In town and around

Below: tram stop outside Rondo ONZ 1 tower. Modern public transport serving modern offices. A safe, clean, modern, reasonably priced city. Though peeking into an estate agent's window, I'm shocked at what's happened to house prices over the past ten years. From 2002 to 2014, hardly any movement, then a London-style explosion.

Below: Rondo ONZ 1 tower from across the road. All this was brand new not so very long ago; today the centre of gravity of Warsaw's business district is shifting westward towards Wola.

Below: one of my favourite thoroughfares in Warsaw, just around the corner from my office, ul. Świętokrzyska. Across the road from the Palace of Culture. And here's one my favourite shops in Warsaw, Voltarex, a shop selling high-end kitchen equipment. I pop in to buy a stainless-steel vegetable steamer insert for my pan; from now on, steamed broccoli, steamed asparagus, steamed runner beans, healthier and tastier than boiled veg. It's the end of April, and the restaurants have their pavement tables out, creating a wonderfully Mediterranean atmosphere. The long weekend is just beginning...

Below: ulica Grzybowska as it intersects aleja Jana Pawła II, shortly after sunset. The old 1990s Atrium International plaza has been demolished; the crane stands where the 34-story Upper One building will shortly emerge. My father spent his earliest years around here; on his last visit to Warsaw in 2019, he was delighted by how modern Warsaw has emerged from the rubble of Nazi occupation.

Warsaw might have moved forward dramatically, but here and there are signs of past ways of thinking. This one, for example, by a block of flats off Grzybowska, reeking linguistically of Tsarist-communist bureaucratic formalism. "Forbids one from leaving uncleanlinesses by the chute, key to the abovementioned space finds itself in the porter's kiosk". Note use of the agentless passive.

Below: back home in Jakubowizna, flags are out for 3 May, Poland's national day, remembering the world's second (after the USA) and Europe's first written constitution (1791).

Below: shimmering in a heat haze, Warsaw's skyline as seen from ul. Kinetyczna ('Kinetic Street'), on the south side of Warsaw airport.

Below: out by Warsaw Okęcie airport –a US Army Beechcraft C-12F Huron shortly after take off. (This is the basic transport aircraft, rather than the RC-12 Guardrail signals intelligence platform, which I see from time to time on FlightRadar24.com flying around the Baltic.)

Below: a Gulfstream G600 business jet belonging to the Bank of Utah (!) taking off from Okęcie.

Below: SP-LIM, a LOT Polish Airlines Embraer EJ170 in retro livery, passing the radio tower at the airport's edge....

...and this time in focus... 'Flying you since 1929'. 

This time three years ago:
Return to the Konstancin-Jeziorna sidings

This time six years ago:
A review of the second part of Hillier's Betjeman biog.

This time seven years ago:
New roads and rails

This time eight years ago:
The Gold Train shoot - lessons learned

This time 11 years ago:
Digbeth, Birmingham 5

This time 12 years ago:
Still months away from the opening of the S2/S79 

This time 13 years ago: 
Looking at progress along the S79  

This time 14 years ago:
Snow on 3 May

This time 15 years ago:
Two Polands

This time 16 years ago:
A delightful weekend in the country

This time 17 years ago:
The dismantling of the Rampa

This time 16 years ago:
Flag day

World's Biggest Plane over Jeziorki

What a magnificent sight! Not only is the Antonov An-225 the world's largest aircraft, it is also the world's only six-engined aircraft currently in service. Today it flew into Okęcie to deliver medical equipment for the fight against Covid-19. A PR opportunity for the Polish government, and a rare chance to catch this plane in the skies above our house. I've never seen it in my life before, and now here it is!

Operated by Ukraine's Antonov Design Bureau, this aircraft makes a huge impression. Not particularly noisy (not much more so than wide-bodied twins such as the Boeing 777 or Airbus A330 which often fly over), nor trailing filth out of its engines like so many old Soviet types did.

A development of the Antonov An-124 Ruslan (which I've snapped quite often above Jeziorki), designed specifically to carry the Soviet equivalent of the Space Shuttle to its launch site. Just one was built, a second was never completed.

Below: first sight - from a distance you can see the uniqueness of the design. Twin tail, six engines, shoulder-mounted wings. The twin tails betray its origins - it was built to ferry the Soviet space shuttle, Buran, from factory to launch pad. Sitting piggyback on the An-225's fuselage, the vertical control surfaces were intended to counteract wake turbulence caused by abnormal loads carried by the plane.

