Prague's cemeteries

One can learn much history from visiting cemeteries. Czech soldiers died for the Austro-Hungarian Empire in wars far from home. Bohemia, home to Slavic peoples, became part of the Holy Roman Empire (the collection of lands ruled by the Habsburg monarchy) in the 12th century. As such, the Slavic-speaking Czechs were ruled by German-speaking overlords for eight centuries before Czechoslovakia was to emerge from the rubble of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Meanwhile, Czechs were sent to die abroad in wars that were of no consequence to the lands of the Czechs. 

Below: the First World War section of Prague's 60-hectare Olšany Necropolis (Olšanské hřbitovy), the Vojenská pohřebiště (War Cemetery). Here I come across graves dated 1913, reminding me that the two Balkan Wars (1912-1914) were among the key underlying causes of WW1. Tomorrow we celebrate the 20th anniversary of Czechia and Poland joining the EU along with Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Croatia and Slovenia. Gazing upon these reminders of death and suffering that nationalist tensions brought to our part of the continent, one can only be happy.

A separate part of Olšany is Prague's New Jewish Cemetery in the south-east corner of the necropolis. The oldest Jewish cemetery is in the Old Town; sadly it was closed during my visit along with the historic synagogues because of Pesach holiday. Another old Jewish cemetery lies around the foot of the Žižkov TV tower, many graves were removed for the tower's construction which began towards the end of the communist era.

Below: the grave of Franz Kafka, for which the New Jewish Cemetery is most famous. It's the only grave signposted from the entrance, and is littered with pens, pencils and stones with names written upon them. The centenary of Kafka's death falls on 3 June this year. 

The New Jewish Cemetery contains the bodies of many notable Czech Jews, including industrialists and their families, some of whom are buried in spectacular mausoleums. The cemetery was spared desecration by the Nazis during their occupation of Prague.

The Soviet section of the war cemetery remains as a stark reminder that one murderous tyrant's rule over Czechoslovakia was replaced by another's. A contrast, however, between the Czech experience of the 20th century and that of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia's centres on mass deportations. Neither Czechia nor Slovakia were subjected to these; consequently, the USSR is not viewed today with quite the same degree of visceral hatred. Having said that, Poland did not experience a 1968-style Soviet invasion as did Czechoslovakia.

Immediately recognisable as a Commonwealth War Grave, this section of the war cemetery contains the bodies of fallen pilots and prisoners of war who died in camps across Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. The second row here marks the seven crew members of a RAF Lancaster bomber from 301 (Polish) Squadron, shot down over Prague on 29 December 1944.

To begin to understand a nation's history, visit its cemeteries.

This time two years ago:
Got a bit of a cold (Pt II)

This time three years ago:
Identified – photographs from long ago

This time four years ago:

Things will never be the same

This time five years ago:
April's end, summer's beginning

This time six years ago:
Best April ever?

This time seven years ago:
The search for the Gold Train: Day Two

This time eight years ago:
Semi-automatic (short story)

This time 12 years ago:
So good to be back in Warsaw

This time 13 years ago:
At the President's

This time 15 years ago:
Summer's here, and the time is right...

This time 17 years ago:
Why I'm staying in Warsaw

Prague, Central Europe (1)

Magnificent but over-touristed, Prague's magnificence springs from its being spared the devastation of war and from its hilly location. Architecturally, the area of the city covered by pre-war housing extends out from the historic centre far more than Warsaw. Both capital cities cover around 500 square kilometres, but the ring of post-war high-rise housing starts much closer to the centre of Warsaw; Warsaw's population density is about 50% higher than Prague's. 

To give Varsovians a sense of Prague, imagine stretching Stary Mokotów out to Piaseczno and Żoliborz out to Czosnów and filling everything in between with 19th century mansions, modernist villas, parks and squares and broad tree-lined boulevards served by a dense network of tramways. 

The history of Prague is mind-blowingly rich, paralleling many twists and turns in Polish history, yet is so different, despite the linguistic similarities between the two nations. 

Because of its beauty, Prague has made its way up many people's bucket list; a must-see kind of a place, alongside Paris or Venice or Rome, regardless of any genuine interest they have in European history or architecture.

