The Terms of Trade – a short story (Pt III)

[Part II here.]

The confirmation, once sent, seemed to settle the matter. There were other wires that morning, and more the next; Liverpool responded, and arrangements were set in motion with a satisfactory speed. A vessel was engaged out of the Mersey, not the first choice but adequate; rail carriage was secured for the salt from Cheshire; the papers began to take shape – invoice, draft bill of lading, the financial instruments by which such a trade was given its formal existence. 

For a few days the business ran as expected. The figures held. Gormally allowed himself, in private, the thought that the margin might exceed his first calculation.

It was on the fourth day that the first irregularity appeared.

A telegram from Liverpool, brief and not entirely clear, spoke of delay in loading. Labour, it said, was uncertain. There had been disturbances on the line bringing wagons into the docks. The message was written in a hand not usually employed by their correspondent there, and bore a time mark that suggested it had been transmitted later than it ought.

Kuhn read it and placed it beside the others. “Ask for particulars,” he said.

Gormally did so. The reply, when it came, added little. There had been interference on the railway somewhere to the south; wagons had not arrived in sequence; the docks were crowded. It would, they said, be resolved shortly.

“Everything is shortly,” said Kuhn. “Until it is not.”

Gormally said nothing. He had already begun to reckon the days. Fourteen, from the time of confirmation. They had lost one in the exchange of messages, another in the arrangements. There was still room, but less than he would have liked.

He sent another wire, urging expedition, offering a small consideration for priority in loading. It was agreed to, though not without complaint. Money, he had learned, could hasten most things, though not always enough. He was at the mercy of tide and turn. A swift decision: rather than waiting for a steamer direct to Hamburg, the salt could be dispatched immediately to Ostend, and from there, by express freight rail to its destination. Gormally looked at the ledger, mentally scratching out the profit. This would eat significantly into Kuhn's margin, but would save the deal.

Two days passed. Then came the message that altered the complexion of the affair.

It did not come from Liverpool, but from the Continent, relayed through a line they did not commonly use. The address was that of a house in Luxembourg with which Kuhn had had occasional dealings – an intermediary in matters of credit, rather than of goods.

Gormally broke the seal and read.

RAILWAY INTERRUPTION BELGIAN LINE STOP TRAFFIC DELAYED STOP ADVISE POSITION SHIPMENT STOP

He took it at once to Kuhn.

“Belgium?” said Kuhn. “That is not our route.”

“It may become so,” said Gormally. “If they divert.”

Kuhn frowned. “Or if the information is second-hand. These relays they introduce their own errors.”

“Shall we reply?” said Gormally.

“Yes,” said Kuhn. “But say nothing we do not know.”

Gormally wrote stating that loading was in progress, that dispatch would be made without delay, that further advice would follow. He did not mention the fourteen days.

The days continued to pass. The telegrams from Liverpool grew more frequent, but not more reassuring. Wagons arrived, but not in the numbers required; loading began, halted, began again. There was talk of men refusing to work, of lines blocked, of some disturbance further down the system which had spread, as such things do, beyond its point of origin.

Once, at a Lodge meeting, Gormally had heard the word spoken plainly. “Anarchists,” said a worshipful brother in a tone that was half contempt, half unease. “Blowing rails in the Ardennes, they say. Or threatening to. It amounts to the same thing.”

Gormally pondered that word. Anarchists. It seemed too imprecise to use in a telegram or to note down in the ledger. Yet the effect, whether the cause were as described or not, was real enough. The system upon which Kuhn had depended – the steady, ordered movement of goods and messages – had faltered.

On the twelfth day, the first portion of the cargo cleared the docks.

Gormally marked it in the book, the figures set down with care: tonnage, date, vessel. He felt a momentary relief. If the remainder followed promptly, they might yet meet the term, or come close enough to argue that they had done so in substance, if not in the strict letter.

On the thirteenth day, nothing moved.

On the fourteenth, a further consignment was loaded, but it was clear by then that the whole would not be shipped within the time named.

Kuhn stood at the desk as the figures were entered.

“We shall send what we have,” he said. “And we shall explain.”

Gormally nodded. It was all that could be done.

He drafted the message to Hamburg with more care than any he had yet composed. He set out the facts: the quantity shipped, the dates, the circumstances of delay. He did not use the word anarchists. He wrote instead of “interruption of traffic beyond our control,” and trusted that the phrase would carry what it needed to carry.

