Letters to an Imaginary Grandson (IX)

Should you avoid risks, or take risks? Neither and both. You should be aware of what is a risk and assess that risk before choosing whether to go for it or back off. Consider the consequences if it going optimally or going wrong. Consider the secondary and tertiary consequences as well as the obvious one. Can your decision to take the risk be undone, walked back from? Or will you be stuck with it for years, or for life?

"Quid quid agis, prudenter agas, et respice finem," as my mother, who died exactly ten years ago today, would tell me. "Whatever you do, do it prudently/wisely and consider the end result/the outcome. As a child, I'd question the word 'whatever'. Does this literally mean every single thing you do? If so, your brain would fry from having to consider every possible possibility whenever doing anything more challenging than breathing or blinking.

Well, yes. Even if momentarily. The chosen course of action could go wrong, or it could bring reward. Half a second's conscious thought is a better guide than no thought at all. Intuition is a good guide to follow, even better than thought. There's the danger of over-thinking things, 'paralysis by analysis'. Better to find yourself 'in the flow', that blessed state when your consciousness is aligned with the Purpose of the Universe and everything naturally falls into place.

Consider why you are interested in taking the risk. Good reasons? Or bad ones (seeking glory, riches, luxury)? This should be an important filter.

With age comes experience, the bitter-sweet experience of risks taken or avoided, and it becomes easier at 65 to assess whether an upcoming risk is worth taking or not than at 15 or 20. But as a young man, with a lifetime of decisions ahead, being able to identify risks in the first place is essential. Ethics stand as a useful filter. Don't take what doesn't belong to you. You may think you can get away with it, maybe you can, maybe you can't. However, it's not about the risk of getting caught –  theft is morally wrong and legally sanctioned. 

Moving to Poland with a young family in 1997 was a risk, though less of a risk than in 1990. The decision proved to be absolutely the right one. 

[Incidentally, following on from yesterday's post: went to bed at 21:30 yesterday (22:30 summertime) and got up at 05:00 today (06:00 summertime), seven and half hours in bed, nearly all of it spent sleeping.]

This time last year:
Valencia and manmade climate change

This time last year:
On death

This time four years ago:
Improvements on the Radom line

This five years ago:
Rural rights of way, revisited

This time six years ago:

Cause of death

This time seven years ago:
Opole in the late-October sunshine

This time eight years ago:
Work begins in earnest on the Karczunkowska viaduct

This time ten years ago:
Sublime autumn day in Jeziorki

This time 11 years ago:
CitytoCity, MalltoMall

This time 12 years ago:
(Internet) Radio Days

This time 13 years ago:
Another office move

This time 14 years ago:
Manufacturing a City of Culture

This time 15 years ago:
My thousandth post

This time 16 years ago:
Closure of ul. Poloneza

This time 17 years ago:
Scenes from a suburban petrol station

Cherish the Morning Light

Five days into the time change, and my strategy is paying off handsomely. I am still going to sleep four and half hours after sunset and waking up an hour before sunrise. Society, however, has combined to move its activities an hour back. This causes humans to go to bed and rise an hour later than hitherto; this did not happen to cats. Their circadian rhythm goes on as it has done, dictated by dawn and dusk. You may wish to benefit from a lie-in, but animals need feeding at the regular time.

The main reason I ignore the time change is to make the most of the shrinking day. Less than ten hours today, and by 21 December, the shortest day, we'll have less than eight hours of daylight. Missing the dawn because you've been told that it's acceptable to have a lie-in is bad for mental health, as is staying up that extra hour later in the evening. My bedroom clock remains set to summertime, keeping me grounded in solar realities.

And so, I went to bed yesterday at 10pm (11pm summertime) and woke up at 5:30am (6:30am summertime). Eight and half hours in bed, waking up twice for a wee (and dropping off straight after). A good night's sleep. Out of bed, I feed the kittens, make myself a coffee, open the laptop, click on BBC Radio 4 expecting to hear Farming Today to find that it's not even 5am in London yet. But I have gained an hour's daylight, and having eaten breakfast, the sun rises. So around half past six I am ready to go out for my first walk of the day. I get 8.000 paces in before returning home in good time for the morning call with the office.