The UNESCO World Heritage historic centre of Prague covers over 1,100 hectares. That's more than three times bigger than the UNESCO-listed old-town parts of Warsaw, Kraków, Zamość, Toruń and Gdańsk put together. [Warsaw's Old Town is a mere 25 hectares; Kraków's heritage sites total 150 hectares. Zamość boasts 75 hectares, Toruń a further 50 hectares, whilst Gdańsk (50 hectares) only makes it to the 'Tentative' list of UNESCO World Heritage sites.

This makes the historic centre of Prague a global mega-attraction; a destination that draws mega-crowds. As a result, its authenticity and its klimat, any deep spirit of place has long evaporated. My brother managed to visit Prague soon after the end of communism, before its Disneyfication. I did the Old Town on a Monday in April; it was already rammed with tourists. Weekends in July and August will be tourist hell. All the downsides of tourism. Profit = margin x volume. 

Below: Charles Bridge in a sea of humanity (below). Tourists randomly stop to take selfies, so one has to watch out for them rather than the sights. I cannot reflect upon my experience or get into the historic groove. Despite being at the heart of "one of the world's most pristine and varied collections of architecture" (Wikipedia), I'm not experiencing it. Crocodiles of visitors anxiously look for their tour guide's flag; blank faces turning this way and that to gaze for a second or two at this 15th century palace or that 13th century church before moving on. Families in horse-drawn carriages, face-down in their phones. Shops selling rubber ducks, synthetic-fur geese, or 20cl souvenir bottles of Czech beer for €4. I cannot feel spirit of place under these conditions; I am continuously distracted. Pamphleteers hand out flyers for restaurants rather than Hussite tracts. 

But move away from the top-ranked must-see spots for the Instagram and TikTok tourism de nos jours, Prague remains very much a living, working city with a character that you appreciate best away from the tourist throng.

This, I'd posit, is the epicentre of Europe, historically and culturally. The ebb and flow of empires and religions have washed against Prague's stones.

My post-war generation has thought of Europe in terms of East and West; since the end of the Cold War Europe has returned to a more typical course. Jonathan Meade's 2008 BBC TV documentary about northern Europe, Magnetic North, delineates a wine-drinking South and the beer- and spirits-drinking North as the two faces of our continent. Divided by climate which shapes attitude to life, Meades contrasts the pleasure-loving, sun-soaked South to the grim, Gothic North; austere and hard-working.

So – where sits Prague?  Geographically, the Vltava flows into the Elbe which flows into the Baltic. Developmentally western, it was industrialised in the 19th century, with a wealth of home-grown engineers, architects and entrepreneurs. It has a beer-drinking culture par excellence. But lumping Prague together with a Brussels or a Copenhagen would be to miss its inhabitants' pohoda, or laid-back approach to life, which strikes me as being more Mediterranean than Baltic.

On three evenings in the tourist-free near-suburbs of Žižkov, Karlin and Staré Vršovice (think, say, Mokotów, Żoliborz or Saska Kępa), I could see crowded bars filled with ordinary folk enjoying life and beer and food and conversation on a scale unseen in Warsaw's suburbs. OK, the weather was perfect and the May Day holiday was approaching, but still, street life appeared as vibrant as in Southern Europe. Perhaps Prague's history (it was not repeatedly flattened and rebuilt) and its architecture (tenements on a human scale rather than semi-detached housing or soulless tower blocks) are more conducive to popping round the corner for a beer and fried cheese and dumplings with friends than sitting at home in front of the TV of an evening. 

Below: elementary school and daycare centre, Lyčkovo náměstí. Built in 1905.

I must return to Prague in mid-November or late-February; dark and damp, wet cobbles and – (I hope) empty streets. And the old Jewish cemetery won't be closed because of Pesach.

This time last year:
Landscapes around Warka

This time three years ago:
Anatomy of a nightmare

This time six years ago:
Diverse bird life returns to Jeziorki

This time seven years ago:
Gold train film shoot - day one

This time 11 years ago:
Jarosław Gowin quits his post as justice minister

This time 15 years ago:
The cycle-to-work season starts

Bystrzyca Kłodzka

Travelling by car with Moni to take the rest of her furniture and things from to Prague, we stop off at Bystrzyca Kłodzka, where my maternal grandmother lived. I had visited the small town, not far from the Czech border, in 1961 (which I don't remember), 1966, 1976 and 1989.

