Full of the joys of spring

My answer to the question of finding repeatable moments of joy is clear: make the most of moments of beauty.

Knowing there will be a sunny morning ahead, last night I went to bed early (around 10pm), woke up early today (before 6am), caught the sun rising over the forest next door, fed cats, made coffee - and set off for a short walk. These sunny-morning, empty-stomach short walks are marvellous for the soul. I feel tip-top.

The orchards are starting to come into blossom. Cherries first, then the apples. And not all the apples at the same time. Below: the frosts of the weekend before last seem not to have harmed the blossom on this old-school orchard (no irrigation poles, no anti-hailstone netting), one of the first to come into flower.

Below: accompanying me on my walk this morning was Czester; here is is up a tree. Note his anti-tick collar. I bought one for each of my six cats – they are totally effective. Ticks steer clear.

Below: forget-me-nots (Myosotis arvensis) are just starting to flower on the floor of my orchard.. The Polish word for them, niezapominajki, literally means the same, though without the '-me-'. They will come into maximum profusion over the coming fortnight. More to follow over the next few weeks.

Below: back at home, Czester follows me in and immediately wants more of the outdoors. Here he is at my (open) kitchen window.

Below: the view from the end of my garden across into the neighbouring orchard.

The end of the frosts means it's time to swap the winter tyres for summer ones. The latter lose adhesion below +6°C; the former are not particularly robust in the heat. So I walk the 500m down the lane to the car workshop where I've also had oil and filters changed and the cracked rear number-plate holder replaced. Below: on my way to the workshop (the Micra is just about visible to the left in the distance), my attention is caught by the grass verge bright with dandelions.

Below: quintessential Jakubowizna I. A glorious spring day, the sun approaching its zenith.

Below: quintessential Jakubowizna II. A hundred or so paces further on up the lane.

Country life suits me perfectly. Its pace is dictated by the changing seasons; there's no such thing as a generic spring, each one has a slightly different timing, each one transitions a little differently out of winter and then into summer. I have become attuned to those little differences, the subtleties. Change happens from day to day, with different plants flowering at different times. 

It strikes me that I could not move back to town! I'd rather live in the country and go into town whenever I want than to live in town and go to the country whenever I want. Neither city nor suburb; green acres is the place for me. Life on my own terms, with my cats anchoring me in our place.

Surrounded by birdlife and wild animals, I have an awareness of sharing a planet with wild creatures that don't depend on humans. I ponder that word 'creatures', and consider whether 'evoluents' wouldn't be more in keeping with our scientific paradigm.

This time last year:
From Sage to Mage

This time five years ago:
Greylag geese find a home in Jeziorki

This time six years ago:
Aviation over lockdown Jeziorki

This time seven years ago:
Easter in Ealing

This time ten years ago:
WiFi works on Polish train shock

This time 11 years ago:
My dream camera, just around the corner

This time 13 years ago:
Longer, lighter lens

This time 14 years ago:
New engine on the coal train 

This time 15 years ago
High time to leave the car at home

This time 16 years ago:
The answer to urban commuting

This time 19 years ago:
Far away across the fields

Three days - three Polish cities

Back to Lublin - second visit within one month. Great! And two hours between the end of the event and my train, so lots of time to wander through an Athens of the er... north. Below: this is a reverse view of this photo taken a month ago.

Back to the Old Town. Here's the entrance to ul. Rybna, below. this time taken from back in the square. Compare to pic taken last month.

Below: I had a burger and a Spitfire ale (from Kent's Shepherds Neame brewery) at U szewca ('at the cobbler's')' and here is the view from outside the pub, looking across at Pl. Po Farze.

Below: time to make my way down the hill to the station, to catch the night train to Wrocław. On one side of the street, the splendour of the Old Town, on the other, early industry and workers' tenements.

All aboard the night train! I love Poland's night trains - I get into my berth in Lublin at quarter past eight in the evening and wake up nine hours later in Wrocław's beautifully restored station. Interestingly, looking at a map of Poland, I notice that Wrocław's only a teeny bit further south than Lublin. The two cities are 385 km apart as the crow flies, but the train does it 660 km in a giant serpentine route going as far north as Warsaw and as far south as Katowice. Still, nine hours from station to station means there's plenty of time for a good night's sleep.

Are you ready for the Night Train?

