – if they really have to buy... then I don't really need to sell them anything. They've already bought our product before I've even walked into the meeting. These boys – they're all damned scared of communism, of communists, of Russia. We have proven equipment that's way ahead of what the Soviets have. So I'm here to say I know this kit, I know it inside out. I've flown with it. I'll tell them that I'm physically here, with them, in their office, because I trusted my life with this kit time and time again, at 35,000 feet and it did not let me down. And I know full well that what's coming next in the product pipeline will be... far enhanced, ahead of what I was using on active service just two years ago."

The panel all nodded.

"If we take you on, you'll need some, shall we say, polish. Don't mean to sound disparagin', but a farm boy sat next to a foreign defense ministry official at a formal dinner at some tony restaurant or in our embassy has to sound right. Small talk, what have you."

"I can learn!" laughed James. "Easier than fixin' carburettors!" 

Another suit asked: "You like dames?"

"Sure, who don't?"

 "Just know when to behave yourself, that's all."

"Uh huh."

"You never know who that dame at the hotel cocktail bar you might strike up a conversation with really is."

The interview changed tack.

"Mr Martin – you know the internal combustion engine real well. You know turbosuperchargers, you know fuel-injection systems. You have completed a transition course to jet engines, but we still sell piston engines to military customers around the world. The world's air forces are switching to changing to jets and turboprops. How do you see the future of turbosuperchargers?"

"Well, they ain't nothin' new, but there are still thousands of piston-engined aircraft still in frontline service and will be for the foreseeable future. Until jets can fly for ten hours at a stretch on maritime patrols..."

That reply had the panel nodding again.  A few more formalities, and then "Mr Martin, would you mind waiting outside a few minutes while we reach a decision?"  He thanked them and went out into the corridor and lit up a cigarette. 

Five minutes passed; the door opened and the Air Force officer stepped out. In his hand, what looked like an airline ticket. "Congratulations, Mr Martin – you have the job. We want you to start straight away. Here's a travel voucher to New York City.

[Continues into this short story, written 18 months ago.]

This time last year:
Cleaning it up

This time two years ago:
Ciechanów

This time seven years ago:
It's the 31st of May and where's the viaduct?

This time nine years ago:
My mother's little suitcase – on show at the national army museum
(from June 2025-September 2026 it's showing at Kraków's Schindler's Factory museum)

This time ten years ago:
Stormy end to May

This time 11 years ago:
Where's it better to live: London or Warsaw?

This time 12 years ago:
Jeziorki, magic hour, late-May

This time 14 years ago:
Świdnica, one of Poland's lesser-known pearls

This time 17 years ago:
Spirit of place

Kodachrome moods

Visually, the most beautiful time of year? The whiteness of the clouds, the blueness of the sky, the greenness of the land. Bathe in the qualia, wallow; relish. Out with the camera, polarising filter fixed, giving a true representation of what I see through my sunglasses. No tweaking of saturation or vibrance in Photoshop – only a slight tweak of dehazing  and texture sliders to pull out more detail from shadows and highlights. The most important thing with landscape photography – to faithfully capture what I saw and felt at the moment.

Below: approaching the end of my lane. Agriculture abounds. It is dry for the time of year; farmers need to irrigate.

Below: to quote Charles Trenet: "Au ciel d'été confond/Ses blancs moutons/Avec les anges si purs". However, to quote George Michael, "All that's missing is the sea". Somewhere south-east of Jakubowizna.

Below: along asphalt new from Machcin II towards Dąbrowa Duża (left) and Gaj Żelechowski (right)

Below: classic Chynów landscape; verdant vegetation of late May, flawlessly blue sky and the dusty track that leads on to Adamów Rososki and Grabina.

Below: round the corner from home, the road to Grobice. New houses are being built here. But just look at that sky... that dreamy sky...

Back in the old days of film photography, my favourite stock for days like this used to be Kodachrome 25 ASA, ultra-fine grained film, or failing that, the 64 ASA version. The film needed to be just slightly underexposed (by a third or two-thirds of an f/stop) to get the best colour saturation. Once taken, the film was sent to Kodak's labs for processing and returned by mail in the form of 35mm slides, in cardboard mounts. For use in slideshows. Getting a print from the slide was horribly expensive and in 95% of the time, disappointing. Today, you can digitally tweak colour temperature, exposure, saturation – dozens of parameters – in Photoshop until you end up with an emotionally satisfying image that precisely matches your qualia at the moment you took the photo. Back then, you got one chance to get it right.

Left: a Kodachrome, taken in... well, this is intriguing. The photograph was taken in 1939. In New York City. At the World's Fair. The Polish Pavilion. The tower standing outside the pavilion was a synthesis of a mediaeval fortress and modern skyscraper. Found on Wikipedia's page about... Kodachrome!

Experiencing such scenes, I get feelings of anemoia (nostalgia for an era I didn't live through) or exomnesia (memories from outside my time and place). Good. They bring deep joy and a sense of connectedness with the Infinite and Eternal.

This time four years ago:
These are signs, tokens

This time five years ago:

Am I a serious man?

This time six years ago:
Sunset's trip

This time 12 years ago
The importance of the rucksack for the body

This time 15 years ago:
How I almost saved Barack Obama

This time 17 years ago:
Some anniversaries missed

This time 18 years ago:
Twilight in the garden

This time 19 years ago:
Hissing of the summer lawns

The Five Newcomers

Here they are - in order of weight. All are grey, like their father. It's too early to tell if any are longhairs like their mother, but the stumpy-tail gene is present in three of them.