The reply came the following day, not from Hamburg directly, but again through the Luxembourg house.

HOLD YOU LIABLE LOSSES FAILURE COMPLY STRICT TERMS STOP CLAIM TO FOLLOW STOP

Kuhn read it, and for a long moment said nothing.

Gormally felt, with a clarity that was almost physical, the point at which the matter had turned. It was not the delay; that, though unfortunate, might have been borne. It was the word – strict – now set against them, no longer a part of a hurried exchange, but of a claim.

“They will say we accepted it,” said Kuhn at last.

Gormally did not answer.

Kuhn turned to him.

“You wrote it,” he said, not accusingly, but as one states a fact.

“Yes,” said Gormally.

“And you believed it?”

“I did,” said Gormally. Then, after a moment, “I do.”

Kuhn inclined his head, as though acknowledging the honesty of the reply, if not its substance.

“Then we must see what others will make of it,” he said.

The papers were gathered, the telegrams laid out in order, the bill drawn and accepted, the endorsements noted. Somewhere between London, Hamburg and the small Grand Duchy through which the dispute now ran, the matter would be read again, line by line, in a language not their own, and given a meaning that would bind them more firmly than any they had intended.

Part IV tomorrow.

This time last year:
A month on from my heart attack

This time four years ago:
Park+Ride for Jeziorki

This time five years ago:
Decimalisation and determination

This time nine years ago:
God, an Englishman, orders his Eden thus:

This time 11 years ago:
I buy a Nikon Coolpix A

This time 12 years ago:
More about the Ladder of Authority

This time 13 years ago:
By bike, south of Warsaw

This time 15 years ago:
Functionalist architecture in Warsaw

This time 16 years ago:
What's the Polish for 'to bully'?

This time 17 years ago:
Making plans

This time 18 years ago:
The setting sun stirs my soul

This time 19 years ago:
Rain ends the drought
March and April 2026: the driest since records began

The Terms of Trade – a short story (Pt II)

[Part I here]

It was in the late summer of 1880 that a message arrived from Hamburg which would alter the course of Kuhn’s business – and indeed, his life. 

Gormally had been at his desk since before eight, entering the previous day’s transactions into the ledger, when the boy from Cornhill arrived with the first bundle of telegrams. Most were of the usual kind – small adjustments, enquiries, acknowledgements – but one, marked urgent, he read several times before passing it on.

Kuhn glanced at it and set it aside. He finished with the others first, marking them in pencil, dictating replies without emotion. Only when the bundle was cleared did he return to the Hamburg telegram. “Read it,” he said, passing it back. Gormally did so, this time aloud.

REQUIRE FOUR HUNDRED TONS FINE CHESHIRE IMMEDIATE SHIPMENT FOR CURING STOP REPLY URGENT

“Herring, I'd suppose” said Gormally.  “An unexpectedly large catch for the time of year?”

 “Seems so,” replied Kuhn. “It would spoil quickly in this heat.”

Both men instinctively felt the thing. Hamburg was short. Liverpool had not yet spoken. Between the two there lay a margin, if it could be taken quickly enough. “We could offer,” he said.

Kuhn did not answer at once. He placed the paper on the desk. “At what price?” he asked.

Gormally named a figure. It was not extravagant, but it assumed that Liverpool would not move against them before the answer came back. “And freight?” said Kuhn. “Steady,” said Gormally. “If we move this morning.”

“Very well,” said Kuhn. “We will offer. But you will not bind us beyond what is written.” Gormally nodded. He took up a form and began to write, choosing his words with care. He had done this so many times over his years with Kuhn.

OFFER FOUR HUNDRED TONS FINE CHESHIRE PROMPT SHIPMENT STOP PRICE AS ADVISED LESS TWO PERCENT STOP REPLY IMMEDIATELY STOP

He read it through once, then passed it to Kuhn, who made one alteration – crossing out PROMPT and writing EARLY above it – before handing it back. “Send it,” he said. Gormally folded the form and gave it to the office boy, who was gone at once, down the stairs and into the street, running as Gormally himself had run not so long before.

The room settled again into its quiet rhythm. A broker called, stayed a few minutes, and went. A letter was brought in and answered. The clock on the mantelpiece marked the quarter hours with soft chimes. It was a little after ten when the reply came.