Flaps out - but where are the wheels?

The wheels?

The WHEELS! (last time I got a snap like this one below was when Kapitan Wrona was making his legendary wheels-up landing of a Boeing 767...

The plane didn't land - it did a fly-past over the airport, then a tight left-hand circle, turning over Dawidy, a hard bank, straightening out for the final approach - which I caught from an upstairs window. Wheels out this time!

Well, that was immensely satisfying experience. Over Jeziorki I've seen an Airbus A380, many Boeing 747s, Lockheed C5A Galaxies, Boeing C17 Globemasters, Antonov An-124s, Ilyushin Il-76s, a Mil Mi-26T and an Airbus A400M - but this was a unique occasion.

[POSTSCRIPT: I'd never see it again. Destroyed on the ground at the Antonov Airport, Hostomel, near Kyiv, on 27 February 2022, another casualty of the barbaric Russian invasion of Ukraine.]

This time last year:
Managing luck

This time two years ago:
Blossoms and pylons

This three years ago:
Weather bad, mood SAD

This time seven years ago:
Bicycle shake-down day

This time eight years ago:
40 years on - Roxy Music's first two albums

This time ten years ago:
Twenty years, ten months, six days
[The Polish Third Republic has now lasted 10 years longer than the Second Republic. Long may it flourish!]

This time 12 years ago:
Swans still in Jeziorki

Airside at Okęcie's 'new old' terminal

Here's a belated look at how things look once you've got through security at Okęcie after the (re)opening of the (new) old terminal. [See this post about the groundside improvements.]

The airport gets better and better. Smaller and easier to navigate than Heathrow, larger and more relaxed than 'hurry-up-and-wait' Luton, it's my favourite regular airport.

Firstly: if you've no cabin baggage to check in, simply pass through security at whichever terminal and head to your gate as advised. If you do have cabin baggage, your ticket or e-ticket will tell you where to do this. Sector A is in the new old terminal; Sector B is between the new old terminal and the old new terminal; Sectors C, D and E are in the old new terminal.

But I should get out of the habit of 'old' and 'new' terminals. Officially, the whole ensemble should be considered Terminal A. Which implies that at some point in the future, there will be Terminals B through to Z.

Once you've passed through security (on either side), you'll need to find your gate. The choice has suddenly expanded from Gates 1 to 28 (as was) to Gates 1 to 45. Bear in mind that the low numbers are for Non-Schengen destinations, beyond passport control. These are to the left as you pass through security, at the northern end of the 'pirs' or pier. The Schengen destinations (countries where there's no mutual paranoia about gatecrashers from  other parties to the treaty) are the higher-numbered gates along the middle and southern end  of the pirs.

There are now new bar-code scanning gates speeding up the time it takes to get to security. So far they work fine.

Below: as the airport's website has failed to annotate its otherwise useful terminal plan, I've done so for you. Gate numbers are approximate (I cannot be held responsible for someone missing flights if they guide themselves solely by my plan); north is to the left of the pic, south to the right. The light green area is beyond passport control and is for Non-Schengen flights. The 'new old' terminal, opened last month, is the triangular bit above the number 32; the 'old new' terminal is the square bit above the number 25.

Below: photo taken with lens set at 40mm lens (60mm full-frame equivalent). The photo was taken at the southern end of the pirs looking north past all the gates. From where I'm standing to the furthest gates in the distance is a nine-minute walk (I'm assuming a minimal wait at passport control).

The new gates mean more shopping opportunities to cater to your spending needs. There are plentiful shops selling clothes, electronic gadgetry (there's a Samsung shop, for example) and food. Below: an FSM Syrena pick-up forms a eye-catching centrepiece at a Premium Food Gate, a food and drink store which offers a wide range of regional Polish specialities. There are now lots more shops, so if you've got used to Okęcie having nothing to tempt you with other than a Aelia, a Keraniss and a Relay, come a bit earlier next time you fly as there's now plenty more to look at.