Below: round the corner from my działka on the unpaved road that winds its way towards Grobice. Three new houses are currently being built along this stretch.

Below: back home and the kittens are out in the front garden. Right-click to open the image in a new tab, then expand it to see them – all five together (from l to r: Czestuś, Pacio, Arkcio, Céleste and Scrapper).

Below: zooming on them. A good breakfast, then out in the open air. What more could growing kittens require?

Having done the bulk of the day's paces in the morning, I can focus on work until the mid-afternoon, and then get ready to chase the sunset. Should be a good one! Below: looking at the DK50 at Nowe Grobice.

Below: a double-decker Koleje Mazowieckie train approaches Chynów station against a dramatic sky.

Two walks, total over 13,000 paces; daily average across the first ten months of this year is just over 12,500 paces every day since 1 January.

This time last year:
Post-consumerist hygiene

This time last year:
October's benign end

This time two years ago:
Disclosure day tomorrow?
[Next congressional UFO hearing: 13 November 2024]

This time three years ago:
Coping with time change (go to bed an hour earlier!)

This time four years ago:
A sustainable food system for rural Poland

This time five years ago:
Sifting through a life

This time seven years ago:
Throwing It All Away

This time nine years ago:
Hammer of Darkness falls on us again
[This is what going to be early in winter protects us from!]

This time ten years ago:
The working week with the clocks gone back

This time 12 years:
Slowly on the mend after calf injury

This time 13 years ago:
Thorunium the Gothick

This time 14 years ago:
Łódź Widzew or Widź Łódzew 

This time 16 years ago:
A touch of frost in the garden

Tonight of all nights... GO TO BED EARLY!

[That is, if you are in the least bit troubled by seasonal affective disorder.]

The prospect of an extra hour in bed is tempting at this increasingly drear point in the calendar. But that hour is merely lent to you by 'them', and 'they' intend to take it back from you at the end of the day. As the clocks go back at two am tomorrow, Sunday 26 October, to be set for one am, the effect is that we gain an hour's daylight in the morning, but lose it in the evening. 

That loss of an hour's evening daylight, every day, between now and the end of March 2026, can exacerbate the mood disorder brought on by the encroaching winter darkness. The condition is more marked (affecting more people more strongly) the further towards the poles one lives. Symptoms of winter SAD often include falling asleep earlier in the evening, oversleeping or difficulty waking up in the morning, nausea, and a tendency to overeat, often with a craving for carbohydrates and subsequent weight gain. There is also subsyndromal SAD (which I get), a milder form, which affects two and half times more people than the full-blown SAD.

Since equilux a month ago, I have as usual noticed that I tend to go to bed earlier and sleep longer (typically being in bed by 22:30 and sleeping for nine hours, waking at 07:30). In high summer, I tend to sleep for just over seven hours.

My remedy to the Hammer of Darkness is to ignore the time change; make the most of the decreasing daylight hours by going to bed earlier and getting up earlier on Sunday morning. Eschew that lie-in. Tonight, and for as many nights as you can, go to bed at least one hour earlier, and wake up an hour earlier. This will mean waking up before dawn, witnessing sunrise, making the most of mid-December's seven-hour days, and going to bed as early as you can. 

Yesterday it rained all day, but this morning was beautifully cloudless, I was up for an early walk (not a long one it must be said) before breakfast, but that walk in the sun set me up for the day, and I caught the sunset too. Today it was at 17:20. Tomorrow it will be at 16:18. Each day sees less and less daylight, until we reach the plateau of darkness (from 9 to 16 December, the sun sets here at 15:24, and from 27 December to 2 January, it rises at 07:43). From the Winter Solstice, the day's net length will start to increase, noticeably by New Year's Day. And then, on 18 March, we reach equilux. The day will be just over 12 hours in length.