Below: Moni tending the grave of her great-grandmother, my grandmother, Anna Bortnik, who died in September 1976 aged 83, two months after my third and last visit to see her. Also commemorated on the gravestone is my grandfather, Piotr Bortnik, who died of typhoid fever in Kazakhstan in 1943. Deported to the USSR from Horodziec in Wołyń in 1940, neither grandparents nor their three daughters would ever see their home again. After the war, my widowed grandmother and her eldest daughter were repatriated to Poland's 'recovered territories' of Lower Silesia once the German population had been deported. The two younger daughters made it to the West.

This pleasant corner of modern-day Poland had previously been Polish, Bohemian, Austrian, Prussian and German. Below: the view from my grandmother's grave.

Bystrzyca Kłodzka, formerly Habelschwerdt, a town dating back to the 13th century, was founded by Havel of Lemberk, a Bohemian nobleman, next to the village of Bystřice. Throughout the 13th and 14th centuries, the town's allegiance would shift between the Polish and Bohemian crowns before falling under the rule of the Habsburgs, whose lands became known as Austria/the Austrian Empire. Over the course of the three Silesian Wars, Austria lost these territories to Prussia, and so from 1763 Prussia (unified into Germany from 1871) ruled over all of Silesia, upper and lower. Bohemia and Moravia remained parts of the Austrian (Austro-Hungarian from 1867) Empire. The post-1945 border between Poland and Czechoslovakia/Czechia runs along the same line as the old border between Prussia/Germany and Austro-Hungarian Bohemia did in the 18th century after the Silesian Wars.

The Bystrzyca Kłodzka I remember from 1966 and 1976 was drab, grey and poor. Today, it is far richer town, lifted out of poverty by the collapse of communism, the rebirth of entrepreneurship, and tourism. And EU funds have also helped lift living standards here to the point where you'd not see much difference between it and a similarly sized town in provincial England.

Below: the town square, dominated by the old town hall. The sky gives the scene a Mediterranean vibe. There's not enough space between the parked cars to squeeze a bus ticket. Late Saturday afternoon and the local restaurants, cafes and ice-cream parlours are doing good business. We ate lunch in Warsztat Bistro on the square; three out of five tables occupied and a queue for takeaway. My portion was large enough for the leftovers to constitute part of my breakfast the next day. 

Downhill from the town square. In the distance, the spire of the the church of St Michael the Archangel. Szewstwo = cobbler's. Good to see traditional crafts still in business. 

Below: looking up toward the mediaeval town gate...

Left: ...with its genuine mediaeval portcullis. The spire of the bastion is currently being repaired (with EU and Norwegian funds).

Below: the Nysa Łomnicka river runs past Bystrzyca, the town's original name coming from bystra, 'fast' – as in fast-flowing. A little further on, it joins the Nysa Kłodzka. I can imagine this river would be a significant flood risk.

Below: the tower of the baszta rycerska ('knights' bastion'), at the town's north-eastern gate.

Below: looking up at the town from the southern flanks of the hill on which it stands.

Below: ulica Wojska Polskiego; my grandmother and her family lived on one floor of the smaller building in the centre of this pic; outside there stood a CPN petrol station; low-octane petrol fumes permeated the air outside the flat.

A view of the church of St Michael the Archangel. The building to the left has pre-war ghost signs faintly appearing; one reads Frühstück ('breakfast'). As old signs come to light, they are neither obliterated (as they would have been done in years gone by) nor accentuated with new paint. A few street signs have smaller ones beneath giving their pre-1945 names. The past is neither negated nor dwelt upon.

Below: the characteristic wooden-framed roof of a 19th century German railway station. The line running from Breslau (Wrocław) through Bystrzyca Kłodzka (Habelschwerdt) to the Austro-Hungarian border was opened in 1875. Bystrzyca Kłodzka station has been tastefully renovated.