There's even a Scottish restaurant airside! (there's one groundside, I mentioned it in my earlier post about the new old terminal, linked top). However, unlike the groundside one, this restaurant has a bizarre method of ordering, collecting and paying for your food. First, you join a queue to get a card-like voucher. Secondly, you join another queue to order your food. Your order is encoded on the card you have recently received. You then join a third queue as you wait for your order to be prepared. Your meal is served, you then have to join a fourth queue to pay for your meal, handing back your card-like voucher, which is decoded and the correct amount displayed. After full financial reconcilliation between you and the Scottish restaurant, your transaction is deemed to be complete, and you can leave to catch your flight. If it's still there.

Quite why the Scottish restaurant, usually a paragon of business efficiency, has chosen to increase the number of queues you have to stand in from the usual one (or two in drive-thrus and station outlets) to four is beyond me. Unless it's a historical re-enactment of PRL-style queuing, giving international flyers a brief taste of life in communist Poland. My guess is that this clunky and user-unfriendly system will soon be replaced by something more streamlined. Sack the management consultants!

Still, I miss a butchery-and-wine style restaurant serving grilled pork and lamb cuts at Terminal A. I'd like to see something like this called Chop In A Lotnisko.

A propos of airside catering: if you're flying through "London" Luton and the place is heaving with nowhere to sit let alone sit down and eat, go to Gate 10 where there's a place called Bar Ten, and it's always empty. Don't worry about missing your flight, for there's a display showing the gate numbers for flight as they are called.

This time four years ago:
Thirty-One and Sixty-Three (short story about 19th C. Polish uprisings)

This time six years ago:
Jeziorki to Jeziorki - the big rail loop

This time seven years ago:
Automotive miscellany

This time eight years ago:
South Warsaw sunsets

Okęcie airport opens 'new' 'old' terminal

In my 18 years in Poland, Okęcie airport has always been the portal to the 'Old Country'. The end of the runway is less than 4,500m from our house. When flying back Kingdomside for work or holiday or family reasons, it's almost always through Okęcie. I fly through the airport eight times a year on average, and over the years I've seen the place improve and improve.

The latest improvement involves the re-opening earlier this week of the 'old' 'new' terminal, built in 1992. So many changes over the years - the new and the newly-refurbished old, now joined together seamlessly. The modernisation took the best part of three years to complete. In good time for the summer holiday rush.

So now Okęcie has it all - a rail link to the city centre, a motorway link to the outside world, two bright, modern terminals, plenty of shops and bars, gates where you can sit and wait in comfort, an excellent website that no longer takes hours to load and a Twitter feed lauded as the best in Poland. The S2/S79 link means that in a taxi at 5am I can get to Okęcie from home in 12 minutes.

The important thing to remember in what Sector your check-in desk is located. All desks in Sector A are to be found in the 'new' old terminal. Once you've passed through security, the gates (45 of them) are all accessible from one long corridor spanning both terminals

Below: do you remember when this was all in a rather disgusting shade of magenta? All that's missing is the glider, suspended from the ceiling...

Something entirely new is Sector B (below), to be found between the 'new' old terminal and the old 'new' terminal. Architecturally this reminds me of the drabber bits of Heathrow and Gatwick. Ah - sectors C, D and E are still to be found in the 'old' new terminal.

There are plenty of new shops, now offering greater choice than the old Aelia/Keraniss duopoly. And more bars and restaurants. What's this? A Scottish restaurant! Located on the ground floor level of the 'new' old terminal, under Sector A.

From the 'new' old terminal, there's an underground passageway linking directly the train station (W-wa Lotnisko Chopina) and the long-distance bus terminus. Today, this looks like part of a nuclear bomb shelter, but in time I'm sure the grey walls will carry advertising.

Once back out at street level by the train station, you can take a lift up three flights to the all-weather observation deck (taras widokowy). Equipped with reverse-sloping windows to cut glare and reflection, this is an improvement over the old, open-air one (closed seven years ago). Not only is entry completely free of charge, there's also a cafe and an aviation gift-shop, and it's open from 6am to 10pm. And there's a gallery of truly stunning photographs of planes at or around Okęcie.

The airport gets better and better. Long gone are the days of Etiuda terminal (2004-2009), cattle-shed for those travelling with low-cost carriers. Being shut in there with two small children for seven hours because our Christmas flight to London was delayed must rank among my most dismal air travel experiences of all time ever. Worse than my ten-hour delay at "London" Gatwick where at least we got 45-quid's worth of food and drink vouchers (which I spend very wisely!)