Below: morning in the wood next door with my six cats. Czestuś (right), being orange, blends in perfectly with the fallen foliage at this time of year. Photo take shortly after nine am today; were I to have taken it tomorrow, the sun will be casting these shadows shortly after eight am. Make the most of the morning light!

Unlike preparations for the spring time change, which take several days, combating SAD or SSAD at this time of year is simple – just go to bed a little earlier today, and wake up a little earlier tomorrow.

Never mind the time change. The only clocks that count are your body clock and the rising and setting of the sun. Czas jest umowny; time is something we socially agree upon, what time we meet, at what time television programmes etc are shown. YouTube and Play Again functions means we are no longer slaves to TV schedules; if something's on too late, watch it at some other time. But if you are prone to the seasonal blues caused by long nights and insufficient daylight, the least you can do is to benefit from that morning hour and go to bed early.

Stop scrolling. Go to bed... now!

This time three years ago
Public transport improvements

This time last year:
Sublime autumn, Jeziorki

This time six years ago:
New track from Chynów to Warka

This time seven years ago:

The possibilities of a quantum universe

This time eight years ago:
More about sleep

This time nine years ago:
Scenes from West Ealing and Hanwell

This time ten years ago:
Four years of PiS

This time 13 years ago:
High Victorian Manchester

This time 16 years ago:
Clocks go back – but when to set them forward?

This time 17 years ago:
Warsaw's Metro Line 1 reaches Młociny

Why we live

One bottle of feldalkohol – 33cl Pilsner Urquell (4.4% ABV), as I watch the sun go down. And then suddenly, unbidden... the purpose of life itself unfolds.

{{ I'm not here to boast, I'm here to feel.

That is all.

My duty is to feel. }}

And, presumably, to express the experience. Those precise words, written in my notebook, upon the moment. Connected directly with the sun. With the flow of the Universe. Not thinking – intuiting. Purest consciousness.

Below: dried-out tansy (wrotycz, Tanacetum vulgare) in front of the sunset. Being here, at this point in time and space, is what set it off.

********

Below: the InterCity San express from Warsaw to Przemyśl overtakes a Radom-bound Koleje Mazowieckie train between Sułkowice and Chynów. A long exposure of a tenth of a second was chosen to get the motion blur. The express sounded its horn in a long blast, with falling Doppler-shift effect, as it was passing the slow train, startling the white dog in the foreground. The orchard to the left has been picked.

To feel. I stare into the eyes of Céleste. She is content. I provide the kittens with a good life to experience.

This time two years ago:
Warsaw in autumn

This time three years ago:
The end of the apple harvest

This time four years ago:
Ignoring the UFO phenomenon?

This time five years ago:

A tipping point in history, but who's tipping it?

This time six years ago:
Poznań by night

This time eight years ago:
West of Warsaw's central axis

This time 12 years ago:
Plac Unii shopping centre opens

This time 14 years ago:
Visceral and Permanent, Part II (Short story)

This time 13 years ago:
Autumn colours, locally

This time 16 years ago:
Edinburgh

Making the most of the Light

On days like yesterday and today, one should get as much time in the sun as possible. Below: straight after breakfast today, I set off for a quick half-hour stroll to commune with the sun. Direct flow of photons into the brain, and my mind is working optimally. In joy.

Below: late this morning, looking at the back of my house. 

The kittens are all outside enjoying the day. Below: Czestuś on a stump of the cherry tree 

Left: the five kittens out and about, on patrol, together, with mum Wenusia and myself watching on, on the lane at the bottom of my drive. In the foreground, Céleste, behind her to the left, sniffing the ground, Arcturus; the black-nosed and black-chinned Scrapper peeking out of the crack in the tree; the ginger Czestuś holding onto the trunk vertically, and at the top, Pacyfik.