Weighing in at 91 grams on the evening of Day 1 (so about 15 hours old), this character: a lovely uniform mid-grey colour on top. Stumpy tail. [Update 28 May: weight 120g.]

The second 91-grammer is grey with white undersides that meet up in a white collar. Pink fingers and toes, and a regular tail.

Next in weight, a pair of 90-gram specimens. Grey, with tabby markings, white undersides and collar. Also has pink hands and feet. 

The second 90-grammer is an overall grey tabby, with no white coloration on the upper surfaces, and another stumpy tail:

Finally, the lightest of the litter, another overall grey tabby, with regular tail. The weight - 77 grams - gave me cause for concern, as healthy birth weight for a kitten ranges from 85-115g. However, as I write this, I have weighed this individual again today, aged 36 hours, and it's a pleasing 87 grams; putting on 10g a day is healthy weight gain at this early age. [By the morning of 28 May, it's 107g.]

Too early to check for sex, or to detect any character traits that might lead to a name-choice (as in the case of their uncle Scrapper who was an evident scrapper from the outset).

Céleste, like her mother before her, is an absolute star when it comes to motherhood. Fussing over the little ones, ensuring all get fair access to nipples, minimising time out of the birthing box to visit feeding bowl and litter tray, Céleste is diligent and scrupulous.

Grandma Wenusia and wujek Pacio both entered my bedroom, looked into the birthing box, and hissed. But then they both hissed at Hipek when he joined the colony as the only unrelated cat, which suggests that dislike of the Other might be a genetic trait. Scrapper and Czester both looked in and registered no reaction whatever. Arcturus hasn't even bothered to visit. The nicest reaction was from Hipek; he came, he looked into the birthing box, and stared at the new life inside for quite a while in silence.

This time two years ago:
Coffee Time

This time ten years ago:
Call it what it is: Okęcie

This time 11 years ago:
Three stations in need of repair

This time 12 years ago
Late evening, Śródmieście

This time 13 years ago:
Ranking a better life

This time 15 years ago:
Paysages de Varsovie

This time 16 years ago:
Spring walk, twilight time

New life (again!)

Around quarter past two this morning, Céleste began giving birth, with the fifth kitten popping out at exactly 03:03. Céleste has been visibly pregnant for the last few weeks, waddling around, but still being capable of a blistering turn of speed when running with her brothers in the garden. 

Since last Thursday, when for an hour or so she lay next to the kitchen table panting quickly, I knew it would be any day now. Yesterday evening, all the other cats moved out for the night – Céleste remained alone in the house. She followed me into my bedroom, where the birthing box stood. I went to bed around nine and was woken up by miaowing; soft bedside lamp on, and there it was, the miracle of new life. Photo below taken in low light; the first kitten is out and still soggy with afterbirth.

This is the third time I witnessed the birth of kittens; a profoundly moving experience. Each successive time it becomes more so. I can now imagine the kittens morphing into adolescent cats by autumn; prime kittenhood (oohs and aahs) does not last long.

Tiny paws tangled in umbilical cord; bloody fur, lots of licking. Tiny parcels of dark, wet, squealing fur on wet towelling and wet cardboard.

After five hours of Céleste's constant licking off the bloody afterbirth, I can see that the dominant colour among the kittens is grey, confirming my suspicions as to paternity – the grey-and-white tabby tom who'd turn up on the dziaka in early spring, ready to father at the earliest conceivable opportunity. The photo below was taken on 10 March, so about a fortnight before insemination.

Céleste is 11 months and 10 days old today, so a couple of months older than her mother was. She has always been a patient cat, never miaowing to be let out or to be fed, just standing by the door or by the bowl; and so it was with her birth. No noise, no drama, just quietly getting on with it.

Céleste gave birth on the same towel, in the same birthing box, in the same place (corner of my bedroom), where she was born. A sense of continuity.  Unlike her mother, who showed signs of anxiety whenever my head hovered over the box, Céleste was perfectly comfortable with my presence around her and her kittens, but then she has been familiar with my presence since the very beginning of her life.

So – I'm now up to 12 cats. Wenusia, her children Scrapper, Arcturus, Pacyfik, Czester and Céleste, Hipek the old stray I took in two months ago, plus now the new five of Céleste's. Will I keep all five? We'll see. Assuming there's a female or two in the litter, will I keep them to procreate further? Probably not. 

In the meanwhile, it's Babcia Wenusia, Uncle Scrapper, Wujek Arkcio, Wujek Pacio and Wujek Czestuś to you and me.

Coping with seven is no problem. I just have to buy more cat food. But coping with 12? Again, we'll see.

Why would a billionaire want more money? A man's wealth is expressed in cats.

This time last year:
Birdland

This time three years ago:
De-growth – a personal manifesto

This time four years ago:
Start Late, Finish Late – more on the Speed of Life

This time nine years ago:
Swans' way

This time ten years ago:
Sam Smith, Shepherd Neame and the Routemaster bus

This time 12 years ago:
Rainy night in Jeziorki – no flood this time!

This time 13 years ago:
Wide-angle under Pl. Wilsona

This time 14 years ago:
Ranking a better life

This time 15 years ago:
Questions about our biology and spirituality

This time 16 years ago:
Paysages de Varsovie

This time 17 years ago:
Spring walk, twilight time