Okęcie is on target to carry 11 million passengers this year, breaking all records, while to the north of Warsaw, Modlin continues to prosper as Ryanair's principle airport after a shaky start.

I fly to London in two weeks' time, so I'll be able to report on how the extended airport looks like from airside.

This time two years ago:
Arrogance vs. humility

This time three years ago:
Warsaw looking good ahead of the football-fan influx

This time six years ago:
Heron over Jeziorki

This time eight years ago:
Present rising, future loading

Joe Biden in Warsaw

Good to know at times like these that Poland has got strong allies across the Atlantic. Passing through Warsaw Okecie airport today, I spied Air Force Two on the military apron. This is a Boeing C-32A, 80002, a military VIP version of the Boeing 757 commercial airliner. It had just brought US vice-president Joe Biden to Warsaw for talks with Polish premier Donald Tusk regarding the Russian invasion of Crimea.

Mr Biden's visit was preceded on Sunday by the arrival of a C-17 transport aircraft bearing all the necessary requisites for a vice-presidential visit. Takes me back to those days back in May 2011 when Barrack Obama visited Warsaw. That was a real feast for plane-spotters!

This time two years ago:
Motive power for the coal and oil trains that pass Jeziorki

This time six years ago:
Sleet, snow, no sign of spring

Jumbo excitement at Okęcie

I've written before (here) how aircraft arrivals that are commonplace in other, larger, airports cause a stir here in Warsaw. This morning while pottering about in my bedroom, I heard the noise of an approaching aircraft that was distinctly unusual, louder than the twin-jets that serve Okęcie. And indeed - it was the arrival from Tel Aviv of an El Al Boeing 747.

Above: the 747 makes its appearance out of low-hanging clouds, water vapour coming off the wings as the air pressure drops causing moisture to condense. For the record, this is 4X-ELH, a Boeing 747-400.

Getting ready for 'W'-hour flypast

Dropping Eddie off at Okęcie today, I spotted this Polish Air Force Hercules C-130E transport plane (serial no. 1501, below) on the military apron. It is being prepared for tomorrow's commemorations of the 67th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising. If you click to enlarge, you'll see by the front door of the plane, a black and white photograph of some Home Army (AK) soldiers.

According to press reports, at 'W'-hour (17:00), the plane will fly at a height of 600m above Warsaw, parallel to ul. Marszałkowska, from Pl. Konstytucji to the Ogród Krasińskich park, dropping leaflets. The Hercules will be escorted by smaller aircraft.

This time last year:
A century of Polish scouting

This time two years ago:
The Warsaw they fought and died for?

This time four years ago:
Stained glass, rainbows and memory

Israeli 707 visits Warsaw again

The sound of four turbojets alerted me to the fact that something unusual was landing - an Israeli Air Force Boeing 707. Repainted in darker grey, and shot against the morning sun, the pic's not too detailed, but you can see that the cabin lights have been left on for landing (click to enlarge).

I've photographed IAF Boeing 707s before; this one is without the in-flight refuelling boom that was present on previous visitors of this type. For spotters - this is a Boeing 707-366C of 120 'Desert Giants' Sqn based at Nevatim Airbase, serial number 295, built in 1974. That's 37 years in the air!

This time last year:
Selection of interesting aircraft over my garden

This time two years ago:
On foot to Limanowa

This time three years ago:
Nice Nysa

This time four years ago:
A ride in the country

For previous visits of other IAF Boeing 707s to Okęcie click here.

Candid photography

Once again, it was Eddie who first spotted this from the kitchen window. A very rare visitor to Okęcie indeed! This is an Ilyushin Il-76, NATO reporting name Candid. At first sight to me it looked like a giant BAE Avro RJ 146, taking off lower, slower, more noisily than the far smaller regional jetliner. Comparable in size, though slightly shorter than the C-17 Globemaster III.

This heavy lift transporter (reg. 4K AZ100) belongs to Azerbaijani Silk Way Airlines. What was it doing in Warsaw?

