Jakubowizna, warm January day

The average daily high temperature for Warsaw (1981 to 2010) is +0.6C. Today's high was +9C, the third time this week this temperature has been reached or exceeded. No rain today, so a good opportunity to get to know the countryside surrounding my new działka, bought in November. Located in Jakubowizna, 10 minutes' walk from Chynów railway station on the Warsaw-Radom line, the działka is surrounded by orchards and forests. After raking the lawn, I went for a short walk in the vicinity before heading back to Chynów to catch the Warsaw-bound train home.

Below: on the corner of my street, I'll be following this particular row of apple trees as they blossom and bear fruit.

Below: further on, beyond where the asphalt ends and turns to a rutted, muddy track, a pair of coppiced willows stand as a gate to the more rural vistas beyond.

Around a kilometre from the działka is a small forest on top of a small hill...

...and soon it ends after about 400m and yields to uncultivated scrub.

Time to return, lock up, and catch the train home. I'm heading south-west; there are those coppiced willows again framing the setting sun.

On to Chynów. The sun set today 16 minutes later than the earliest sunset (15:23 on 15 December).

The level crossing with barriers and lighting, something that Jeziorki's ul. Baletowa only got last month - a road hundreds of times busier than ul. Działkowa.

And on, in good time, to PKP Stacja Chynów, which boasts a ticket office and ticket machine plus waiting room.

As I mentioned in a previous post, modernisation work on the railway line between Warsaw and Czachówek Południowy is almost complete. Beyond Czachówek Południowy, preparation for modernisation of the line as far as Warka is underway. Below: two shots of the long row of new concrete sleepers and track ballast, stored by Chynów station. In the dusk, it looks like the ramparts of ancient city captured after a long siege...

Return (senior's) ticket: 13.64 złotys, just under three quid - less than the price of a return bus fare from Cleveland Road to Ealing Broadway station. Getting here from Warsaw is not going to break the bank.

[UPDATE OCTOBER 2022: Now I'm 65, I have an annual season ticket for 50zł taking in Warsaw's Zone 1 and Zone 2, so the price of a return ticket from W-wa Jeziorki or indeed anywhere in Warsaw to Chynów is just 11.44 złotys.]

This time last year:
Seeking an aesthetic in the Grim

This time three years ago:
UK overtakes France as the World's Fifth Biggest Economy 

This time seven years ago:
Ice in the Vistula

This time eight years ago:
A consolation to my British readers

This time nine years ago:
Winter in its finery

The time ten years ago:
Snow fences keep the trains running