Precognition – the future foretold

I was sitting at my kitchen table one morning last week, writing an article for work, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere comes a thought: "3:30 at Kempton Park." A random thought, stochastic misfiring of neurons – or what? Not an auditory sensation, no sound 'heard', not a voice. Just a thought. 

I've never been into horse racing – the last time I was in a bookmaker's shop was back in the 1980s to place a speculative bet on the Derby. Since then, I've not bet on horses or indeed anything. But I am intrigued; curious. What's this all about? Firstly – do they even race at Kempton Park in January?

It turns out that indeed they do. 

I googled it; yes, there's a racing at Kempton Park this afternoon, and there's a race at 3:35 (rather than exactly 3:30). I look down the race-card, scanning the list of runners and riders for one to back. My eye is drawn to just one horse – Magic Fluke (my favourite opera is Magic Flute). The rider and the trainer are both called 'Marco'. Starting price 7/2.

As I said, I haven't placed a bet for over 35 years, and I've never placed one online. I was put off by the profusion of logos and confusing offers, and in any case it's a working day, so I had no time to work out how to do this, set up an account with a bookmakers, logins and passwords – all too much. 

However, about an hour later, I happen to be on a call with the managing director of a financial-services company based in the City of London. At the end of a half-hour long business conversation, I casually mention to him the story of how the words "Kempton Park 3:30" popped up in my mind out of nowhere. "Worth placing an each-way bet on Magic Fluke in the 3:35 at Kempton Park!" I advised him, jokingly. He thanks me for the tip, and goes on to place an each-way bet on Magic Fluke online – and it came second.

An each-way bet means you get a smaller percentage of the odds should the horse come second or third). Had he put £10 on Magic Fluke, for example, he'd have walked away with £17.40. Or £34.80 for a £20 bet.

Magic Fluke. The very name...

"Magic (noun) – practice intended to summon a tangible effect in the natural world by breaking the laws of causality; invoking a physical effect without a physical cause" 

"Fluke (noun) – a lucky or improbable occurrence, with the implication that the occurrence could not be repeated."

Is this nothing more than a coincidence? Richard Feynman's ARW 357? Or did I pick up a weak signal from the future? If so, how?

If so... yesterday, lo, I dreamed... I foresaw myself living here in Jakubowizna until the age of 85 (in 2042, you will understand), and then move into a 20th-floor flat (though not in a city!). And still in the dream, I am in my old office (when it was on the 9th floor), sat around a large boardroom table with half a dozen of my colleagues. I am telling them about this dream I had in which I am living in Jakubowizna until the age of 85. One colleague says "That's an interesting dream – I'm sure it will come true!", whilst another says "It's just neurons in your brain misfiring." So in this dream I find myself critiquing the dream along with my colleagues! Furthermore, in this dream I carried on to dream that I would live on for another 18 years – to the age of 103! Maybe there's more to dreams than meets the eye...

See too this post about retrocausality.

This time last year:
Levels of Detail, Applied
[More dreams!]

This time five years ago:
Dreams of birth?

This time six years ago:
Foggy, icy, slippery day in Jeziorki

This time ten years ago:
Hannah Arendt and the banality of evil

This time 11 year ago:
Snow scene into the sun

This time 12 years ago:
More winter gorgeousness

This time 13 years ago:
New winter wear - my M65 Parka

This time 14 years ago:
Winter and broken-down trains

This time 15 years ago:
General Mud claims ul. Poloneza

This time 16 years ago:
Just when I thought winter was over...

Melting in the rain

Weather forecasts are getting increasingly accurate ever-further into the future; I made the most of the ice to explore frozen local wetlands over the past two weekends, knowing that by the middle of this week a thaw is due. Replacing the frost – rain, slush, mud and treacherous remnants of ice to trip the unwary.

Yesterday still had stretches of my road covered by ice from verge to verge; walking to the shops in Chynów, I had to walk along the roadway of ulica Wspólna as the pavement was way too slippery. Today, with the exception of stretches of path in the forest where the ice clung on, the asphalt and pavement were clear. Clear - but wet.

Below: the corner of my street and the one leading towards Nowe Grobice. Yesterday, that asphalt was almost impossible to walk over; today, ground that had been covered in snow lies under water.