Below: Chynów station at around 16:40, yesterday, with the Olsztyn to Kraków Żeromski InterCity express passing through, while a Warsaw-bound Koleje Mazowieckie service has a scheduled wait on the side platform to allow the express through on the 'up' line, overtaking a Radom-bound all-stations service (which was slightly delayed). Today the Radom train was minute ahead of the Żeromski – just as it should be.

Below: electricity poles and mobile telephony relay tower, red, gold and green foliage, blue sky and traffic on the DK50.

Below: ulica Miodowa, Chynów, the rays of the sun as it approaches the horizon glance over the top of the rip corn and light up the trees 

Below: today's sunset, an advancing bank of wispy clouds catching the colours. On the horizon, between the trees, the water toward in Drwalew.

The afterglow the followed yesterday's sunset. Below: crushed velvet dusk at the end of my lane, where Jakubowizna meets Chynów before the railway line. The Sublime Aesthetic in one photo.

This time four years ago:
Wrocław klimaty

This time seven years ago:
Track modernisation, south of Czachówek

This time eight years ago:
Swans growing up

This time ten years ago:
On the eve of Poland's change of government

This time 11 years ago:
Bilingualism benefits the brain

This time 15 years ago:
Crushed velvet dusk in my City of Dreams II

This time 16 years ago:
Going North, the quick way

This time 17 years ago:
Glorious autumn dusk

This time 18 years ago:
Last man voting?

To Rzeszów and back, directly, by train

My tenth visit* to the beautiful and booming capital of Podkarpacie province, Rzeszów. I boarded the train at Warka and got off in Rzeszów three hours and ten minutes later. No need to change trains in Warsaw, or Radom, or Lublin or Kraków or Przeworsk (I have done all of these). No need to transfer onto a replacement bus service at Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. No longer any need to take a sleeper train – or fly. 

In both directions, I shared a compartment with people who were uniformly praising the massive improvement in Poland's state railways over the past few years. No grumbles.

There are two pairs of InterCity trains a day between Warsaw and Przemyśl, the Witos and the San, calling at Piaseczno, Warka, Radom, Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski and Sandomierz on the way. Those last two stations were linked by a replacement bus service for a couple of years as the tracks between them were relaid. 

I took the San, leaving Warka at 17:49 and arriving at Rzeszów Główny (scheduled at 20:56 but with a few minutes' delay). My ticket (with 30% seniors' discount) cost me 25 złotys – just over £5 for a 265km (165 mile) journey. The compartment had six seats, the journey comfortable. 

And when the train arrives at Rzeszów Główny station – the station is complete! It's ready! The work, which began in 2018, is finished! No more traipsing through mud, leaping over puddles, hauling suitcases over an improvised wooden footbridge, or navigating poorly signposted labyrinths of corrugated-metal fencing. All that's missing is a shop and/or café. Otherwise – job done! 

Below: the facade of Rzeszów Główny station; to the left, as I snapped it in 2017, and right, as it is today. Plainer, simplified, minus the decorative parapet housing the digital clock, and cast in contemporary corporate colorways. Somehow looks more serious, less jolly. But further away from 1990s Polisz Arkitekczer. 

Below: stepping inside the main entrance (you still have to actually push the door to open it!) the two murals inside the ticket hall were preserved. are right up there along with Gdynia and Gliwice. The one above represents the rolling hillsides of the Podkarpacie countryside, the one below, the city of Rzeszów with its old town square and its warrens of underground cellars and passages, ringed by postwar blocks. In the form of mosaics, the two murals are from the 1960s and were recently restored under the watchful eye of the heritage conservation officer.

Below: a view of the platforms at Rzeszów Główny station taken from Rzeszów Centrum station. The distance between the platform ends of these two stations is just over 300 metres. A single empty carriage is being shunted by a classic EU07 loco. This example was built in 1984, one of a successful series of electric (E), universal (U) locos that began production in 1964, as licence-produced version of the English Electric-built EU06, the main difference between the -6 and the -7 being metric measurements used in the Polish-built engines.