I was impressed with the huge developmental progress made over my lifetime in this sleepy corner of provincial Poland; the quality of people's lives greatly enhanced compared to the way things were up to the late 1980s. A land touched by trauma, totalitarianism, forced deportations of entire peoples is now peaceful and prosperous. On this week, as Poland is about to celebrate 20 years of EU membership, I give profound thanks.

This time two years ago:
Got a bit of a cold (Pt 1)

This time three years ago:
Moon and bloom

This time five years ago:

The working week in town, in pics

This time eight years ago:
Brexit: head vs heart, migration vs economy

This time nine years ago:
Golf course update

This time 12 years ago:
The Shard changes London's skyline

This time 13 years ago:
In praise of Warsaw's trams

This time 14 years ago:
Plans for the railway line to Radom

[Modernisation of a line it took 20 months to build is completed by 2022]

Michalczew, and its mysterious church

The Church of the Holy Family, Michalczew, halfway between Chynów and Warka. The shape, the setting, the surroundings... are moft unusual. Note the painting of Jesus in the foreground; He is looking up at the Holy Grail, floating in a beam of light from the heavens. [Click to enlarge, then right-click to open image in new tab, then click again to enlarge further for detail.]

An unusual structure that has long piqued my curiosity, I visited it on Sunday afternoon. The gates surrounding the church were all shut fast, the grounds deserted. Clearly not your average Mazovian place of worship. What secrets hide under the Cone and Cross? (It looks like it's lifting off, leaving a trail of bubbles behind it...)

It transpires that indeed there is a mystery – and it's a dark one.

Father Tadeusz Stokowski was parish priest in Michalczew since October 1957. Born in Łowicz in 1923, Tadeusz Stokowski received Holy Orders in 1955, and was assigned to create a rural parish for the nine villages between the existing parish boundaries of Warka and Chynów. Despite a significant number of faithful, the communist authorities blocked the construction of a proper parish church for over 30 years, so Holy Masses were held in a makeshift wooden hut. Permission was finally given in 1978 after the election of Cardinal Wojtyła as Pope led to a thaw in relations between communist state and Catholic church.

Designed by Fr Stokowski, the church was built by parishioners with their own efforts during the materially challenged years of the late communist era. The parish church finally opened in 1982. Built on raised ground to resemble the Jasna Góra monastery in Częstochowa, the building has two levels, ramps leading to the upper one; each level has its own altar; there's also an altar in the grounds, along with statues at all the Stations of the Cross in the grounds. 

******

On the morning of Sunday 3 June 1990, parishioners were gathering for the Confirmation ceremony of local teenagers. The church had been specially decorated for the occasion. A bishop from the Warsaw diocese had just arrived – but where was Fr Stokowski? 

People started to search. Within minutes, inside the presbytery, across the road from the church, they discovered the dead body of his housekeeper, Marzanna Kubiak, 59, lying in a pool of blood. And no sign of  the parish priest. The search widened, but Fr Stokowski was nowhere to be seen. The Mass went ahead, officiated by the bishop, but without the Confirmation.

That afternoon (according to one account, according to another, three days later), while feeding the flock of sheep that Fr Stokowski kept in a barn behind the presbytery, neighbours found his dead body under a pile of hay. The police determined that he had been strangled.

Money and commemorative coins were found lying around on the floor; there was no sign of anything stolen from the presbytery. Nor were there any signs of a break-in; the housekeeper seems to have let in the murderers. Fingerprints were taken, but despite extensive efforts to find the killer or killers, no suspect has ever been arrested. And so – a mystery endures.

I should like to return to Michalczew to see the interior(s) of the church, though without camera, using only my phone to take photos. Is there a clue in the church decorations?

This time last year:
Spring explodes in Jakubowizna

This time seven years ago:
Litter makes me bitter

This time ten years ago:
Lent's over - now what?

This time 11 years ago:
Completely in the dark

This time 12 years ago:
Ruch Palikota - a descent into populism

This time 13 years ago:
I cross two unfinished bridges

This time 14 years ago:
What's the Polish for 'grumpy'?

This time 15 years ago:
Do not take this road!