Below: blackberry plantation, Chynów. Water flows into lower-lying parts of the plot; if not drained, the the water will just stand there. Under the soil, there's a thick, impermeable layer of clay.

Below: at the edge of the forest by the railway line. The stretch without asphalt is impassable to cars in several places. Beneath the meltwater - thick mud.

Below: waterlogged forest road between Chynów and Krężel. Here and there between the trees, the last of the disappearing snow, dirty and grey, melts into the ground.

Left: water and ice. My boot is up to the top of its sole in meltwater, under which there's a still-solid layer of ice. There was a brief thaw that failed to melt the thick ice from the week when overnight temperatures were in minus double-digits; more snow fell onto that, iced over, and that top layer has now melted.

Looking at my step-counter, I see that minutes of medium-to-high-intensity walking this January (48 minutes per day on average) is way down on last January's 63 minutes – this is due to the ground being covered with snow and/or ice for so much of this month. I have to walk with care, more slowly.

Below: barns in Janów, between Krężel and Michalczew. Sodden land; drainage ditches overflowing. And now, it starts raining. And the rain is cold. I have a flashback to a Polish scouts' fieldcraft exercise on Wimbledon Common in the early 1970s; a broad, sandy thoroughfare, used by horse-riders, silver birches on either side – and an atavistic memory of the Pripet Marshes in the 19th century.

Below: looking up the line from Michalczew – having walked seven kilometres from home, I catch the train back to Chynów. Once on the działka, I check my paces – over 13,000.

This time eight years ago:
The Polish Individualist

This time nine years ago:
Winter woes and a crisis of creativity

This time 11 years ago:
Warsaw – the more it snows

This time 12 years ago:
Get orf my lairnd!

This time 13 years ago:
A Dream Too Far - short story

This time 14 years ago:
Compositions in white, blue and gold

This time 15 years ago:
Dobra and the road

This time 16 years ago:
Polish air force plane full of VIPs crashes on landing in fog

Base Twelve

Empires rise and fall for different reasons. Some collapse within a few years, others slowly decline. The Soviet empire collapsed rapidly; the British Empire fell apart over decades. Britain's decline from being the pre-eminent global superpower in the middle of the 19th century to merely the world's sixth-largest economy isn't over and has many causes. 

But one I'd like to touch on one, which I doubt if any serious historian has picked up on – decimalisation.

When I was in primary school in the 1960s, the British monetary system was vastly more complicated than the decimal one which has been in place since 15 February 1971.

There used to be 12 pennies to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound, so 240 pennies to the pound (but nothing cost, say 126 pennies – it would have been ten shillings and sixpence, or ten and six, expressed as 10/6). 

To make things more complicated, there were also crowns (worth five shillings – so four crowns to the pound); in daily usage, half a crown was worth two shillings and sixpence, and had its own coin in regular circulation, unlike the crown (which was for commemorative issues only). There was also the guinea, worth one pound and one shilling, or 21/-. This unit of account, (expressed as 'gns') would be used for luxury items such as fur coats or up-market home furnishings, as well as for professional fees, and for prizes in horse-racing (the Thousand Guinea Stakes at Newmarket, for example, still raced to this day).

Coins: I don't remember the farthing (quarter of a penny) in circulation, but I certainly remember the halfpenny (pronounced ha'penny). Some of the pennies in my pocket would have born the portrait of Queen Victoria. Large and quite hefty for their value. Then there was the 12-sided threepence coin ('thruppenny bit'), the silver sixpence ('tanner'), the shilling ('bob'), the two shilling bit ('two bob' - not 'two bobs'!) and the half-crown. And then onto paper money - the ten-shilling note (Riches! Not something I'd ever get my hands on while at school).

So - it's all very complicated. And that's the point!

I was surprised to learn on holidaying in Poland in 1966 that Polish children only learnt their multiplication tables to 10, whilst in England, we had to learn them to 12. Up to 144. Extra brain-power, cramming in those 11 and 12-times tables.

What would we buy with our pennies? Sweets, chocolates, soft drinks, crisps...

[I strongly suspect that confectioners were an important part of the dental-industrial complex]

Sweets. Also sold by weight. Pounds and ounces. Sixteen ounces to the pound.

So a quarter-pound of pineapple cubes at 1/2d a pound would cost how much? Thruppence ha'penny. Two ounces of jelly beans at 1/4d a pound would cost how much? Tuppence (two pennies).