The boy entered without knocking as was the custom in their firm, breathless. Gormally thanked him graciously, took the paper and read it.

ACCEPT YOUR OFFER CONDITION SHIPMENT WITHIN  FOURTEEN DAYS STRICT STOP

The words were few, but they carried more than they said.

He handed it to Kuhn who read it once, then again. “They add a condition,” he said.

Gormally did not immediately reply. The phrase lay between them: condition shipment within fourteen days strict. Was it a qualification, or merely a statement of what was in any case expected? Fourteen days was customary in a trade of this kind.

“They accept,” said Gormally at last. Kuhn looked at him.

“They accept,” Gormally repeated, more firmly. “And state their requirement.”

“They make their acceptance dependent upon it,” said Kuhn. “That is not the same thing.”

Gormally hesitated. He could see, as Kuhn saw, the other reading; but he could also see the market closing, the margin narrowing even as they spoke. If they treated this as a counter-offer, and replied again, time would be lost. Hamburg might go elsewhere. Liverpool might move.

“If we delay, we lose it," said Gormally.

Kuhn said nothing.

Gormally pressed the point. “Fourteen days is achievable. If we secure loading at once.”

“And if we do not?” said Kuhn. Gormally did not answer. Finally, Kuhn set the paper down. “You will answer...” he said “...With caution.”

Gormally took up another form. For a moment his pen hovered, as though the words might choose themselves. Then he wrote:

CONFIRMED AS AGREED STOP SHIPMENT WITHIN FOURTEEN DAYS STOP

He omitted the term 'STRICT'. 

Kuhn read it out aloud; for a moment it seemed he might object. Then he nodded once.“Send it.” There was the slightest hesitancy in Kuhn's voice that hinted at some vague misgiving he might have harboured about this transaction. Gormally felt it too, though what it was, neither man could not tell.

The boy was gone again, the paper in his hand.

Part III tomorrow.

This time two years ago:
More from Świnoujście

This time three years ago:
Corporate profits – better than Bolshevism.

This time three years ago:
Intimations of Immortality, revisited.

This time six years ago:
Things will never be the same Pt II

This time seven years ago:
Up to my waist

This time eight years ago:
Luton Airport's never-ending modernisation works

This time 11 years ago:
Another office move

This time 12 years ago:
Workhorse of the Free World's Air Forces over Jeziorki

This time 13 years ago:
Looking for The Zone, in and around Jeziorki

This time 14 years ago:
I awake to snow, on 4 May
[Today's top temperature was 29°C]

This time 19 years ago:
This is not America. No?

The Terms of Trade – a short story (Pt I)

[Based on a dream I had this morning, set in the City of London in 1880.]

Joseph Gormally came to London as a young man in 1870 from the rural poverty of Co. Tyrone, finding employment as a telegraph courier for a commodities merchant named Kuhn. Gormally was fleet of foot, sharp of mind and usually of good cheer. His employer noted the speed with which the Irish youth picked up the basics of the business, despite a lack of formal education. Kuhn has been intermediating in the commodities trade between London and the continent, an enterprise set up by his late father nearly 40 years earlier. The firm specialised in salt – buying salt wholesale from Cheshire and selling it to the fish-briners of Antwerp and Hamburg. Kuhn & Co., Merchants and Commission Agents, it said on the brass plaque outside the office. Telegraphy had revolutionised the business, something the young Gormally quickly came to understand as he rushed from Kuhn's office on Mincing Lane to the telegraph office on Cornhill bearing confirmation of prices for orders for hundreds of tons of salt.

Kuhn's business had become a major player in the market after the Franco-Prussian War began; the German side, mobilising their armies, suddenly needed five hundred tons of salt to preserve fish with which to provision their troops; Kuhn had acted quickly and managed to ensure that the ships carrying the salt reached Hamburg before the French navy imposed their blockade of the North German coast. The bill of exchange was settled at Kuhn's merchant bank in good time; he made an exceptional windfall profit of £200 on that single trade.

The money went to extend his business, set up by the senior Mr Kuhn who had emigrated to London from Hamburg at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The younger Kuhn took over the company on his father's death just as the British government was about to nationalise the telegraph services. He understood the importance of this technology to profitable commodity trading; it gave his business the edge over rivals who relied more on long-standing contacts. It was around this time that Kuhn offered employment to Gormally. 

