A Dream Journey through the Central Europe of my Childhood Imagination

It was a different world, a dream world. As a child I had visited it often; sparked by trips to Poland through West Germany and Czechoslovakia, journeys which had a profound influence on my aesthetic sensibilities as I was growing up. The atmosphere, the klimat, was so unlike the London suburbs in which I was born and where I grew up.

Below: have I been here before? Kind of, sort of think so... But when? Memory can be so fickle.

Below: have you been here, in your dreams of long ago?

Below: I dreamt of trams that delivered coal. All night fleets of tramcars haul trains of coal wagons which drop their load through trap-doors between the tracks, down chutes into coal bunkers located below the cellars of the tenements that line the city streets. Shortly after daybreak, task completed, the trams return to their normal duties – conveying passengers to their places of work.

And I loved the cars. They were so different to our Austins, Hillmans and Jaguars! My grandmother's family lived in a flat overlooking the petrol station, so I'd often see some amazing cars. Here, for example, is a Krenzstaier 2,8 Liter (in Luxus trim), a favourite among local plutocrats and captains of industry.

Let's cross the tracks to another part of town... this is the line that skirts the western side of the city.

And I'd often take the opportunity to check out the Metro system, which back then still used rolling stock that dated back to the early 1920s!

Here's another one, the trains used on Line No. 2... These had an additional headlamp to provide extra lighting in the long tunnel sections in the distant suburbs

Line 3 stations were my favourite ones on the network – note the chandeliers. 

Below: "The streets were deserted/The police were alerted" – looks like one of those black saloon cars favoured by the state security apparatus heading our way. My father prudently hides his camera.

The car passes without incident. Let's continue our stroll. Almost back at my grandmother's...

Below: the bar on the corner of the street where they live. Looking at this image today, I've become quite thirsty, and fetch myself a bottle of Lützaner pils from the cellar.

Your very good health! The Beer Magnate'f  fineft offering. Beer, as I could only imagine. Cheers!

You will have guessed by now that these images are AI generated. I used Google Gemini Advanced 1.5 Pro with Imagen 3. Compared with my early attempts with AI-generated art, it's so much better in responding to my prompts. The pictures really click with my imagined world, dreams triggered by visits to Poland in the 1960s.

AI art is controversial. Is the content, the intellectual property of millions of creators, being scraped, royalty-free for the benefit of the tech giants? Or has a new creative tool been handed to humanity, just waiting for our imagination to be let loose on it? I'd be keen for your feedback.

Each of the above images is unique. I could type in exactly the same prompt a million times, and never get the same image again.

This time last year:
Poland's sleeper trains: 2024 timetable

This time two years ago:
City-centre notes
[One week living in Warsaw's Nowe Miasto]

This time four years ago:
First snow for ages!

This time five years ago:

Politics and personal responsibility

This time six years ago:
Consciousness, memory and spirit of place

This time seven years ago:
Polish Perivale

This time eight years ago:
Power in the vertical

This time 12 years ago:
And still they come [anomalous flashbacks that is]

This time 13 years ago:
Classic glass

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

This time 16 years ago:
"Rorate caeli de super nubes pluant justum..."

Twanged

Nowa Iwiczna and its railway crossings is a bane for rail passengers as well as for motorists. The level crossing there on ulica Krasickiego has the power to hold you up for an insufferably long time. Since the completion of the Warsaw-Radom line modernisation and the opening of SKM services to Piaseczno, the level crossing is a source of local frustration and anger.

Consider the situation I encountered two weeks ago. It's twenty past nine in the evening. The lights start flashing, the bells start clanging, the barriers are coming down. I know that there's at least three minutes before a train actually crosses the road, so on reaching the barrier, I get on hands and knees (twice) to get under  each of the two barriers to reach the southbound platform. Crossing the tracks, I can see distant no train lights from either direction... And about a minute and half later, there it is – the 21:23 Koleje Mazowieckie service to Warsaw. The queue of cars on either side of the tracks waits for the barriers to rise... 