These were the sort of mental gymnastics every school child would have to deal with when entering a sweetshop. Have I got enough? Did I get the right change? If you didn't have a firm grasp of the times tables you'd lose out. Everyone did. Greengrocers selling three and half pounds of King Edwards at 4d a pound. Ironmongers selling a gross of three-quarter-inch screws at three bob a gross.  

And then one day, with much publicity, the shillings disappeared, the number of pennies to the pound reduced by a factor of 2.4, and by the end of the 1970s, pounds and ounces gave way to kilos and grams. While in the short term, even more mental arithmetic was required to juggle the old system and the new, in time, it was stripped away. Everything became simple. Sweets and screws were sold in packets (unit price = one packet), meaning you'd have to buy more than you needed of low-value things. Bad for the consumer, good for the producer, good for the shopkeeper.

One of my qualia memories is of entering Tanners confectioners/newsagents /tobacconists on Oaklands Road; the smell of sweets and newsprint, damp cardboard on the floor whenever it rained; the rows and rows of jars of sweets sold by weight; the display of Matchbox die-cast toy cars; newspapers for the grown-ups, comics for us children – pulling out a handful of coins – a 12-sided thruppenny bit, a Queen Victoria penny, almost worn flat, a ha'penny - fourpence ha'penny in total, and working out whether to buy a small chocolate bar and some Black Jacks and Fruit Salad chews, or some American bubblegum with WW2 collectors' cards, or spend the lot on a bag of liquorice twists.

Below: coins from my childhood – top row: pennies from the reign of Queen Victoria and Edward VII, ha'penny from the reign of George V, bottom row, ha'pennies from the reign of George VI before and after he lost the title, Emperor of India (Ind. Imp). 

[According to the Bank of England Inflation Calculator, one pound was worth £17.86 in 2023 money, so one penny had the buying power of 7.5p, a shilling being worth 90p.]

This time last year:
Memories of Seasons

This time two years ago:
Pictures in the Winter Sun

This time three years ago:
Magic sky

This time four years ago:

Too good to skip over

This time six years ago:
The Hunt for Tony Blair
[Apologies to UK readers - the YouTube link is geo-blocked there]

This time eight years ago:
Lux Selene

This time 11 years ago:
David Cameron, Conservatism and Europe

This time 12 years ago:
Citizen Action Against Rat Runners

This time 13 years ago:
Moni at 18 (and 18 months)

This time 14 years ago:
Building the S79 - Sasanki-Węzeł Lotnisko, midwinter

Winter's wildness

The winter continues to hold on, with temperatures hovering around zero during the day, and falling to around -3C at night. Following last week's exploration of the iced-over wetlands north of Sułkowice, I decide to explore those to the east of Dąbrowa Duża. So after a hearty breakfast (bowl of porridge, tuna sandwiches), I set off.

Below: a pair of young female elk. Six years in Jakubowizna, and I've only ever seen four of these elusive creatures – and here are two of the four in this one photo. [Another one in this post.] Seeing them approaching, them seeing me approaching – we stopped. I slowly changed lens to 70-300mm zoom, and took this portrait. We stood like this for a minute or two. I consider moving from the path into the wood to my right, so as not to impede their progress. 

But as soon I made a slow step, the elk took fright, turn round and run off (below) – not back into the forest, but left along the path between the orchards, towards Grobice.

Continuing along my walk, I meet a neighbour exercising her dogs. She tells me about the two elk she's just seen – evidently the same pair; but she also said she saw a young antlered male yesterday evening. Maybe the lack of food is prompting them to forage nearer human settlements…

Below: tracks in the snow left from one of the elks, right, a wild boar.

I press onto my destination - the 'haunted marshes' (nawiedzone moczydła) between Dąbrowa Duża and Rososz, knowing they'd still be frozen over solid. Like the wetlands between Ławki and Gabryelin explored last week, this particular swamp is neither lake nor meadow, humps of vegetation, tufts of grasses, reeds at the edges. In spring and summer, this is where cranes come to breed – noisily. Below: I navigate following animal tracks in the snow.

Below: the road between Machcin and Jakubowizna. Newly re-asphalted over the summer, it will be interesting to see what damage the frosts and thaws will have wrought over the winter.