The young Irishman was regularly in the Cornhill telegraph office, making himself memorable to its employees thanks to his propensity to offer kind words and humour. He was well liked. Kuhn soon promoted the runner to clerk. Entering the texts of messages into the ledger, Gormally quickly came to understand the business; he could foresee a margin, a spread, a profit that could be made if a decision was made swiftly. His perspicacity did not go unnoticed.

Kuhn's wife, Margarite, was instrumental in Gormally's rise. She was often in the office, helping her husband. Noticing the Irish lad and his quick wit, she suggested that he be sent to night school to pick up commercial skills. 

One evening Gormally had been invited to dinner at the Kuhns' house in St John's Wood, bringing with him his fiancée, Helen, whom he'd met at the telegraph office, where she worked. The dinner was going well. Helen and Joseph shared a sense of humour, and Margarite liked her too. After the servants had cleared the table, Kuhn took Gormally into the drawing room, offered him a cigar and casually asked whether he believed in God. Gormally, who had been educated by the Sisters of Charity, replied that since coming to London he had stopped attending Holy Mass on a regular basis but still believed in a Supreme Being. 

The discussion led to Gormally being introduced by Kuhn to Freemasonry. As an outsider, more connected to the Continent than to London's cliquey networks, the younger Kuhn had been persuaded by his father to join the Freemasons, which proved a canny business move. And now Gormally – another outsider – was about to become one.

Part II tomorrow...

This time last year:
In town and around

This time three years ago:
Return to the Konstancin-Jeziorna sidings

This time seven years ago:
A review of the second part of Hillier's Betjeman biog.

This time eight years ago:
New roads and rails

This time eight years ago:
The Gold Train shoot – lessons learned

This time 12 years ago:
Digbeth, Birmingham 5

This time 13 years ago:
Still months away from the opening of the S2/S79 

This time 14 years ago: 
Looking at progress along the S79  

This time 15 years ago:
Snow on 3 May

This time 16 years ago:
Two Polands

This time 17 years ago:
A delightful weekend in the country

This time 18 years ago:
The dismantling of the Rampa

This time 19 years ago:
Flag day

May forever

The most beautiful month of the year, May. Thursday morning saw the commercial orchards dripping with icicles; that would be the last frost of the year. A mere 48 hours later and dawn broke with 10 degrees on the thermometer.

Below: my front garden, early afternoon. Forget-me-nots, apple blossom, and brilliant blue sky. The ground is exploding with vegetation; the late-winter garden work is over. Let it grow, let it grow, let it grow. No mow May, no intervention. Let the leaves produce oxygen for our planet.

Below: this must be the best apple blossom, across the tracks on ulica Słoneczna. The pink will soon fade, the petals will soon wither. Last days of perfection. It is dry, however; rain is much needed.

My stroll today takes me into Chynów, then on to Sułkowice.

Below: roadworks along ulica Kolejowa continue. The old asphalt between the level crossing and the old stationmaster's house has been removed ahead of a resurfacing. Signs have gone up at the bottom end of ul. Wspólna saying that the road will be closed from 30 April to 5 May; today is 2 May and the road's been open for the past three days. I hope the work will be done on time.

Below: with the top layer gone, we can see some local history – the old 'kocie łby' (literally cats' heads) – cobblestones. A reminder that the station, and indeed the entire Warsaw-Radom railway line was built in 20 months, opening in November 1934.

Below: looking north from outside the main station building. The first parking spaces (kiss & ride?) have been paved; waiting now for the pavement to connect station to level crossing.

Below: from zero local eateries to three within the space of 18 months – that's progress! Here comes the latest one, days away from opening. Loft Chynów – "Lunch Pizza & Burger by Pizza Park". Beer on tap. Will definitely be visiting!

Below: on to Sułkowice, along ulica Ogrodowa, near the elementary school. Note the neatly coppiced trees lining the fence.

Below: approaching the police-dog training school on the left. Note the traffic speed monitor on the other side of the street. The display (on the other side) shows how fast vehicles are going – and how many points on the licence that would be. But it's just performative. Local drivers have learned to ignore it (and the other one further along ulica Ogrodowa nearer Chynów). 

Below: Sułkowice's new three-story block of flats, an unusual typology for Polish rural residential development, which shows how supply and demand are being matched.