Cross the tracks under the platforms at Rzeszów Główny via the new pedestrian subway and you emerge in a Tarkovsky-like Stalker zone. Signs warn of possible structural collapse of the old engine shed; the area is fenced off. The spray-can community somehow finds its way in.

Below: west of Rzeszów Główny station, the tracks branch off, north towards Sandomierz, and (as here) onwards towards Kraków. Level crossings abound – three within 400 metres – causing major traffic congestion during rush hours.

The journey back on the InterCity Witos Przemyśl-to-Warsaw service is 34 minutes longer than the journey there, according to the timetable. This was due to longer station stops; 11 minutes in Tarnobrzeg and seven minutes in Radom for example. This time, I managed to get a first-class ticket with seniors' discount for an amazing 35 złotys (just over £7). Nice refurbished compartment, with wireless smartphone charging. No restaurant car on either the San or the Witos, although there are two modern vending machines that offer snacks and hot and cold drinks (tap with your payment card).

All in all, the train today makes travelling around Poland quicker and more convenient, and is so much faster than it used to be. Highly recommended – although modernisation of the line between Sandomierz and Rzeszów is due to start soon, so that replacement bus service will be back, after which journey times will be cut further still.

* My previous visits to Rzeszów: 2006, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019 (twice), 2022, 2023 and 2024. Click on the label 'Rzeszów' to the right.

This time last year:
Under Rzeszów – subterranean inspirations

This time two years ago:
Another canonical past-life dream

This time three years ago:
Cottagecore - a manifesto

This time four years ago
Ego, Consciousness and Soul

This time five years ago:
Samopoczucie, Joy and the Sublime Aesthetic

This time seven years ago:
Autumn, with a railway theme

This time eight years ago:
A few words about coincidence

This time 11 years ago:
Hello, pork pie [my week-long pork-pie diet]

This time 13 years ago:
The meaning of class - in England, in Poland

This time 14 years ago: 
First frost 

This time 18 years ago:
First frost 

Autumn most splendid

On a day like today, fix the polarising filter and set off to catch that klimat. Jakubowizna and neighbourhood on the most perfect of autumn days.

That Kodacolor moment, so familiar. A part of me.
 

The clouds on the horizon, the wires, the slight rise and fall in the land catches it for me.

Left: looking west along ulica Miodowa (lit. 'Honey Street') towards Chynów. The orchards on either side have been harvested; in the middle distance, a ripening field of corn. On the horizon, the forest that stretches from Wola Pieczyska to Sułkowice.

Below: abandoned building amid a mown lawn, Grobice. Much as I'm against the mowing of lawns, I do appreciate the mid-century modern aesthetic.

Below: Grobice, main street. Perfect weather.

The kittens are four months old today. Here's Céleste up a ladder and Arcturus up a tree. All five love climbing, and the trees in the garden do nicely as climbing frames on which the kittens hone their skills.

This time two years ago:
How much spirituality do I need?

This time seven years ago:
Whoops! Clumsy

This time nine years ago:
Mystical experiences at 37,000ft

This time ten years ago:
The staggeringly high cost of tax collection in Poland

This time 14 years ago 
One stop beyond

This time 15 years ago:
Who am I? (Kim ja jestem?)

This time 16 years ago:
First snow, 2009. Ghastly!

This time 17 years ago:
Train links to town improving

This time 18 years ago:
A beautiful Sunday, south of Warsaw

Fractals in time and qualia memories

We know about fractals and their property of self-similarity. For 2D or 3D fractals to demonstrate self-similarity, they must move, and motion requires the fourth dimension – time. This suddenly clicked with me on a walk the other day as I looked up at white clouds moving across a blue sky.

If you can nest shapes within shapes within shapes over time, why can't you do that with qualia memories?

Fractals are definable mathematically. Conscious experiences, however, are not. And I absolutely agree with Nobel laureate Sir Roger Penrose that consciousness is not computable. I arrived at my conclusion not through writing thousands of quadratic equations; Sir Roger's assertion sits right with me. It's what I intuit.

