Time (after my return from London and Kraków) to upload and select some photos to show just how marked the climatic contrast between London and Warsaw can be. Both cities are around the same latitude, yet (anomalies excepted*), London's climate is much more temperate.
Above: Cleveland Road, West Ealing, the posh part.
Below: Cleveland Park, view towards Harrow-on-the-Hill, centre left. Note the clarity of the sky - more associated in my mind with Warsaw than London. From the clothing of the individuals walking in the middle foreground, still shirtsleeves weather (18C on Saturday 12th November). On this very day, Warsaw was shivering under cloudy skies with a top temperature of +2C.
What a day! Another contrast - look at the leaves on the willow trees
below. Not only are they still mainly on the trees (unlike in Warsaw) but they've hardly changed colour from late summer!
Not all trees, however. This avenue of elms (
below) in nearby Pitshanger Park (at the bottom of Cleveland Park) is denuded of leaves and stands on a russet carpet that crunches pleasantly underfoot.
And finally - so quintessentially English - the bowling green at Pitshanger Park,
below. Edwardian Ealing, once Queen of the Suburbs, that
klimat is still to be found, here and there. That sky... those colours... it could be 1911... And why ever not?
* Let us not forget that last November, England was struggling under an inch of snow.
Above: Cleveland Road, West Ealing, the posh part. Below: Cleveland Park, view towards Harrow-on-the-Hill, centre left. Note the clarity of the sky - more associated in my mind with Warsaw than London. From the clothing of the individuals walking in the middle foreground, still shirtsleeves weather (18C on Saturday 12th November). On this very day, Warsaw was shivering under cloudy skies with a top temperature of +2C.
What a day! Another contrast - look at the leaves on the willow trees below. Not only are they still mainly on the trees (unlike in Warsaw) but they've hardly changed colour from late summer!
Not all trees, however. This avenue of elms (below) in nearby Pitshanger Park (at the bottom of Cleveland Park) is denuded of leaves and stands on a russet carpet that crunches pleasantly underfoot.
And finally - so quintessentially English - the bowling green at Pitshanger Park, below. Edwardian Ealing, once Queen of the Suburbs, that klimat is still to be found, here and there. That sky... those colours... it could be 1911... And why ever not?
* Let us not forget that last November, England was struggling under an inch of snow.
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3 comments:
I'd love to live in a sea climate of the British Isles. Warm winters, mild summers, higher precipitation...
Today I read on TVN Meteo this November is the warmest in the history in Great Britain, with average temperatures some 3.5 degrees above long-term average... And in early October I read some predictions of early onset of harsh winter in the UK in November... How forecasters get it wrong...
Plus note in Poland we got used to warm November. Between 1951 and 2010 there was no warmer November than last year's one with average temperature of 6.0 degrees (Nov 1996 was equally warm), despite winter's onslaught at the very end.
Long live the mild winters!
Ah the joys of Pitshanger Park, and the Village Inn on Pitshanger Lane. The Village Inn was set up 30years ago by a Mr Duffy. Previosuly there was no pub on the whole Pitshanger estate as the founders were teetotallers. Mr Duffy being an Irishman somehow found a way around the covenants contained in the property and operated under the name Duffy's. Several years ago the pub was acquired by one of the new fangled pub investment companies who decided to trendify the pub by changing the name and revamoing the interior. This was an old style local but became something which is a cross between a coffee joint and something out of designers manual. The intention presumably was to force out the old timers (including me on my visits) and replace with hip young things. Guess what the same clients remain and even my daughter who is temping there as a barmaid refers to the pub as Duffys.
Which reminds me that in the 70's Watneys revamped the old Red Lion on the corner of Uxbridge Road and Gunnersbury Avenue which was a true spit and sawdust kind of place to a trendy pub renamed the Red Lion and Pineapple. The revamp included fitted carpets. Unfortunately for Watneys the clientelle did not change and customers continued to spit on the floor.
Which finally reminds me of the sign on Paris buses "defense the cracher sur le plafond" which then went on to quote the relevant paragragh of the law much as in Poland everything is "zgodnie z paragrafem x ust y ustawy z dnia .....". I blame the French for everything that is weird in Poland.
Do you realise that wonderful view from the top of Cleveland Park will soon be a memory of the past. The council have taken it upon themselves to plant trees all around the park to block the view and it is already starting to have an impact. That is what is so special about Cleveland Park and makes it different to other parks in Ealing, that extra special view as you walk in at the top entrance or sit in one of the benches at the top to admire the view. I was almost in tears this morning at what Ealing Council have done to ruin the park and feel powerless to do anything about it. Any ideas anyone??
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