This time 15 years ago:
Seated peacock, Łazienki Park

This time 17 years ago:
Spirit of place: 1930s Kentucky - or Jeziorki?

April, a treacherous month

T.S. Eliot's "cruellest month"; Chaucer's bringer of "showres swoot", April is usually dodgy. In Polish, kwiecień plecień, bo przeplata trochę zimy, trochę lata, means "April's the braider, because it braids a little winter with a little summer." That intertwining of seasons can be treacherous. For the farmer, a late frost following hot sunny days can have a drastic effect on crops. 

I planted some field corn last weekend, against the advice of the website of the Virginia State University's College of Agriculture. "Plant corn at the end of April" it said. "Hah!" I laughed. "That advice evidently pre-dates global warming!" Having had over a week of hot (one-layer) weather, I judged that the time was ripe to till the land, water the soil and plant a few rows of corn seeds. And then, the weather turned. Cold rain, cold winds, overnight frosts, day after day, right on into next week, with a low of -2C forecast for Monday night. From one layer to four. My parka, which I was about to store for the summer, is back in use, hood up. I don't know whether the corn will germinate, or will I have to replant in a week's time.

Meanwhile, the cherry and apple blossom for which this district is famous, has passed its peak; the dandelions have gone to seed, and the vegetation, advanced by about three weeks compared to last year, is having to cope with unseasonal cold. A light hail shower accompanied me on the start of my walk this morning. Below: out of the woods, towards Machcin II.

Below: the unasphalted track between Machcin II and Dąbrowa Duża. Little by little, these stretches are being surfaced; one benefit of such investments is that apples carried in trailers towed by tractors arrive in storage unbruised by journeys over bumpy roads.

A few weeks ago, while it was still hot enough to ride my motorbike (end-March!), I noticed that the entire road surface between Widok and Marynin – all six kilometres of it – had been ripped up, awaiting new asphalt. It was laid down at the Widok end the week before last; now Barcice Rososkie (below) has brand-new blacktop. "This the road to Ittabena?"

Below: changing light, Barcice Rososkie. The fresh asphalt awaits new road-markings.

Below: a pond between Barcice Rososkie and Krężel. In the distance, a downpour is sweeping the forests between Gąski and Konary. Fortunately, I managed to avoid a soaking. Today's weather shows the value of the hailstone-netting that more and more orchards are protected with. None, however, are visible over the apple trees in this photo.

Below: further on up the road from Barcice Rososkie towards Piekut and Krężel beyond. Some rare rays of light illuminate the blossom. Were this an English landscape, the white building on the corner would be the Royal George pub, pouring frothy real ales, drawn from the wood with a hand-pump, served with a platter of bread and cheese and pickle. Sadly, I covered more than 15,000 paces (12km/8 miles) on today's walk without passing even a small village store. Piekut no longer has one, Krężel never had one, nor Barcice Rososkie, nor Gaj Żelechowski, nor Dąbrowa Duża, nor Machcin, nor indeed Jakubowizna.

Back on the działka, yet another tree in the forest next door was blown over. Once again, it fell eastwards. Had the wind been blowing the other way, it would have fallen onto my land, crushing the fence (just visible at the top edge of the photo). "Aspens are brittle," remarked a tree surgeon sent by the electricity company to ensure that none would topple onto the power lines that cross my land.

The mercurial nature of April weather is brought home to me when I checked my electricity usage for the past week – it's three times higher than for the same period last year, whilst electricity produced by my photovoltaic panels last week was only two-thirds of that generated the same week last year.

Looks like the ice saints have come three weeks early this year. Despite the weather, an aesthetically rewarding walk. Music on the move today from James Brown and the JB's, Fat Wood (Pts I and II), a brisk marching tempo. (Isn't it wonderful to have moved on from fiddling with a Walkman or Discman or iPod to a smartphone where you can call up any music you want to hear from wherever you are?)