Conjuring smells that conjure memories, memories that spark those memories nested in memories. Fractal patterns of qualia. Memories all the way down. Not memories of events, but memories of states of being. Qualia memories. What it felt like to have been there. No parsing of memories using intellect. Just relishing the pure memory of experiencing being. Memories of wet swimwear on a beach holiday as a child. Memories of lobefins clawing their way up Devonian beaches, seeing the sky from dry land.

I mentioned in my post the day before yesterday the conscious sensation I had, as I recognised as familiar this house in nearby Kozłów. That old feeling, the 'past-life' flashback, or exomnesia moment, the anomalous qualia memory. I ask Google Gemini to turn this photo into a poster in the style of Mid-Century Modern...

Yes! That clicks! Congruence with what I saw and felt. Let's have another go, this time with a photo of my house taken three days ago...

Yes – perfect. I know what brought me here.

The flow.

Sensitivity to those deeper layers of consciousness that grant access to qualia memories, from childhood and before. The memory of a feeling, a sense of having been somewhere – sometime – else, while a child, and feeling it just as strongly now. Connectedness that does not limit my consciousness to my biology.

Gazing at the sky will often act as the trigger. Not a uniformly grey sky on an overcast day, but one with white clouds against a blue sky, with the sun shining. This – in a rural setting – is the most reliable prompt for a flashback for me. These are skies I'd see rarely as a child growing up in West London, nor even on 405-line black-and-white television; they were more often seen by me in books or magazines. And I'd have those moments of recognition. I have been conscious of that before.

This time last year:
A little bit more like autumn

This time four years ago:
Sublime farewell to sunny summer days

This time six years ago:
Warsaw-Wrocław-Warsaw-Kielce-Warsaw

This time 14 years ago:
Moaning about trains again
[Amazing how things have improved on Poland's railways since then!]

This time 15 years ago:
Warsaw streets – Dolna, Polna, Rolna, Smolna, Wolna. Lost?

This time 17 years ago:
Ditches, landscapes, autumn

This time 18 years ago:
Golden autumn in Łazienki park

A Man's Wealth Expressed In Cats

It's been a tough week in Jakubowizna; poor Wenusia had been confined to the house for seven days following her sterilisation procedure. She'd be caterwauling night and day when not sleeping, pawing and clawing at the windows and door, demanding to be let out. To ensure that she'd not felt left out of the fun happening in the garden, I kept the kittens in more than usual. This has resulted in smelly litter trays (all three of them now), the acrid smell of tomcat urine reminding me that the day of the boys' castration gets nearer and nearer. Being cooped up in the house in solidarity with mum also leads to bouts of manic kitten-chasing around the house.

Below: a moment of peace. Crashed out on my bed, from left to right: the glamorous Céleste, Scrapper, awake and alert; Pacyfik, head on his legs; Arcturus showing his white belly (a sign that he feels secure), darling Czestuś, the friendliest of the five, and curled up at the foot of my bed, Wenusia.

Yesterday evening, I checked Wenusia's post-operation scars – they had healed very nicely. She is (and all of her kittens are) healthy, thanks be to God. 

This morning, after returning from my weekly shop in Warka, I decided that Wenusia is well enough to venture outside. Gingerly at first, unable to believe in her new-found freedom, she stepped out, surrounded by her brood. We proceeded down the drive, one human, one cat, five kittens, turning left at the road, and then into the forest next door. 

First port of call was our fallen log, where Wenusia and I used to go before she became pregnant, and where we'd go shortly after she gave birth. She bounded up to me, jumped onto my lap, delighted to be back, and I stroked her for a while, surrounded by all of her kittens. All were clearly happy that mum is back in action. 

Below, left from top to bottom: Céleste on top of the fallen tree's roots; Scrapper and Arcturus looking at what's under the tree, Czester scrambling up, and in the foreground, Pacyfik. Wenusia is observing her kittens from the log on the right.

