High summer, Jakubowizna

Back in Poland, I venture down by train today to spend a bit of time relaxing on my działka. Jakubowizna is looking fine in high summer; the fruit season is coming on. Below: on my road there are plenty of orchards, the apples still three months away from being ready to harvest. The orchards are well-tended, although here and there I see some that have gone to seed, their owners having abandoned them. I toy with the idea of a cider press...

Below: that old Kentucky klimat is to be found across southern Mazowsze...

On the działka, how's it going? Still a lot to do. Right now the main action is in insulating the foundations - digging a moat round the outside into which insulating granules will be poured so that heat won't escape from the floor (as I have under-floor heating, this is essential)

Two sides of the house already dug (south and east), two to go (north and west). Rain the big enemy right now. Below: the foundations along the east side, by the garage door.

Below: grapes. I have a large number of grapes - like the apples, three months away from being ready to pick. Cherries have come and largely gone (I need a much longer ladder than the one that's here). And plums will be coming along too.

It's an extremely relaxing place to be, very quiet, the occasional airliner making its turn into final descent into Okęcie, otherwise just birdsong. Time to set ofp back to Jeziorki, a 28-minute journey by train. Below: the journey to Chynów station is a ten-minute walk, I get this Eric Ravilious-style landscape along the way.

Below: orchards everywhere. This one not so well tended, not cultivated for efficient harvesting. But it will be a bumper crop this autumn!

Below: if you click to enlarge, you'll see a Warsaw-bound train at the vanishing point. It's still over seven minutes' travel from the platform at Chynów station, approaching Krężel, three kilometres south. The tracks run dead straight for 15km from south of Czachówek junction to beyond Michalczew.

Below: as my train to Jeziorki crossed the Skierniewice-Łuków line, I caught this westbound container train passing under the viaduct heading for Łódź, then onto Duisberg. This is part of the Chinese 'One Belt One Road' / New Eurasian Land Bridge programme to speed up container flows compared to the long sea journey to north-west Europe.

Bonus - Karczunkowska update. Biggest news on my return from a week in London is the appearance of what is likely to be a roundabout at the junction of ul. Nawłocka and the road to Biedronka. In the distance, the viaduct over the railway line slowly takes shape.

Good to be back in Poland!

This time two years ago:
Aerial cavalcade ahead of NATO meeting

This time four years ago:
Ukraine: still an important foreign policy problem for the West 

This time six years ago:
More about Modlin airport

This time nine years ago:
Get on your bike and RIDE!