Home by train (one stop, 2.73zł with senior's discount – that's 55p for a journey just under 3km / 2 miles). Beautiful day!

This time two years ago:|
In and out of Germany via Świnoujście

This time six years ago:
Back to the działka after lockdown

This time eight years ago:
The Network vs The Hierarchy in politics

This time 13 years ago:
Pozytywki ponds after refurbishment

This time 14 years ago:
Mayday in the heat (don't exaggerate with the suncream!)

This time 16 years ago:
Night train, carry me home

This time 19 years ago:
Into the mountains

The thinker and the thought; the feeler and the feeling; the experience and the experienced

As I sit here at my desk, looking through the kitchen window at the fresh vegetation in my garden, the trunks of the silver birches illuminated by the westering sun, listening to the birdsong outside the open kitchen door, enjoying the warmth of the spring evening, I am conscious of it all in the moment.

But what is this consciousness? Is it an experience, an awareness? Or is it the apparatus which experiences, the thing that is aware? Another way of putting it: is consciousness a radio receiver? Or is consciousness the radio signal?

Of course, it's both. I am both the experiencer and that which is being experienced. But the question sits at the heart of what it is to be you, what it is to be me; it leads to greater questions – to what extent is the you-ness of you, the me-ness of me connected to the greater whole, the totality of being. And the question of consciousness is also central to the question of life after death.

For I believe that life after death – the survival of consciousness beyond biological death – is to be experienced primarily through the memory of experience. 

Let's take a close look at memory of experience. Bringing back into being, for example, qualia from childhood; precise memories of experience (as opposed to memories of events). Here's one I came across in a local-history page on Facebook earlier today – memories of painting at primary school, in my case, around 63 years ago. Powder paints... for some reason, it is the blue that I remember most vividly, it's exact shade. The powder was spooned from large tins into dimpled white plastic trays, along with black, yellow, white and red powders. The wooden-handled brush, dipped into a jar of water, mixing it with the powder to make a blue paste; then stirring the brush back into the glass jar and watching a swirl of blue in the clear water. Applying the rich, liquid paint onto a large sheet of greyish sugar-paper with deliberate strokes, the concentration of focus, painting a house, trees, the sky... the smell of the blue paint, the smell... vivid recollections of qualia. Can you summon that memory too? The school room, high-roofed, wooden desks, gloss-painted brick walls, tall windows, polished wooden floor, posters on the wall?

[Below: the above text used to prompt ChatGPT, and below that, Google Gemini.]

The child that experienced those qualia is now old; not a single molecule, not a single atom that once formed that child's brain is present in your brain as you recollect that experience. And yet, it was your experience, experienced by you. 

Yes, millions of children growing up in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s would have memories that can be summoned by the words 'school powder-paints'. The pure qualia memories would return in the form of a sharp moment of recognition tinged bitter-sweet, a knowing that there's no return to that moment, yet comforting nevertheless. A memory to savour, experience it, roll it around your brain before it evaporates back into the thin air from which it seemingly came.

The memory is yours. The memory is you. It defines you. The memory is ego-free, pure. It is what you experienced, not necessarily what you did, nor what was going on around you.

Now the question of life after death – does your consciousness (the receiver) return to the Eternal Whole, or remain separate, destined to experience, to receive, in another biological individual? 

This is the essential difference between the Buddhist and Hindu understanding of reincarnation.

I for one tend to believe in the individual hypothesis, based upon my own experience. I frequently have these anomalous qualia-memory events, which are to me just as real as the primary-school powder-paint qualia memory, but are not of this life. 

In recent weeks, as spring took hold in Chynów, I would experience these while gardening, while clearing the ground under my apple trees. It feels like America, from a different childhood, in the 1930s. 

These memory flashbacks, anomalous, familiar, comforting and pleasant, yet with a bittersweet tinge, a vague pang, a wistful longing for what's gone forever – I've experienced these since childhood, alongside the occasional dream – an entirely different experience, yet congruent in terms of atmosphere, time, and place. This is personal; it's not a dipping in and out of an eternal, continuous unity; rather it feels like an upward journey, a spiritual evolution of one consciousness, advancing, enhancing, from one lifetime to the next, towards that oneness – but it's not destined to come after but a single 80-or-so year lifespan. From the beast, to the human, to the angel, to God. The Purpose, the flow.