Left: witnessing such scenes bring me joy. Wenusia (to the right) was not deprived of her biological destiny to have kittens, and here she is with all five of them. Playing together, learning, bonding; this is what feline life should look like. I have the wherewithal to provide them with everything they need for a happy and fulfilled kittenhood.

Below: single-file patrol, led by Pacyfik. Following hesitantly behind is Céleste, then Scrapper (who appears to have second thoughts) and taking up the rear, Arcturus. Czestuś and Wenusia are off the right of frame. It's quite marvellous to see them running, chasing, climbing trees, and staying together as a bonded family unit. I realise I have a broad smile on my face. Such happiness.

I spent about half an hour with them, until one by one all the kittens followed Wenusia through a hole under the fence back into my garden. An excuse for me to slip away and go for my walk.

Below: portrait of a pensive Scrapper, who's quite a character. Quick to slash with his claws, he knows what he wants, and what he doesn't want. First-born and usually the first to dive into the feeding bowl. And yet he means well; he has a good heart. When not fighting, he's happy to groom his siblings and mother (although I have my suspicions where that diagonal scratch across Wenusia's nose came from). He's not a loner (if anyone a loner, that's Arcturus, who's claimed the round cat basket for his exclusive use), he does like being stroked. "Scrapper don't Scrapper don't Scrapper don't Scrapper don't take no mess"

Each kitten emerged from its mother's womb on the same day, and yet they are such different characters. I love them all and could not bear to part with a single one of them. I am mindful, however, that the four boys are due for the snip before all too long.

This time two years ago:
Why Poland can no longer afford PiS

This time three years ago:
A slower, drabber, greener, more local way of life might yet save us all

This time four years ago:
Warka's bi-weekly market

This time five years ago:
How's your samopoczucie?

This time six years ago:

Pavement for Karczunkowska? What's next?
[Still sign of it.]

This time nine years ago
On relevance and irrelevance

This time 11 years ago:
Poland gets anglicised as Britain gets polonised

This time 12 years ago:
Ale, architecture and city politics

This time 13 years ago:
The pros and cons of roadside acoustic screens

This time 14 years ago:
Moaning about trains again
[have you noticed how rare such moans are today?]

This time 16 years ago:
Warsaw street names - Dolna, Polna, Rolna, Wolna, Smolna. Lost?

This time 17 years ago:
Ditches, landscapes, autumn

This time 18 years ago:
Golden autumn in Łazienki park

Early autumn, close up

 Although there's no heatwave going on, the skies can still bring delight when the clouds part. Autumn is most definitely here. This morning started off foggy and damp but the sun managed an appearance, although the temperature failed to break any records, peaking at around 16°C in the mid-afternoon.

Below: a colony of honey fungus (Armillaria mellea, opieńka miodowa). Edible if cooked thoroughly, though I wouldn't chance it.

Below: dew on a cobweb. The whole thing was shimmering in the breeze. Long exposure.

Below: fly agaric mushroom, Amanita muscaria, muchomor czerwony. Do not eat! Toxic!

Below: a group of shaggy ink cap mushrooms (Coprinus comatus, czernidłak kołpakowaty). Various sources online suggests the species is edible; I'll steer clear, thank you.

Below: from under the 'shroom.

Below: on the underside of leaves of an oak sapling, four gall apples. These are induced by gall wasps, which lay single eggs in developing leaf buds. The larva's secretions modify the oak bud into the gall, a structure that protects the larva until it metamorphises into an adult wasp.

Below: I pull apart an oak apple to find, as expected, the larva of a gall wasp wriggling around inside.

Below: under a canopy of maple leaves on the footpath running along the border between Machcin II and Gaj Żelechowski.

Below: not a close up, but a photograph from today's walk that I just had to post. New house on the edge of Kozłów. The sky, the clouds, the trees, the house, spark one of those exomnesia flashback anomalous qualia memories. I saw this scene in a book or magazine as a child and I immediately recognised it as familiar, though not from my life. Fractal patterns in time?