Puławy Miasto... Warszawa Wschodnia... Opoczno Południe... Dąbrowa Górnicza... Sosnowiec Główny... Kędzierzyn Koźle... Opole Główne... Night Train, Night Train, NIGHT... TRAIN!


Below: quarter past five in the morning, looking up from the passage linking the platforms.

Below: looking at the original platforms, now the booking hall (the tracks are to the left). I'm picked up by car and driven to Oleśnica for an excellent manufacturing event at GKN Driveline's factory.

Below: heading back to Wrocław along the S8 expressway, over the Odra river. A vast amount of new infrastructure has emerged in an around the city.

Below: back at Wrocław station to catch the evening Pendolino service to Warsaw. Third time I've caught this train since the Warsaw-Wrocław service was launched. And each journey was on time.

Back in Warsaw, meetings, preparing more meetings. E-mails by the score. An intensive week's work. Nighttime skyline below shows Poland's progress. Just before the cisza wyborcza, let me make an appeal to vote to secure stability and predictability on Sunday.

Morning, Jeziorki. Below: On my way to the station, dandelions in seed. Less than eight miles from the scene above, Warsaw is a compact capital compared to London. I much prefer living in Warsaw to London!

Half an hour by train from W-wa Jeziorki to W-wa Śródmieście and I'm walking past the Palace of Culture again on my way to the office. A long week made all the more interesting by the change of scenery.

This time three years ago:
Part two of short story The Devil Is In Doubt

This time four years ago:
"A helpful, friendly people"

This time five years ago:
A familiar shape in the skies

This time six years ago:
Feel like going home

This time seven years ago:
Mr Hare comes to call

From yellow to white

These pairs of photos were taken in two successive weeks; the first ones - with dandelions in bloom - on 8 May, the seconds ones - with the dandelions gone to seed - on 17 May. Below: ul. Osmańska.

Below: looking across to ul. Puławska from Wilanowska bus station. Note also how much more in leaf are the trees in the background.

I noticed this week that here and there, the authorities are mowing grass verges and lawns, to keep the city tidy, and presumably to relieve the hay fever of those allergic to dandelion seed.

This is the first time I've consciously witnessed how quickly and how thoroughly the dandelion appears in Warsaw, how yellow it makes the city's grassy areas appear, and how quickly that yellow flower gives way to seed-bearing puffballs. I prefer the yellow.

This time last year:
The good topiarist

This time three years ago:
Wettest. May. Ever.

This time five years ago:
Blackpool-in-the-Tatras

Ethereal and transient

Last week the dandelions were yellow. This week they went to seed, turning into puff-balls of white. Some shots then with the lens set at f14-f16 for great depth of field, and a long exposure on 100 ISO. Passing cyclists appeared blurred, ephemeral...

Below: Al. Ujazdowskie on the corner of Ul. Piękna. Just behind the cyclist - the installation Komin by Bartosz Sandecki that's been standing here since February.

Below: Al. Ujazdowskie around the junction with Al. Róż. Another cyclist rushes by.

Below: Al. Ujazdowskie by Pl. Na Rozdrożu.

Below: ul. Poleczki, Poleczki business park. A similar scene; dandelions, blurred cyclist.

The transience of the daffodil - yellow one week, a white puff-ball of seed the next. Yet looking more permanent that the cyclists hurrying by.

This time last year:
Wrocław railway station before the Euro football championships

This time two years ago:
By tram to Boernerowo

This time four years ago:
Food-Industrial Shop, rural USA or Poland

This time six years ago:
Twilight time, Jeziorki

More May Mleczery

While the verges and lawns are densely spattered with brightest yellow, it's time to get down. To about three inches off the ground with that absolutely splendid 10-24mm Nikkor to catch nature's splendour from ankle height.

Below: Jeziorki, ul. Karczunkowska, Trombity bus stop. Tuesday morning. It's somewhat overcast, but the dandelions are making merry.

Below: dandelions in Wyczółki, ul. Osmańska, Wednesday morning. Sunshine and heat.

Below: the central reservation, ul. Puławska, junction with Pileckiego and Poleczki. Wednesday morning rush-hour. A vivid storm of yellow assaults the eye.

Below: Wilanowska-Puławska junction, from the bus loop. A tram is just about visible in the distance.

Below: Puławska/Wilanowska junction - the verge between the road and the tram-tracks

Below: a beautiful sunny evening, though now in the shade the dandy lions haven't yet furled their leaves for the night.