This time four years ago:
Pandemic, then drought

This time five years ago:
Lent 2019, a summing up

This time six years ago
Spring polarises into existence

This time ten years ago:
The Road to Biedronka

This time 11 years ago:
Lighter, longer lens

This time 14 years ago:
Making sense of Polish politics

Pics from Poznań

To Poznań for my third business trip of 2024. As with my two January trips to Łódź, I have been focusing on architecture, as it is a city's architecture that most impacts its klimat. Poznań's period under German rule is still visible in its older buildings. Below: Ulica Bukowski 31.

Below: ul Bukowska 32, the building next door, catching some intermittent sunlight between passing clouds. Fancier in style, some Art Nouveau decoration, recessed balconies. Overhead, planes are coming into land at Poznań's Ławica Airport (officially named after some musician or other; can't be bothered to check), which is at the far end of ul. Bukowska.

Below: built in 1902 for Adam Jeski, the sołtys (village elder) of Święty Łazarz, when it was a separate village rather than a part of central Poznań. It's falling apart now, as the developer and the city authorities can't agree as to the provision of car parking. [My view: sod the cars, install bicycle racks.]

Below: plinthed steam locomotive, standing forever outside ... an H. Cegielski Poznań-built Ty51 2-10-0 engine stands outside the Enea stadium. (For a side view, plus photos from Poznań's old town, click here.)

Left: Poznań's most iconic landmark? From the point of view of the city's visitors, it is – my first visits to the city after moving to Poland were all involved with the international trade fair (Międzynarodowe Targi Poznańskie, MTP). The tower at the eastern end of the complex dates back to 1928. The trade fair premises were used as a Focke-Wulf factory during WW2, which led to its bombing by the allies. Rebuilt after the war, MTP remains Poland's premier trade-fair venue. 

Below: Poznań's old post office; as with Szczecin, Opole, Gliwice and other cities of the former Reich, the building was meant to be imposing and project administrative efficiency to the local populace.

Below: the western end of Poznań's sprawling main station, Poland's busiest. Whilst the eastern side of the tracks is now a giant shopping mall, the original entrance to what was Poznań Zachodni station has been retained and renovated. Note the winged wheel on top. This is the Flügelrad, a symbol denoting the railway in common use across German (and then Central and Eastern) railway systems from their earliest days, regardless of operator. 

In September 2022, Poznań Główny had its platforms renumbered in the interests of clarity. Platform 1 is the easternmost; Platform 11 the westernmost. It used to be a confusing jumble (from east to west, the numbers used to run 3, 2, 1, 4, 5, 6, with Platforms 3A, 2A, 1A, 4A and 4B thrown in to make the whole thing more confusing still). Twice I missed connecting trains here, rushing for Track 4 Platform 5 rather than Track 5 Platform 4 or something like that. But still infrastructure operator PKP PLK persists in using track numbers, rather than platform-edge numbers. Below: logically, these should be Platforms 22 and 21, rather than Track (tor) 58 and 56 on Platform (peron) 11. Still confusing. Track numbers are only of value to railway workers.

Below right: the new-style digital timetables dispense with track numbers, on the basis that it's more important to guide passengers to the right platform; once there, they can work out from which track their train will depart. Below left: traditional printed timetable still tells you the platform (top) number, with the track number beneath it. The trouble is, station announcers still state the track number before the platform number. Track numbers must die. They only serve to confuse passengers. 

My trains are all on time in both directions; PKP has improved greatly over the past 26 years since I moved to Poland. The interchange at Warsaw West could be easier (it will be once the new station is completed); and punctually I'm back at Chynów. The evening sun is streaming in. It's good to be back, even after just one night away. The brief sunshine brings a touch of warmth to an otherwise chilly spell. April's like that – see next post – summer one day, winter's return the next. Last year, I also visited Poznań at this time; on my walk from the station to my hotel, it was so warm I have to take off the thin Gore-Tex cycling jacket I had on over my suit; the next morning walking from my hotel to the conference venue, I was shivering in suit and jacket and walking fast to keep warm. An overnight fall in temperature of around 20°C. This year, it was cold when I set off, so my parka rather than anything thinner!

