Country life in a capital city

A beautiful sunny summer's afternoon - I got off the train a stop early, at W-wa Dawidy, and walked home from there through the fields. Here I am, at the edge of the capital of the sixth-largest member state of the world's wealthiest trading bloc, and the scene is totally bucolic. Pastoral. Rural. Not in the least suburban.

Living around here is good for my soul. There is peace that contrasts with the dynamism of central Warsaw just eight stations to the north; a bonding with the Eternal. Summer like a thousand summers before.

Under the welcome shade of a small grove that grows across the path from the railway line towards ul. Kórnicka. It is hot, over 30C.

Further on towards ul. Kórnicka. Fields on either side of a drainage ditch.

A neatly-mowed south-facing lawn. Beyond, houses along ul. Baletowa.

And when I got home this evening, I heard a disturbing sound, like a giant transport helicopter coming in to land. But no - it's harvest time. Usually I'm on holiday when the neighbours bring in their crop. This year I find they're using a combine harvester.

Amazing. I never witnessed scenes like this in Perivale - also nine miles from the centre of town. Jeziorki remains bucolically rustic, rustically pastoral, pastorally bucolic.

Yet urbanism is creeping in, albeit slowly. Looking back over the years on Google Earth, you can see how Mysiadło, Nowa Iwiczna, Józefosław and Piaseczno are expanding each year; new housing estates fill the fields, now ripe, to quote John Betjeman, for development. But while Okęcie airport's flight path remains, the fields around Jeziorki will stay agricultural for decades to come. I hope!

[It was not to be. The S7 extension opened in 2021, bringing vast volumes of traffic to ul. Karczunkowska; developers have bought up fields and put up serried rows of terraced housing, each house with an average of 1.4 cars. In 2022, I moved on in search of true rurality. Twenty-three minutes south by train from Jeziorki, to a place I bought in 2017 and had renovated in 2018/19.]

This time two years ago:
My ogród is my działka

This time three years ago:
Poland's 'lemmings' will sink the Right

This time four years ago:
Mazowieckie province tempts with mini- and micro-breaks

This time five years ago:
Pride and anger