This time last year:
Mayday reverie

This time two years ago:
Prague, Central Europe

This time three years ago:
Under azure, Jakubowizna

This time four years ago: 
Łady roadworks

This time five years:
S7 extension works

This time six years ago:

Back to the działka after eight weeks locked down

This time seven years ago:

Vol 2. of Bevis's Betjeman biography

This time eight years ago:
New roads and rails

This time nine years ago:
The Gold Train shoot – lessons learned

This time ten years ago:
The Network vs The Hierarchy in politics

This time 11 years ago:
45 years under one roof

This time 12 years ago:
Digbeth, Birmingham 5

This time 13 years ago:
Still months away from the opening of the S2/S79 

This time 15 years ago: 
Looking at progress along the S79  

This time 16 years ago:
Two Polands

This time 17 years ago:
A delightful weekend in the country

This time 18 years ago:
The dismantling of the Rampa

This time 19 years ago:
Flag day

Odolany – Warsaw's railway reserve

I have posted a few times about the tangle of tracks to the north-east of Warsaw West (W-wa Zachodnia) station; much of this area has been cleaned up. [See here from 2013, and  here from 2014]

But north-west of W-wa Zachodnia, in the neighbourhood of Odolany, part of the district of Wola, there's an enormous network of railway sidings, of which over 30 hectares are entirely disused. This area is not closed off; footpaths criss-cross the area, which lies nearer to the centre of Warsaw than neighbourhoods like Stegny or Sadyba – one would think prime development land for residential estates.

The klimat reminds me of that which permeates Andrei Tarkovsky's magnificently atmospheric 1979 film Stalker; post-industrial abandonment, secrets, decay. Below: a typical scene within the Zone; a multiplicity of abandoned tracks, on rotting wooden sleepers, often with trees growing between them. 

Left: trees and bushes growing ever denser through and around the abandoned track. One has to ask why PKP PLK S.A., the railway infrastructure operator, hasn't lifted the rails for recycling and turned the area over into parkland, or to rewild it as a nature sanctuary. Below: an abandoned signal box or points-keeper's hut. In the distance, further rows of disused track.

Left: three or more pairs of parallel rows of abandoned tracks, trees growing between the rails. In the distance, some blue buildings are just about visible between the branches and leaves... 

Below: pushing through the undergrowth, I emerge onto what are live tracks; rails polished silver through use, with overhead gantries providing power to electric engines that use this line. This turns out to be the maintenance depot for freight locomotives.

I turn around and head back into the undergrowth, this time moving northwestward, across several disused tracks. Emerging from the bushes on the other side, I catch the following astonishing sight. It looks like some sort of grain elevator... 

I get up closer. This (I later learn) is the former coaling station for steam engines. The 42m-high coal tower itself is one of four such surviving structures in Poland (the UK has only one left).

Below: in its shadow to its east stands a building that I cannot figure out; why the canopy? Why the low and short platform? Why here? Looks like a waiting room at a passenger station from the 1960s. Odd.

The coaling tower itself was built between 1948 and 1951 – and here's a surprise – from precast concrete elements donated to Poland by the US government, delivered by sea as part of the technical assistance post-WW2. This, at the height of Stalinism.

Left: the coaling tower seen from the west. The conveyors that raised coal to the top of the tower were removed when it was decommissioned in the early 1990s. It stood abandoned, until a group of preservationists persuaded the voivodship heritage administrator of its historical significance, earning it listed-building status in February 2024.

On either side of the lines on which the coaling tower stands are aggregate storage facilities (Budokrusz to the north, Warbud to the south). Both are served by trains, delivering construction materials to the busy sites. Walking along the line towards to the coaling tower, I could hear the non-stop sound of diggers loading and unloading aggregate.

As I proceeded in a westerly direction, the disused tracks started to converge with live tracks leading from the aggregate sites and the freight-loco maintenance sheds. Below: the rails are no longer covered with rust; signals show that the track is indeed live (there was a Freightliner PL Class 66 locomotive manoeuvring slowly off to my left). Time to return to the urban hubbub of rush-hour Warsaw. 