Below: deep in the woods, I put my foot in it – I couldn't see the entrance to this animal lair, covered in snow; I tripped and fell. Fortunately I was prepared, gloves on, hands out of pockets, the soft snow cushioned the fall. No damage, other than a snow-covered lens filter. [You can just see the print of my right boot to the left of the hole, which also gives scale. Who lives here – foxes? Hares? Badgers?]

Below: I emerge from the woods and cross this clearing, which in spring and summer often hosts a noisy gaggle of cranes. To the left, a hunters' pulpit, from which wildlife is shot at. Note the car tracks – they get close, but there are no footprints from car to ladder. The pulpit has a door, but it's not locked; there are three window-apertures which can be opened from within.

Below: on the (un-asphalted) road between Machcin II and Adamów Rososki, the snow drifting at the clearing's edge, even with a modest overnight fall.

Home to cook a large pot of warming stew.

This time three years ago:
Snow turns to slush

This time four years ago:
London in its legal finery

This time five years ago:
Winter walk through the Las Kabacki

This time seven years ago:

1967: The Year The World Started Turning To Colour

This time ten years ago:
Rain on a freezing day (-7C)

This time 11 years ago:
Jeziorki in the snow

This time 13 years ago:
Winter's slight return

This time 14 years ago:
Unacceptable

This time 15 years ago:
Pieniny in winter

This time 15 years ago:
Wetlands in a wet winter

Łódź in winter (and Radom bonus)

Twice in two weeks business has taken me to Łódź. Walking from meeting to meeting gives me a chance to capture the city's unique atmosphere which is created by fascinating late-19th century architecture in various states – from sad dilapidation to thoroughly renovated and all points in between.

Below: tenement (kamienica) on ulica Kilińskiego - neither a ruin, nor yet renovated, just getting on with providing local folk with housing. 

Below: the impressive Poczta Polska buildings on the corner of ul. Tuwima and ul. Kilińskiego (right). Further on up Kilińskiego (far right), two new office blocks, Brama Miasta ('City Gates') A & B.

Below: there's not enough time or money to make Łódź perfect… But one day, one day… 

Below: street corners yield new perspectives. Architecture from the time when Łódź was the westernmost (and fifth-largest!) city of the Russian Empire. (Larger than Łódź were only St Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw and Kiev.)

Below: night falls on Łódź, and with it a light sprinkling of snow. Most Poles are aware that Łódź's ul. Piotrkowska is Europe's longest shopping street, but ul. Płk Jana Kilińskiego is even longer at 6km (3.75 miles) – though lacking in the retail experiences of which the better-known thoroughfare can boast. However, something tells me that once the railway tunnel under Łódź is complete, Kilińskiego will get a huge boost. But first, city authorities will need to give the unrestored tenements, shops and offices the necessary facelift to attract buyers and tenants. "Build it, and they will come."

Below: a short walk from TVP 3 Łódź studios, where I was interviewed about Polish-UK trade., to Łódź Fabryczna station. [With TVP Info now out of PiS hands, it's no longer a bash-the-opposition party propaganda outlet, so I feel entirely comfortable to return to the air on this channel.] At the station, I check train times and discover that my journey from Łódź Fabryczna to Chynów will only take a minute longer if I go via Radom rather than Warsaw. In either case I'd have to change trains at Łódź Widzew... As I've never travelled to Łódź to Radom (via Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Drzewica and Przysucha), I decided to do just that.

Below: the eastern end of the platforms at Łódź Widzew station. Now properly modernised, with the old footbridge replaced by a tunnel, a full-width canopy over the central sectors of the platforms, and refurbished waiting rooms. Not a bad place to change trains - even in the snow and frost. It's a 19-minute wait for the Kociołek InterCity express, which runs from Poznań to Lublin via Łódź Widzew and Radom. Ideal. [Kociołek - literally, 'small cauldron' or 'cooking pot'.]

Below: Radom station's modernisation included a new name (Radom Główny, to distinguish it from a slew of brand-new stations with the 'Radom' prefix), new platform canopies and a Scottish Restaurant. I must say I'm a fan – I shouldn't be, but I like ordering from a touchscreen, paying by card, having the meal delivered to my table, and having a standardised menu across Poland. Having said that, I gave it a miss, having eaten a hot meal with craft ale in the Wars buffet car on the InterCity train from Łódź.

