Warmth of the Sun

Above: BP station, between Garwolin and Kołbiel. It's gone half past ten; sunset was over 90 minutes earlier, yet the mesospheric cloud is still illuminated by the sun. A rare meteorological phenomenon associated with this time of year at these latitudes, noctilucent clouds are not fully understood by science. The clouds - some 50 miles high - are at an altitude, which in theory is too high for water vapour to exist. I could still see these clouds at 23:15, as I neared home; nearly two and half hours after sunset!

Leaving Lublin at nine pm, the car thermometer indicated +24C. Even two hours after the sun had set, it was still +20C. The summer's here and the time is right for driving window-down while listening to the Beach Boys. Contrary to popular belief, Les Garcons de la Plage actually wrote more songs about cars (Little Deuce Coupe, Little GTO, Spirit of America, 409, etc.) than about surfing (Surfing USA, Catch a Wave, etc.) Much as I like their car songs, my fave Beach Boys numbers are their later, more reflective ones that reach a level of sublime emotion rarely encountered in pop music; Warmth of the Sun, Do it Again or Surf's Up (despite the title, not a surfing song). And I can turn up the car's stereo, harmonise with the Wilson brothers and imagine that the Yaris is a Ford three-window coupe with whitewall slicks that'll turn a quarter mile in one-oh-six. Of course, back in the mid-'60s, it was quite OK to glorify cars with seven litre engines running on leaded petrol that did 12 miles to a gallon, which cost all of 32 cents.

This time last year:
The Road beckons
Ul. Nawłocka gets a hardened surface
Pigeon tumbling in Jeziorki