Below: a series of bridges carry the freight lines over ulica Dżwigowa (lit. 'Crane Street' – crane as in machine to move materials). To my right are the busy sidings of Warszawa Główna Towarowa, Warsaw's main freight station. At this stage, I leave the rails and return to the street for a short walk to W-wa Włochy station and my train to Ożarów Mazowiecki, for an evening business event.

I must point out that nowhere along my journey did I pass any 'entry prohibited' sign, or cross any fence. Around Warsaw West station, the sidings are properly enclosed behind wire fences; not so further east.

If you want to watch Stalker, for free, with English subtitles, it's here. Set aside three hours. If you've not seen it, do. It's worth it.

This time last year:

The Thought Inside: get it out!

This time three years ago:
Spring magic 

This time seven years ago:
Building work almost done on the działka

This time eight year:
Karczunkowska's closed again

This time nine years ago:
Little suitcase in the attic
[It's still at Schindler's Factory in Kraków for the year-long Children of War exhibition there]

This time ten years ago:
What I read each week.

This time 12 years ago:
Defending Poland, contributing to NATO

This time 14 years ago:
Balloon over Warsaw 

This time 16 years ago:
Happiness, Polish-style

This time 19 years ago:
London (to which I'm not planning to return)

Nearing peak blossom

Every day brings it on, but the next three days are forecast to be cloudier; blossom needs a pure blue sky against which to look its finest. This is the time to catch the orchards as the blossom transitions from pink buds to white petals tinged with pink.

Below: one of my apple trees. A beautiful sight in the early-morning sun.

Pink bud is turning into full bloom. After a few days, the petals begin to fall. Each orchard goes through this at a slightly different time; many trees are not yet in full bloom, but are more colourful as a result.

Despite the long weeks of snow cover, the optimal form of irrigation, it has been a dry spring so far, and the strong northerly winds have accelerated evaporation of moisture from the topsoil.

Below: on the edge of the forest between Jakubowizna and Machcin II.

And on a day of such natural beauty, time to celebrate the feline beauty of Céleste. This morning she accompanied me on my early walk, a short stroll around the forest next door.

Out in the open, at the end of the drive, Céleste is looking east into the sun. Her pupils have narrowed to vertical slits.

 At this time of year, my walks are filled with wonder and joy, especially in the sun.

This time two years ago:
Visiting my maternal grandmother's grave in Bystrzyca Kłodzka

This time four years ago:
Got a bit of a cold (Pt 1)

This time five years ago:
Moon and bloom

This time seven years ago:

The working week in town, in pics

This time ten years ago:
Brexit: head vs heart, migration vs economy

This time 11 years ago:
Golf course update

This time 14 years ago:
The Shard changes London's skyline

This time 15 years ago:
In praise of Warsaw's trams

This time 16 years ago:
Plans for the railway line to Radom

The joys of an early start

Once upon a time, I'd have bluntly refused the proposition of an 7:50am appointment for a blood test. "Offer me a slot at some civilised time," I would have said. The clinic is 40km (25 miles) away in Wola, a district to the north-west of central Warsaw. 

But having shifted my sleep routine ahead the spring time-change, I thanked the clinic's receptionist for the chance of an early visit, knowing that getting up before sunrise no longer poses a challenge.

And so indeed it proved to turn out. 

I went to bed at nine pm, woke up at 05:07, had a shower, made a thermos of coffee and a packed lunch (or more accurately packed breakfast, as the blood and urine samples had to be on an empty stomach). I fed the cats, and was ready to leave home at six. I caught the train from Chynów to town at 06:18 (below), reaching W-wa Wola station just after seven. Then I took an eastbound tram four stops and walked a bit to the clinic, arriving there at 07:25. 

No one around except the receptionist and the nurse. I got everything done within a few minutes, beating the queues. Beating the queues? Thrashing the queues. Soon I was back on the tram to W-wa Wola and the train back to Chynów. Home before ten (below), with nine thousand paces on the clock.

The sun was shining brightly throughout. A brisk northerly wind put a light chill into the air as I set off to the station, but the sense of aliveness was all-powerful. Sleeping in is no longer an option for the summer months. Grab that dawn!

Think about the terms 'midday' and 'midnight'. The original meanings have slipped, distorted by modern life. 'Midday' is the time when the sun is at its zenith, its highest position in the sky on a given day. Midday is midway between sunrise and sunset. And 'midnight' is halfway between sunset and sunrise. Yet for nowadays, 'midnight' is a time shortly after most folk go to bed. 