Below: it's still there! Plener – no longer an alcohol shop, as it was back in 2016, but now a 24-hour shop. That happens to sell alcohol. [The English language lacks words distinguishing 'day' and '24-hour period' – in Polish these are dzień and doba respectively. So - sklep całodobowy can't be rendered by a simple English phrase.] 

Below: Warsaw-bound Koleje Mazowieckie train on Platform 1, Radom Główny station, waiting for the off. The old Tsarist-era wooden building has been left in place as is and is at odds with the rest of the modernised station.

The train reaches Chynów… and I've not seen the southbound train passing. Turns out it was late - I was almost home as it passed the end of my road. So a double win of returning via Radom rather than Warsaw! [However, it must be said that because of my annual Warsaw travel card, the journey via Radom ended up costing me 7.13zł (£1.40) more than with a change at W-wa Zachodnia. And a propos of small sums of money, my annual land tax for Jakubowizna for 2024 will be 272zł (£53.23) - for a house on an acre of land. Not enough! I'd happily pay more to Gmina Chynów for the services it delivers!]

This time last year:
We're all on one spectrum or another

This time last year:
Qualia Compilation - playing with Lego

This time three years ago:
Onto the frozen pond

This time four years ago:

A walk through lights-out London

This time five years ago:
Mid-Jan pictorial round-up

This time nine years ago:
UK migration and the NHS

This time 12 years ago:
Miserable depths of winter

This time 13 years ago:
From - a short story (Part 1)

This time 14 years ago:
A month until Lent starts

This time 15 years ago:
World's biggest airliner over Poland

This time 16 years ago:
More pre-Lenten thoughts

As the wetlands ice over

Last visited in February last year, the wetlands between Ławki and Gabryelin have frozen solid (six nights well below zero); even though today, the thermometer showed +1C, I assessed the ice as being easily thick enough for exploration. First steps must always be cautious. The slippery surface is more of a worry than thin ice (although flowing waters, such as the Czarna river just across the railway line, have not iced over). Crossing ice means balancing curiosity with prudence.

Below: looking north towards Sułkowice, dead trees, their roots flooded, ring the wetlands' perimeter. Electricity the only sign of civilisation.

Below: fallen trees line the wetlands' edge. The forest beyond – as do the wetlands themselves – belong to state forestry enterprise, Lasy Państwowe. 

Below: a northbound Koleje Mazowieckie train passes between Sułkowice and Czachówek Południowy…

Below: …and the reverse view from the somewhat grimy windows of the southbound train rushing me back from Czachówek Południowy to Chynów.

It's a strange feeling, looking down at the ice – the multiplicity of animal tracks and the complete absence of human footprints. The wetlands can be covered by ice thick enough to walk on safely maybe for several days once every other year (certainly not the case last year), somehow the urge to explore among other folk isn't that strong. And I must say, I'm rather glad.

Below: having come off the ice, I'm back on the unasphalted road between Ławki and Gabryelin, in the distance Czachówek Południowy station. Here, the railway line spreads out, with four through tracks and a siding; there's an electricity substation and level crossing. And a good grocery store (Chorten) at which I top up with some fresh fruit & veg.

Below: returning to asphalt, and the edge of the village of Ławki. Classic Polish rural architecture – single story dwellings, with barns and garages to the rear. All is quiet and still.

Bonus shot – the new bridge over the Czarna river, in the snow.

This time two years ago:
On ice – on thick ice

This time five years ago:
Kraków in winter

This time six years ago:

Jeziorki mid-January catch-up

This time seven years ago:
On ice

This time eight years ago:
Tweeting and blogging

This time ten years ago:
The sad truth about the pavement for Karczunkowska
[The useless twats in the town hall still haven't built the fucker - except the volume of traffic has increased tenfold since the S7 extension opened.]

This time 14 years ago:
A haul of wintery wonderfulness

This time 15 years ago:
Optimal way to work?

This time 16 years ago:
Highest point in Jeziorki 
(photos of the Rampa before demolition)

Warsaw railway interstitials

There's the place you live. Then there's your workplace. And then there are the so-called 'third spaces' – public places where you can meet and mingle - cafés, parks, squares, bars, etc. And between these three typologies, we have the interstitial spaces, the liminal places, through which you merely pass through (unless you happen to work there), leaving only your shadow.