Coming in at crazy angles

This morning, at 11:20, Eddie and I saw this WizzAir Airbus A320 (HA-LPX) approaching Runway 33 at a most strange angle. Rather than going out all the way to Czachówek and doing the wing-over there, the pilot took a short cut, making the big turn over Pyry/Dąbrówka. We watched to see whether he'd be able to line up with the approach, or be forced to do a go-around. He managed. In the background is BA Airbus A319 (G-EUPN). The BA pilot flew in po bożemu, by the book, heading out a further 12 miles south before turning in for final approach. He'd be overhead a full six minutes later. Below: The WizzAir A320 makes it.

This manouevre was also observed from Ursynów. Post (from Okęcie spotters' forum) here.

Flying short-cuts into Runway 33 is more often seen from a westerly direction. Planes will fly as close to 3km from the threshold, doing their final turn over ul. Kórnicka even. Typically, these will be Eurolot ATRs, but sometimes also LOT B737s. On 9 May this year, I filmed a LOT 767 turning in way to the north of our house - and succeeding in lining up with the runway! Short cuts are almost always flown by Polish pilots for whom Okęcie is their home airport (we don't see BA, Air France, Lufthansa or EasyJet planes doing this). The pilots based here know all the approaches well, and what they can get away with. I can't help wondering what Warsaw Tower makes of this procedure and indeed whether this is an air safety issue.

Below: not an air miss - the foreshortening effect of the 80-400mm Nikkor at full stretch brings the BA plane much closer than in reality. There was less than two seconds between the first and third exposure.

Buzzed by a 'Parrot'

Living under the flightpath to Warsaw Okęcie's Runway 33, I rarely get excited by the planes that fly over us one after the other. This morning was different - no fewer than eight times did this garishly painted LET L-410 fly over our house, and at low altitude.

This plane, SP-TPA, belongs to Polska Agencja Żeglugi Powietrznej (Polish Air Navigation Services Agency) and is used for calibrating radar and radio equipment at airports, in particular those used for instrument landing (ILS) and VHS omnidirectional ranging (VOR).

Nicknamed 'Papuga' (Parrot) on account of its bright colours, it is seen from time to time at Okęcie. If you see a smallish twin-prop aircraft flying around in circles low over Warsaw, you can be sure it'll be this one.

More views along the S2/S79

Weatherwise, this week in mid-September takes some beating. Apart from some early mist and low cloud yesterday, the sun shone, it was still one-layer hot, and it stayed so today. Not to have cycled to work would have been to waste God's beneficence. Before setting off this morning, I discovered on Google Earth that the route I'd taken from work on Wednesday evening was actually a whole km shorter than my usual one through Ursynów. This entails a ride across Pole Mokotowskie, down ul. Żwirki i Wigury, across Sasanki, then parallel to the railway line all the way to Jeziorki. 16km. So I tried the same route back to the office (and indeed home again), and it brought much in the way of spiritual satisfaction. Quieter, more rural, and a chance to see how the Elka roadbuilding is coming on.
Above: View looking east from ul. Karnawał towards the railway line. The S2/S79 was cleared by spring, since then, water has gathered in huge ponds here and there along the route. The S2 will run along this stretch, from Węzeł Lotnisko to the west, to Węzeł Puławska in the east.
Above: Past the level crossing keeper's house on ul. Wirażowa, and looking north along what will be the S79. In the distance, the viaduct over the railway lines. Below: approaching the viaduct. Okęcie cargo terminal is to the left, just out of shot.

Below: Past PKP Okęcie station, looking north along the S79 corridor towards ul. Sasanki. Soon, this empty desert will be covered with asphalt and thousands of cars and hour will be streaming south out of Warsaw this way. Between this point and ul. Sasanki in the distance runs the single railway line connecting Okęcie airport's avgas terminus with the rail network. The road will flyover the tracks, as well as the new line linking the airport to the passenger rail network.

Below: cycling home this evening, signs that work is indeed underway. Piledrivers on the stretch of the S79 between ul. Wirażowa and the railway line, caught in low sunlight.

Elka: Work starts today.

I cycled home via Żwirki i Wigury and ul. Sasanki, so that I could see the route of the S79/S2 'Elka' on the day that work officially got underway. This 7km-stretch of expressway, from Sasanki to Puławska via Węzeł Lotnisko, is 'L' shaped, hence 'Elka'. Above: Looking east from the top end of ul. Wirażowa, just south of Sasanki. In the distance, PKP W-wa Służewiec railway station.