Modern humans have been around for 300,000 years give or take, but it's only in the past 100 or so of those years that we've had universal access to electrical lighting. Radio and television have been entertaining our species for slightly shorter, clocks and wristwatches have been informing us of the time for slightly longer. This is the tiniest slither of time in terms of mammalian evolution. 

Our circadian rhythms – our body clocks – have suddenly been thrown out of kilter. The  result is all manner of psychiatric disorders which our rationalist, materialist paradigm says need pharmacological treatment.

But how about changing your sleep patterns instead? Make midnight the middle of your night?

Granted, it can be hard when you're in the nine-to-five. Assuming your midday (sun overhead) is at 12:00, an eight-to-four working day makes more sense... and then there's the whole issue of time change. Clocks going back in the autumn exacerbate the psychiatric effects of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), while the clocks going forward in spring lead to a huge spike in heart attacks and strokes (a 24% jump in cardiac-ward admissions in the week after the time change). 

However, our legislators have shown unwillingness to tackle the issue of daylight-saving time changes. We seem stuck where we were; an overwhelming majority of people across the EU  want to see an end to the spring and autumn time changes, yet the legislators seem unable to act. The European Commission proposed abolishing clock changes in 2018. The European Parliament voted in 2019 to end them (originally by 2021). But the crucial body, the Council of the European Union, has never agreed a common position. And so an indefinite delay is entirely plausible under current conditions. Countries disagree on permanent summer time vs winter time. If countries choose differently, Europe risks a patchwork of time zones, which is politically and economically awkward. Covid, the war in Ukraine and now in Iran have all pushed the issue down the agenda. And so, the EU is not waiting on science or public opinion – it’s waiting on member states to agree with each other. Until that happens, the system persists by default.

So it's up to us as individuals to deal with this each in their own way. In a working world of flexitime and hybrid work, we should be able to get around this.  Of course, much depends how far from the equator and how close to the poles you are. Daylength is the same (just over 12 hours) all year round at the equator, while the two cities nearest the North Pole (Tromsø and Murmansk) have almost no daylight in midwinter and almost no night in midsummer. Warsaw, London and Berlin have (to the nearest hour) seven hours of daylight in midwinter and 17 hours of daylight in midsummer.

The way we sleep depends not only on the time of year, but how far north/south we live. Human sleep timing is governed by the circadian system, centred on the suprachiasmatic nucleus, and the hormone melatonin. Darkness lengthens the melatonin secretion window; light shortens it. Longer nights mean a longer biological 'night signal'. People living close to the equator will tend to sleep the same number of hours all year round, whereas by the time you get as far north as Warsaw, people should be sleeping half an hour more in winter (roughly eight and half hours) and get by with half an hour less in summer (roughly seven and half hours).

The key thing is to aim to keep midday at the middle of your day, and keep symmetrical the times between waking up and sunrise and sunset and going to bed. Ideally, this would mean (for Warsaw, 52° North, 21° East) in summer time (solar noon at 12:30) waking up at 4:45 am and going to bed at 8:45 pm, awake for 16 and half hours of the day, with seven and half hours of sleep, and in winter time (solar noon at 11:30) waking up at 3:45 am and going to bed at 7:15 pm for eight and half hours of sleep. 

This might sound extreme when considering one's social calendar (and the TV schedule for those who still watch), but the above times reflect how things were for the whole of human history until the recent past. Not practical today, to be sure, but a target to keep in mind. An ambition.

Overcome the owl, be more like the lark, for that is our biology. Ah yes. Teenagers and young adults are exempt – their body clocks have been biologically tweaked for a more nocturnal bias, at least until they have found a mate.   

Having said all that – would I readily accept a 7:50 appointment in Wola in midwinter? Not readily, no. It would mean waking up nearly two hours before sunrise. Still, by spreading my eight-and-half hours of winter sleep between quarter to eight in the evening and quarter past four in the morning, straddling the midnight hour equally, it could theoretically be doable...

This time nine years ago:
Changes in Nowa Iwiczna

This time ten years ago:
Tracks to Tarczyn

This time 11 years ago:
Translation and cultural differences

This time 13 years ago:
The demand for Park + Ride keeps growing

This time 14 years ago:
Cycle-friendly London

This time 15 years ago:
The end of the Azure Week