There's a specific atmosphere that I've always felt about Warsaw's two city-centre railway stations – Warszawa Śródmieście, for suburban trains, and Warszawa Centralna, for long-distance trains. (Warszawa Centralna also known as Dworzec Centralny, and in English, Warsaw Central.)  A sense of unease, mystery, disquiet. The two are linked by a system of tunnels which goes on beyond Centralna to the light-rail terminus, Warszawa Śródmieście WKD.

I've written and photographed these interstitial places before, but this week I have passed through this way three times, and so they are worth a revisit with a blog post. When it's cold and slippery at street level, underground it's warmer and dry. It's possible to walk half a mile along the platforms and appreciate the unique atmosphere offered by these interstitial spaces. Passengers tend to cluster around the middle of the platforms, but the far ends see little human activity.

Below: although no Radom-line trains currently call at W-Śródmieście station, I walk this underground way between Metro Centrum and W-wa Centralna. Although it's just gone 9am and the rush hour is tailing off, the station is almost empty.

Below: the stairs leading up to street level. At the top - ulica Emilii Plater that separates the suburban and the inter-city stations, but we'll be crossing underneath instead.

Below: stairs from the underground passage leading up to platform level, W-wa Śródmieście. At the top – ticket machines, green to the left for Koleje Mazowieckie, yellow to the right for Warsaw urban transport. What could lurk behind those store-cupboard doors in the foreground?

Below: the tunnel connecting the four platforms of Warszawa Central and W-wa Śródmieście. The light temperature from the neon tubes is unnatural, casting a chill uncertainty upon the scene. Modern signage at least provides some reassurance that all is not lost. Unmarked doorways in the passage add to the sense of unease.

Below: eye-level with the platform floor, W-wa Centralna. In the distance, an east-bound Pendolino train awaits departure from Track 3 Platform 2. I've written before about rail infrastructure operator PKP PLK's obstinacy in platform numeration. Here at Centralna it's not too bad, but in Poznań I've missed trains because I'm looking for Track 5 Platform 2 rather than Track 2 Platform 5, a long way off. A mention is needed of architect Arseniusz Romanowicz, who designed the station in 1975, along with most of the stations along the transversal line, from Warsaw East to Warsaw West and all points in between.

Below: from the top of these stairs, take a nose around into the tunnel. The long-distance lines run east from here, merging from eight tracks down to two before emerging at the top of the Warsaw escarpment by W-wa Powiśle station (which InterCity trains bypass). This is the Tunel średnicowy (transversal tunnel), a place with its own mystery – the urban legend of a secret spur between this tunnel and the basement levels of the Palace of Culture, just to the north of the line. 

Below: another urban legend - the ramp that led down to what was a secret underground kebab factory. Or storage room. There's a ramp like this at the eastern ends of Platforms 1 and 2 and at the western ends of Platforms 3 and 4. What goes on down below these days remains shrouded in mystery.

Below: now approaching half past nine in the morning; the distant lights of a Dart train that's soon to depart for Wrocław. Note how empty the far end of the platform is, and how far to the middle section of the station where the trains stop.

Below: view from the western end of Platform 3; in the distance, daylight, and the single platform of Warszawa Śródmieście WKD station.

Up some more stairs, into another passage, round the corner and down a ramp – and you arrive at W-wa Śródmieście WKD (below). Normally, the terminus station of Warszawskie Koleje Dojazdowe, a light railway separate from the PKP network that extends south-west to Grodzisk Mazowiecki. Normally, because services currently terminate two stops back at W-wa Reduta Ordona – or they would if the railway's workers weren't out on strike.

And finally, looking back at the deserted platform from the stairs at the far end. From here to the eastern exit of W-wa Śródmieście PKP suburban station is over one kilometre of walkways, tunnels, stairs and escalators beneath street level (though here, daylight peeps through).

An interesting alternative to Warsaw's city streets.

More photos from Warszawa Centralna from 2010 here.

This time two years ago:
Qualia memories - snowy Greenwich, January 1970

This time three years ago:
Meagre, disappointing snow

This time four years ago:
The Inequality Paradox - a summing up

This time five years ago:
Familiarity, tradition and identity

This time six years ago:
Black hat merry-go-round 

This time seven years ago:
Skarzysko-Kamienna and Starachowice, by train

This time eight years ago:
The world mourns the loss of David Bowie

This time ten years ago:
Where's the snow?