This time last year:
Last hot day of the year?
[23°C then, a mere 16°C today]

This time seven years ago:
Warszawa Zachodnia Peron 8 to reopen
[The north entrance to the station, since renamed W-wa Zachodnia Peron 9, was finally opened last month]

This time eight years ago:

Learning to fly (swan pics)

This time 10 years ago:
Scotland's answer to the Hoover Building

This time 12 years ago:
In which I don't vote in the mayoral referendum, thus helping to save HG-W's job

This time 13 years ago:
Gorgeous cars from Czechoslovakia

This time 14 years ago:
Donald Tusk and Co. get re-elected 

This time 15 years ago:
Poland's wonderful bread

This time 16 years ago:
An October Friday in Warsaw

Strengths and weaknesses

 A couple of phone calls and an online meeting yesterday and today made me realise something vital when it comes to our careers.

It is essential to know what you are good at. Objectively, not what you think you are good at.

Having a deep and accurate insight into your own strengths really helps, as well as knowing how those strengths compare to what’s out there on the job market. The corollary is also true – you need to know what you are not good at.

Once you’ve sorted that out – then what?

And this is where I have found (all too late in my career, alas!) what to do. Don’t bother trying to balance out your strengths and weaknesses by working on the latter to pull them up to an average – work on improving those areas at what you excel.

In the autumn of 2024, I initiated an event on the future of HR. I was moderating a panel about the tools used to assess candidates and employees. The research I did showed that the more common test is Myers-Briggs Type Index (MBTI), which I took several years ago. Having learnt that I’m an INTJ (or whatever – I forget), what do I actually do with that knowledge? The scientific community is sceptical about MBTI, Sabine Hossenfelder famously calling it as accurate as astrology.

So before our big HR event, I tried another psychometric test out there, Gallup’s CliftonStrengths, which essentially works by ranking in order one’s innate talents. I found this far more useful, but the ‘then what?’ was followed up by some one-to-one coaching, which I completed early this year.

This is now practical knowledge. It allows me to select projects that I’ll be good at doing, and happy to do. I can reject ones I know I’ll struggle at. 

The CliftonStrengths test itself highlighted to me a couple of talents that I’d never had suspected I was good at. One was connecting people. Because I’m an introvert, I’d hadn’t previously considered myself good at this: “Ah – you really should meet x, they really know this subject” and then an email to introduce and connect them. And I’m better at teamwork than I’d hitherto considered. I can see with whom in the team I work best with, because our strengths complement each other.

Things I knew about myself include being rubbish at execution – organising things, getting people to do things, proactively taking the first step to reach out to people (I am famously reactive, not proactive). And here’s the big lesson: “Don’t beat yourself up over things you’re not good at.” Work on developing your strengths, especially the hidden ones instead. 

First you need to take the test. You have to rattle through it at high speed, not pausing to think too deeply about the question, just intuitively pick which one of two opposing characteristics is more applicable to you. Once done, your strengths are ranked in order. The results can astonish. I found two talents in my top five that I’d not expected, but thinking about them – hey! That really does make sense.

But simply taking the test is not enough. You really need several sessions with a Gallup-accredited coach (I had four sessions) who can talk you through the results so that you reach the right conclusions and optimise your strengths. 

Several months on, the lessons embedded, I feel far more certain as to my strengths, and can deploy them confidently in a business setting. But this is not only about business! The test and the coaching sessions really have helped me frame myself in a more general sense. 

I wish I’d done this earlier in my career!

This time five years ago:
Railway progress, Chynów

This time six years ago:
Radom line progress and promises

This time seven years ago:
A short essay on economic patriotism

This time eight years ago:
Things pass, things go, things remain the same

This time ten years ago:
In search of Wałbrzych's Gold Train

This time 12 years ago:
Warsaw has a new landmark

This time 16 years ago:
Across the Pennines by rail

This time 17 years ago:
Mayhem on PKP

This time 18 years ago:
Sewerage for Jeziorki