The weather has been extraordinarily wonderful, with clear skies, top temperatures above 25C and warm evenings. But the Ice Saints are just around the corner...

This time last year:
Warsaw's city centre - a deli-free zone

This time two years ago:
Patching up the holes

This time three years ago:
In search of the sublime aesthetic

This time six years ago:
Flying in from the Faroes

Mlecznie - or the Dandy Lions

It's that time of year, when the dandelion is in bloom again. Everywhere, across the whole of Warsaw. Wherever there's some grass, the dandelions are out. Mlecz in Polish, mleczno, the adjective - also meaning 'milky'. Dandelion is pronounced 'DAN-dee-lion' in English, rather than 'dan-DELL-yon'. The word comes from the French, dents de lion or lion's teeth.

Below: if Wordsworth could compare his daffodils (żonkile) with this lot, his heart would also with pleasure fill. Except that these dandelions weren't dancing - just looking pretty in the morning sun against a cloudless sky. Junction of ul. Puławska and Poloneza.

Below: more mlecz, this time on the central reservation of ul. Indiry Gandhi. Ms Gandhi is still the only female premier to have a Warsaw street named after her. The three blue cylinders in the middle of the frame are ventilators from the Metro, which runs beneath this point.

Below: looking southbound along ul. Indiry Gandhi; photo taken on 55-300mm zoom set at 300mm.

Below: on Pl. Unii Lubelskiej, ul. Marszałkowska running off to the left, Al. Szucha to the right. The 10-24mm lens set at 10mm (15mm equivalent on 35mm film camera or full-frame digital) has amazing depth of field, giving a rodent's eye-view.

Below: evening rush hour, ul. Marynarska. Oceans of dandelions here too. Further on up the road, I saw two more photographers with the same idea, squatting down, taking low-angle shots of dandelions.

The good weather and the brilliant yellow flowers will go to seed within a few days, each plant becoming a puff-ball of white, but thanks to digital photography, they now belong to the ages.

This time last year:
Early-May thunderstorm

This time two years ago:
Men at work

This time three years ago:
What's the Polish for 'to bully'?

This time four years ago:
Making plans for Jeziorki: Hołubcowa bis
[Not surprisingly, nothing has come of these plans]

This time five years ago:
The stirring sight of sunset

This time six years ago:
Blessed rain - after two dry weeks

Lost in the wonder of it all

The first time it struck me was as I was pushing my bike up the steep part of the Vistula escarpment above ul. Myśliwiecka. Below: Thousands upon thousands of dandelions backlit by the sinking sun. A sight that truly stirred my soul. A dozen attempts to capture the scene, delicately juggling different exposures to bring out the white seedheads while not losing the shadow details, then more work in Lightroom and Photoshop to get an approximation of what I saw and felt at the time. (Click to enlarge images.)

Below: Park Ujazdowski, above the escarpment. More of the same - dandelions in flower are everywhere (and my sympathies go out to those allergic to the pollen). The plant, however, has medicinal properties, including "assisting with urinary tract infections in women" and is said to possess "anti-inflammatory effects".


Left: even more dandelions, by the Wyścigi tram loop along ul. Puławska. The sun, that four and half billion year old thermonuclear reaction that keeps us alive, has today been warming the earth and blessing us with its rays. As I write, just before 9 pm, it's still over 22C, having hit a high of 25.3C earlier today. Hard to believe that just one week ago, Warsaw was waking up to the sight of snow on the ground.

This time last year:
Meet my five bicycles

This time three years ago:
Celebrating my garden

Giant dandelion clocks

By the tracks at the end of ul. Trombity we come across some giant dandelion clocks. We've noticed these before - always growing by the side of railway lines, never elsewhere. Eddie thinks that the dandelions may have become genetically-modified in some way by electromagnetic forces from the pantograph cables. But then we never see these huge dandelion clocks growing besides railway lines in the UK. Or indeed anywhere in the UK.

Anyone know about these plants?

Blessed rain

Today we had rain; lots of it. At last - it hasn't rained in over two weeks. Good news for farmers, gardeners and frogs. The grey sky offered contrast from the generally cloudless blue that we enjoyed since 20 April.

Below: A dandelion clock in the street outside our house, just before the rainfall. It washed away the seeds before they could be dispersed by the winds.

[Update -12 May: The beneficial effects of the rain are clearly visible - rapid and luxuriant growth of greenery everywhere.]