This time 12 years ago:
Two drink-free days a week, British MPs urge

This time 13 years ago:
Depopulating Polish cities?

This time 14 years ago:
Powiśle on a winter's morning

This time 15 years ago:
Sunny, snowy Jeziorki

Icy cold

This morning, the temperature outside was -17.3C; this is colder than it's been for many a winter. Cloudless skies lift the spirits. Below: the road to the station – the asphalt is dangerously slippery. I've had my one and only fall last year on the ice on the corner just behind me here. Fortunately, I was prepared. Gloves on, hands out of pockets, so as I slipped, I caught the fall – no damage.

Below: corner of ulica Słoneczna and ul. Główna, Chynów. The old DK50; before the bypass opened back in 2007, this stretch of road would have been full of trucks running between Russia and Germany and all points in between. Now, it's nice and quiet. And I must say, I'm rather glad.

Below: field, Chynów. The sun may appear low in the sky, but this photo was taken at ten past two in the afternoon. 

Below: coming back to Jakubowizna as the low sun begins to warms the evening light – I say evening; it's not half past two yet.

The temperature rose during the day to a high of -6.7C, but after the sun set, it plunged back down to -13.1C. Clothing for such temperatures: t-shirt, long-sleeved cotton shirt, woollen jumper, merino wool cardigan, US Army M-65 Parka with liner. World's best gentlemen's outfitter for the outdoor life - the US Department of Defense. 

This time last year:
Welcome to the Age of AI!

This time two years ago:
What's new in Jakubowizna?

This time four years ago:
Policy responses to inequality

This time five years ago:
A Royal Visit to Warsaw

This time six years ago:
Transport news

This time seven days ago:
Uneasy Sunny Day - smog

This time eight years ago:
Public media? State media? Party media?
[yet another year of not watching a single second of TVP. I won't be watching any this year either]

This time nine years ago:
Beer, consumer choice and the Meaning of Life

This time ten years ago:
What's Cameron got against us Poles?
[whatever it was, it will have turned him into a utter loser in future history books]

The time 12 years ago:
Anyone still remember the Przybyl case?

This time 13 years ago:
Wetlands midwinter meltdown

This time 14 years ago:
Jeziorki rail scenes, winter

This time 15 years ago:
Winter drivetime, Jeziorki

This time 16 years ago:
Kraków, a bit of winter sunshine

Trains in the snow around Chynów

Winter's back – it snowed overnight from Friday to Saturday; today, the frost deepened (it's -9C outside as I write). Two long walks, today and yesterday, both over 17,000 paces long, to catch me some snowy klimat.

Below: an unusual sight – indeed a first on this stretch of the LK8 railway line between Czachówek and Warka – I have never seen a container train along here. They frequently travel from east to west along the Skierniewice-Łuków LK12 line, but this is most unusual. Travelling full or empty? The containers are Chinese (COSCO = Chinese Ocean Shipping COmpany). Are they travelling full towards the markets of Western Europe, or are they empty containers returning to China?  Do they still pass through Russia and Belarus on their way?

On my way between Chynów and Węszelówka, I happened to catch the Sienkiewicz Olsztyn-to- Kraków express one minute before the Kolberg Kraków to Olsztyn InterCity express passed the other way. Both trains were running to time. Below: the Sienkiewicz...

Below: the Kolberg whooshes through. Line cleared for 160km/h operations.

Having reached the level crossing on Ulica Spokojna, there's some spokój (peace); no train in either direction for another 25 minutes. Below: looking up the line from the level crossing towards Chynów station.

Below: viewed from the bottom of my street when setting off earlier, a local Koleje Mazowieckie train as it approaches Chynów station from Warsaw.

And to round off, as with the first two pics, one from yesterday - this is the Sienkiewicz heading towards Warsaw and Olsztyn. Again, passing through on time.

Below: viewed from the other sides of the track, with a passing Koleje Mazowieckie train – the new Impuls rolling stock – headed for Radom.

This time six years ago:
New football pitch for Jeziorki

This time seven years ago:
The Winter Sublime

This time 13 years ago:
Long train running

This time 14 years ago:
Most Poniatowskiego

This time 16 years ago:
Warsaw well prepared for winter