Jeziorki and neighbourhood, late winter 2011

First a reflection about recycling. I've noticed the direct link between world commodity prices and the availability of recycling facilties for household waste. Last autumn, they were disappearing. Now, they're back. And in some cases, you can get paid for your waste. Since my last trip to dispose of our household waste, much has accumulated. Today, Moni and I parted company with 382 glass bottles and jars. Ursynów's housing estates are now full of containers for plastics, paper and glass. And on ul. Cynamonowa, there's a place that pays 30 grosze per kilo of paper and board, and 3.30 zł for a kilo of aluminium cans! Next week, then, the paper and cardboard will go for sale - I guess there's at least 20kg of the stuff piled up in the garage.

After lunch - time to get the bike ready for spring. The Cannondale Caffeine F2, that is. I marvel at what fine shape it's in, not having been ridden since late October. There's still 30lbs per square inch of air in both tyres! (I must say, the best tyre/tube combination on this bike is the best I've ever had. Four seasons of hard riding, no punctures and superb air containment.) A squirt of WD-40 on the moving bits, and off I go for the shakedown cruise.

What I see riding around Jeziorki is that more flooding is just around the corner. The temperature reached +12C this afternoon, so the frozen ponds and marshes are thawing rapidly. As they do so, the local watertable will rise. Any heavy rainfall, and the inhabitants of Lower Trombitia will find their cellars and garages flooded again.

Just a few hundred metres from our house - a stockpile of sandbags. These were the defining visual of last June's floods, with rows and rows of them lining vulnerable parts of ul. Trombity and ul. Kórnicka. And now they're back. Below: Looking up ul. Dumki. The pond on the right is endangering the houses on the left. Will a sandbag barrier prove to be an adequate bulwark? Long term, proper drainage of the entire neighbourhood is needed.

Across the tracks and headed towards Zgorzała along ul. Kórnicka, as it turns into ul. Sikorki. The "road" is utterly impassable; I have to haul my bike through ankle-deep mud. These fields are far too wet for growing crops on this season, I fear.

On to asphalted roads, and through Zamienie to see what's new since last autumn. Below: The housing estate is now completed, and most of the units are now inhabited (see this post from two years ago). The road was built without any pavement, as though the planners expect everyone to drive to work from here rather than walk to the bus stop.


Streets to the east of ul. Puławska are named after birds. Streets to the west have musical names. In Zamienie, the streets of the new estate are named after... cake flavouring.

Ul. Arakowa (Arrack street) leads to Waniliowa (Vanilla street), where the above houses are. Vanilla street is very apt; these houses are the Warsaw suburbs equivalent of the character-free terraces that ring London. (Arrack, as I learned recently, is a Far Eastern alcoholic drink, which like rum, is used as a cake flavouring.)

I can't say I'd like to live on Vanilla Street. Life here has neither the urban sophistication of a city centre apartment, nor the privacy and quiet of a suburban detached house.

Cycling back to Jeziorki, I noticed I was not the only person on his bike; this chap (below) was out and about for the fun of it too, exploring the new streets of Zamienie.

Below: what's this on ul. Nawłocka? A replica of Anne Hathaway's Cottage for Jeziorki? Several houses have arisen in Jeziorki since we moved in nine years ago, but this is the first 'kanadyjczyk' or wooden-framed, Canadian-style construction.

I personally question the soundness of such a construction method. From experience, I know that the bricks-and-mortar element of a house is proportionally its cheapest part. Foundations, doors, windows, flooring, central heating, plumbing, roofing, a kitchen and bathroom - these are all expensive, and saving a bit on having chipboard cladding over timber frame is hardly noticeable in the overall scheme of things (especially if you're repaying the investment over many years). I may be mistaken, but I value the solidity of a brick-built dwelling (and I think that buyers of second-hand houses do so too).

This time two years ago:
The commuter's camera

This time three years ago:
In praise of Łódź