Beating the time-change blues

The clocks have gone back. All of a sudden, the sun sets at twenty past four in the afternoon. To quote Jacek Koba, "they give you an extra hour in bed in late October, but they'll steal an hour of your daylight every evening for the next five months". 

The time change no longer holds any fears for me. I have learnt to deal with the Hammer of Darkness. Stick to summer time the whole year round! Tonight, as for the past three nights, I will go to bed at half past nine (new time) and wake up at half past five (new time) and hang on to that precious hour of evening daylight which they would otherwise have stolen from me. 

The only clock to follow is your body clock, not the clock they use to tell you what their time is. (Shame on the politicians for not being able to scrap the nonsense that is the time change. Many people suffer mental health issues as a result of the autumn one, and heart attacks and strokes from the spring one.)

This morning I woke at half past five; by six thirty (seven thirty according to my body clock), the sun had risen, the cats have been fed, coffee had been made and enjoyed, and it was time for an early morning walk. Outside it was +1°C according to my digital thermometer, but frozen dew on vegetation told of ground frost. Puddles, on the other hand were entirely ice-free. 

I love these intense autumnal colours. Never mind the temperature; what counts is the clarity of the sky.

Below: looking east at the thermonuclear phenomenon for which we must give thanks.

Below: looking the other way, at a full moon descending in the western skies. As with the sun we owe the moon so much, including our very existence.

Below: with the first frost, it is at last time to gather the sloes, fruit of the blackthorn, prunus spinosa, or in Polish, tarnina. To be gathered after the first frost, for the making of sloe gin. I shall be steeping these in 95% spirytus rektyfikowany for a few months, with sugar to taste. (The red blobs out of focus are rose hips.) Picking blackthorn in the cold, without gloves, mindful of the thorns, isn't easy, still, I have gathered half a kilo, enough for a litre of sloe gin.

Photos from yesterday's afternoon walk. Below: house, car and cat (one of the dozen – Hipek, aka Ol' Mr. Heaps), who awaits my return.

Below: two new houses are being built at the bottom end of my line, near the railway line. The builders are working rapidly to achieve stan surowy zamknięty – 'raw state, closed' – before winter sets in, whereby the unfinished structure is enclosed from the elements, with windows, doors and roof in place.

Below: a Whovian sky, looking towards Chynów station. [Shock discovery: William Hartnell was 13 years younger than I am now when he finally stepped down from his role as the grandfatherly First Dr Who…]

Below: view across the fields to Jakubowizna beyond. This is next June's crop of strawberries, awaiting the straw that protects the young plants from frost and gives the berry its name. My raspberry bushes, on the other hand, are still producing fruit – I gathered 90g yesterday (more than one portion!), and more than double that two days ago.

  

Left: Dąbrowa Duża is surrounded by forest to its north and east. I discovered that what I'd assumed for years was just a drive leading to a private property is actually a public road (albeit untarmacked) that's a neat short-cut across the village. 

Talking of 'years', it's now nine years since I found my działka in Jakubowizna. An excellent purchase in an excellent location. I could never move back into a city or its suburbs. Green acres is the place to be. Indeed. Having said that, it's always good to know that I can be in central Warsaw in under an hour if necessary. The 08:42 train from Chynów gets me to W-wa Służewiec in 23 minutes, in good time for my 09:30 physio appointment.

Below: the forest between Dąbrowa Duża and Machcin II, leaves beginning to turn gold. In the strong sunlight, the path is easy to tread.

Below: the lane just outside my działka. It will soon be dark, but I will be up well before the next sunrise.

I have just used AI to do my first-ever bit of coding! I wanted to build an app that lets me know, at any time, how long I have to the next sunrise/next sunset. I now have a small box on my desktop that informs me that sunset will be at 16:18 today – in 02 hours, 17 minutes and 10 seconds. I told Google Gemini what I needed, and in simplest terms to explain to me what to do. And so I have used AI to build myself a custom app keeping me aware of celestial movements above me. The whole process of building and testing the app took just over half an hour.

This time three years ago:
Cross-country train-travel tales

This time five years ago:
Mother of Invention

This time six years ago:
Autumnal lockdown walk

This time seven years ago:

End of the warm and sunny part of autumn 

This time eight years ago:
Remont of Metro bridge over Puławska

This time nine years ago:
We are what we read, what we watch, what we listen to

This time 13 years ago:
Extraordinarily warm autumn

This time 14 years ago:
On behalf of the work-shy community

This time 15 years ago:
Classic truck cavalcade

This time 16 years ago
Suburban back-roads clogged with commuters

This time 17 years ago:
Autumn gold, Łazienkowski Park

This time 18 years ago:
Quintessential autumnal Jeziorki