One fine day, a long, long time from now, Węzeł (junction) Lotnisko will be connected to Węzeł Konotopa on Warsaw's western outskirts, and from there the A2 motorway will take you to Łódź, Poznań and Berlin. And, further into the future, you will be able to go on beyond Węzeł Puławska and head east across the Vistula, and on to Terespol, Belarus and on to Moscow, via the A2.

There are signs like this (right) on ul. Puławska as well, announcing the lucky winner of the public tender to build the Elka - an Austrian company (come on Brits! Where are you?).

The north-south stretch of the Elka is the S79 coming out of Warsaw, which one day will connect with the S7 expressway heading south to Radom, Kielce, Kraków and on to Budapest.

Below: South of the viaduct, ul. Wirażowa is a broad swathe of land awaiting four lanes of asphalt. By 2012. View looking south. To the left, the Warsaw-Radom railway line; to the right, Okęcie airport.


Left: Further south. This is ul. Wirażowa, once a not insignificant unasphalted tract leading from Okęcie's Cargo Terminal to the level crossing at ul. Karnawał. Today, the southern end of it has almost totally disappeared, hidden by earthen ramps, transsected by giant puddles. It will be replaced by the north-south S8, but until then, it's only crossable by mountainbike, off-road motorbike or on foot. Too narrow for all but the smallest SUV. The Elka will be to the right of this shot, on the other side of the earth ramp. Click on label 'WĘZEŁ LOTNISKO' below to see how work on this stretch of road had proceeded since January 2009. (Frantic pace January to April, nothing until now.) The work was also well documented by Marcin Danecki (see his Panoramio photos on Google Earth).

Incidentally, daytime high yesterday +26.1C , stong sunshine. Not bad for the second half of September!

Another rare visitor to Okęcie

Given that the Boeing 747 jumbo jet first flew 40 (yes! February 1969) years ago, it's easy to get blasé about the sight of such a magnificent aircraft. Especially if you live near to an airport where the 747 is a common sight. Yet here at Okęcie, where large four-engined jets are a rarity, the sight of a jumbo coming into land, flaps down, gear out is quite something. So I was excited to see the on-line radar on my desktop announcing that El-Al's 747-400 4X-ELD is approaching Warsaw. Unfortunately the pics were taken into the sun, but still, quite a sight to behold. It's been almost two and half years since I last saw an El-Al jumbo over Jeziorki.

Rare visitor to Okęcie

The distant sound of an approaching helicopter coming in to land at Okęcie attracted my attention - something rather large was on the horizon! Time to grab the camera and snap away. This is a Mil Mi-26T belonging to Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations (MChS). The largest and heaviest helicopter to have gone into production, and here it is flying over Jeziorki.

Late summer dad'n'lad bike ride

Finally, the school holidays are at last coming to an end. Ten weeks of leisure. "Won't be long till summer time is through!"

To celebrate, I dragged a reluctant Eddie out on his bike for a spin around the Las Kabacki forest, then to the edge of the airport for a spot of spotting.

Above: The railway line that connects Warsaw's metro to the outside world. Rust suggests it's not been used for a while. The only traffic that comes this way is the occasional drezyna (technical railcar). But worth remembering that every single piece of rolling stock that runs daily between Kabaty and Młociny once came down this track.

We rode west from the forest towards ul. Puławska. Eddie waits, bored, while I adjust the circular polarising filter, set the correct exposure and get the pic.
This path, from the forest to ul. Żolny, is particularly atmospheric and is one of my 'spirit of place' locations.

On to the airport. The large earthworks screening the S2-S79 expressway junction (Węzeł Lotnisko) are an excellent place for watching planes land. Below: An Austrian Arrows Dash-8 flies overhead, taken with lens at 55mm, uncropped, so you can see how close it was.

Below: Eddie making his descent from the man-made plateau. There was quite a crowd up here, plane spotters and mountain bikers. Neither of us rode down - you need a full suspension bike to do it comfortably, it is steep. But we saw other guys doing it - hair-raising!

On the way back to Jeziorki, we rode along the untarmacked stretch of ul. Wirażowa. Work on the new expressways starts next month; so we are witnessing the last moments of semi-rural tranquility here (currenly interrupted only by frequent landings and occasional trains).
Below: Back in Jeziorki. Still parallel to the railway tracks. Still rural. Close to home now.