This time last year:
The price of stuff and the cost of living

This time two years ago:
Post-Lenten photo catch-up

This time three years ago:
Qualia memories – Edwardian railways

This time eight years ago:

The great taste of Polish India Pale Ales

This time nine years ago:
Lublin – pearl of Poland's East

This time 11 years ago:
70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

This time 12 years ago:
Tarkovsky's Stalker: a zone of my own

This time 13 years ago:
Warsaw's big billboards

This time 15 years ago:
Pace of development falters

Short catch-up, photos not to be overlooked...

Although cooler, the past few days have seen the blossom continue to explode across the orchards of Chynów, the trees becoming heavier still with flower. Below: the corner of ulica Owocowa (the end of my street that's in Chynów rather than Jakubowizna).

[Update, 15 April. The dandelions are still yellow in the above photo, have already gone to seed outside my house. In this post from 2013, the dandelions are in flower on 8 May, and gone to seed by 17 May. An entire month later.]

Below: my favourite local view, with blossom – looking up from Chynów towards Nowe Grobice and its mobile-telephone antenna tower. A passing patch of sunlight moves swiftly across the land.

Looking up at the sky I saw an airliner heading north-east pass in front of the quarter moon. By the time I'd changed lenses, it had flown by, leaving a condensation trail. I snapped what I saw (below) and decided it was a good image. So I raised the camera back up towards the zenith, and snapped again (second pic below). The two images were made just six seconds apart (at 17:05.09 and 17:05.15 UTC respectively), yet look how much distance has been added between the moon and the contrail in that short space of time. Yes, it's the moon orbiting the earth, but to a greater extent it's the winds in the lower stratosphere pushing the contrail – and yet it maintains its form. (Strong vignetting appears when using Photoshop's autotone function on images taken against the sky.)

Below: heading into town on Friday through Chynów station. The 09:10 limited-stop service takes a mere 35 minutes to get to W-wa Młynów; change there to the Metro, and I can be in the office 15 minutes later. So, działka to office, door to door, is now just 1 hour and five minutes. 

A lucky bonus (below) – while changing trains at W-wa Rakowiec station, I catch this PKP ST48 goods loco/shunter passing through with a single wagon. It was going slowly enough for me to scramble up to the top of the grassy embankment, changes lenses to my 10-20mm Nikkor, and catch the whole scene.

This time last year:
My Trinity

This time two years ago:
Spirit of Place and Metaphysics

This time four years ago:
Lockdown stroll, S7 roadworks

This time five years ago:
Construction updates

This time 11 years ago:
Pigeon infestation by Dworzec Centralny

This time 14 years ago:
Magnolia in bloom, Ealing

Early blossom, Jakubowizna

A hot and early spring this year; no surprise then, that that blossom is already out, nearly three weeks earlier than last year! With perfect skies, I rushed to get all my work done before closing my laptop and going for a walk.

Below: part of my front garden (the orchard side). Forget-me-nots coming up nicely, as are the dandelions. I hope for a better apple harvest than last year.

Below: one of my two cherry trees, heavy with blossom. 

Below: stunningly beautiful under a perfectly cloudless sky, cherries blossom before apples, and fruit far earlier.

Below: my walk takes me mostly between orchards today, to make the most the visual splendour. Out through Adamów Rososki and Machcin, back through Nowe Grobice and Jakubowizna. The perfume of flowers is rich and from time to time, the scent is like walking in the wake of an elegant woman.

Below: a young apple orchard, Machcin. Note the protection around the saplings, to stop deer from nibbling at them.

Below: on the way back, the sun is starting to approach the horizon, sunlight streaming through the blossom. Adamów Rososki.

Below: local state forest, noticeably thinner for all of the logging carried out by the previous government. I expect more responsible use of natural resources now.

Below: eight minutes walk from home, another cherry orchard, Jakubowizna.

Below: field between two orchards, Jakubowizna. Bright yellow from dandelions.

Bonus shot from yesterday, when I walked from home to Krężel station, and caught a train back to Chynów from there. This is a southbound train headed for Radom Główny.

This time six years ago:
Ealing under blue skies

This time ten years ago:
Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel

This time 11 years ago:
Warsaw 1935: a 3D depiction of a city that's no longer with us

This time 12 years ago:
Cats and awareness

This time 13 years ago:
Why did this happen?

This time 16 years ago:
Britain's grey squirrels turning red