But no. The barriers remain down as the 21:25 SKM service to Piaseczno approaches Nowa Iwiczna station from the north. Maybe once this train has passed, the barriers will rise... Again, no. This time, the barriers remain down for the 21:28 SKM service towards Warsaw. I notice a family – mum carrying small child, dad with baby in pram and grandmother, who had been trapped for several minutes between the main barrier and short barrier closing off the northbound platform. Because of this, they missed that first train to town. They can now hear the SKM train approaching and are determined not to miss another. So dad removes baby from pram, lowers it under the barrier, scrambling under himself, reassembling the pram, putting in baby, taking the second child from his wife, then helping her and the grandmother under the barrier. They have lost their dignity but caught their train. 

Will the barriers go up now? No they won't because the 21:33 Koleje Mazowieckie train to Góra Kalwaria is now due (turns out that my train to Chynów is not until 22:09). I watched the Góra Kalwaria service come and sadly saw it go. And then – finally, after thirteen minutes, the barriers go up. The sound of revving engines on either side! Exhaust fumes! A crowd of waiting pedestrians to breathe them all it. Charge! 

********

Yesterday, same place, nearly eight pm. Ul. Krasickiego, Nowa Iwiczna. As I approach the station, the bells start clanging, the lights start flashing – the barriers start descending. Does this presage the impending arrival of a southbound train? I don't fancy waiting an hour for the next one. to Chynów Or is it a northbound train? Or a long goods train coming slowly from either direction? Whatever it is, there's still time... I kick down into a sudden sprint for the barrier.

TWANG! FUUUUUCK! MY FUCKING LEG! 

The calf muscle in my right leg has just torn. A flash of pain, that feeling of having had a baseball bat smacking forcefully into my right leg from behind. I limp on towards the barrier, drop to my knees to get under it. I look both ways. NO SIGHT OF ANY FUCKING TRAIN. Across the three railway tracks I continue, in agony, and drop down again to crawl under the barrier on the other side. Holding onto the handrails, I haul myself up to the platform... nothing approaching from the north. So it was all in vain. A minute that seemed to last an hour but was only a minute, passed. A light from around the corner, and a Warsaw-bound SKM train hoves into view. Mine is due in 13 minutes, although it's one of those days when the service is screwed up and anything can happen. 

I hobble down to the shelter and take a seat and start furiously massaging my right calf. In the distance, I can see the lights of my train. The barriers start descending, accompanied by the clanging of bells and the flashing of lights. Four minutes later, I'm on the train, heading south. I take a seat, continuing to massage my leg. It is very painful when I touch it. Soon I'm back in Chynów. The kilometre home takes me the best part of half an hour, dragging my right leg behind me.

Once inside, a soluble aspirin and an early night. When lying down, it's comfortable, but every now and then, a spasm of pain jolts through my left leg; falling asleep takes a long time. But once asleep, it's OK; I wake once for a wee at 03:00, then sleep through to just before eight. All told, a good night's sleep for to circumstances.

This morning, while resting, the leg is still making me aware of itself (it just feels like it's really tired, after a hard workout), but as soon as I stand up and try to move, it hurts. The only way I can locomote is to straighten my right leg at a 45-degree angle, foot on the floor, and slide it along with my left leg pushing, then jumping forward. Push, slide, jump. Push, slide, jump.

I remind myself of the last time this happened (this is the great thing about having a blog!) Back in October 2013. Friday 25th. Seemed to have been slightly worse than this time; the key question is – how long will it take me to fully recover? Back then, 11 years ago, my blog indicates it took me nine days before I was out and about. Well, there's a target there, for mind over matter. And a lesson - don't break into sprints at the age of 67!

Having had that experience, and writing it down, proves useful for learning. As we get older – every one of us – we have to learn to manage our biologies. And my 17 year-long blogging (and 11 year-long spreadsheet) is a useful tool for to that end.

This time three years ago year:
The ego and evil

This time five years ago:
Warsaw's Christmas lights 2019-20

This time six years ago:
Pawlikowski's Cold War

This time nine years ago:
"Extreme weather events are now a feature of the British climate"

This time 11 years ago:
Cheaper public transport for Varsovians

This time 12 years ago:
Swans on ice

This time 13 years ago:
Cars 

This time 14 years ago:
What's the English for kombinować?

This time 15 years ago:
The demographics of jazz

This time 17 years ago:
A day in Poznań