Last evenings in shirt-sleeves?

The heatwaves have passed, the nights are getting cold. Yet when the sun shines, it's very pleasant outside – but this is about to change. Temperatures will struggle to get into double digits over the next few days. Golden autumn may well yet return – one can hope! In the meanwhile, I made the most of the reasonable warmth over the weekend, warm enough to venture out in the evening without a jacket.

Below: a slow shutter-speed of a full coal train heading (unusually!) south, taken just before sunset yesterday. 

Below: looking south towards Chynów station in the distance, the sun has set. but the afterglow illuminates the western horizon for a while.

Left: twilit horizon with electricity pole. This is one of my favourite spots for catching sunsets; I hope the rail redevelopment work I wrote about yesterday won't spoil the character of the area around here (between Chynów station and the DK50 main road).

Below: ulica Owocowa, at the Chynów end of my lane. Magic hour approaches its end. This is the Sublime Aesthetic.

Below: I look around one last time before turning into my drive and home. "When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls/And the stars begin to flicker in the sky..."

Below: from today's walk; orchard awaiting the fruit pickers, under a fragmentary double rainbow.

Below: I get up closer to the trees to bring together the red apples illuminated by strong sunlight against a rainbow on brooding skies. Photo taken with polarising filter to make the rainbow stand out more.

The downdraft from the approaching rain-clouds signal that I should be heading home, sure enough, 300 metres from my działka it starts pour, and me in my shirtsleeves... 

This time last year:
Anomalous landscapes amid local forest

This time five years ago:

W(h)ither the DK50?

This time six years ago:
A change in the weather

This time seven years ago:
Zamek Topacz classic car museum

This time ten years ago:
Curry comes to Jeziorki

This time 11 years ago:
Why we should all try to use less gas

This time 12 years ago:
Polish supermarket chain advertises on London buses

This time 17 years ago:
Well-shot pheasants

Stormy end to May

The summer storm season has begun. Over the past few days, a predictable, repeatable weather pattern has set in. The mornings are fine and sunny, with scarcely a cloud in the sky. During the day, clouds build up from moisture evaporating off the ground as the air warms up. By late afternoon, the clouds are pregnant with rainwater, electrical discharges are triggered; thunder is heard.

Below: yesterday, 18:30. A storm cloud moves in from the south-east. Strong winds, caused by the downdraft from the intense rain, herald its imminent arrival. Time to run indoors.

From my bedroom window, looking north, 18:39. Intense rain is lashing down, huge droplets appear as white streaks in the photo below (click to enlarge).

The deluge lasts half an hour, for a further hour it rains less heavily. At 20:00 it's dry enough to venture out, wearing a light shower-proof jacket. It is still very warm. Way too warm for a Barbour. Below: a rainbow over Jeziorki.

Below: the air is fresh and clean, I head along ul. Dumki towards the pond. The sun is slanting in under the northbound clouds.

Below: sunset over the pond, seen from ul. Dumki; the dying embers of the day will soon be extinguished by the rain clouds as they roll on northwards.

It was a similar story today. Bright sunlight through the curtains woke me up some time after six o'clock; shortly afterwards the loudest roar of an aircraft flying low overhead had me rushing to the window - it was a huge Antonov An-124, massive beast, really low over Jeziorki. Magnificent sight.

Sunny conditions remained throughout the early morning, but the clouds began forming and thickening throughout the day, with light rain arriving around lunchtime. By the early evening, the storm clouds were massive. Below: sheltering around the tunnel entrance to platform 3 at W-wa Zachodnia station. People in shirtsleeves and T-shirts - when they left home this morning, who would have thought the same deluge that happened yesterday would happen as well today?

My train raced the stormcloud south. By the time the train had reached W-wa Jeziorki, below, the cloud had vectored southwest, and was dropping its load on Raszyn. I walked home with only a few raindrops catching me.

On my way home I bought 5 złotys (90p)-worth of strawberries. The plate below represents about a third of the purchase. It is the season for strawberries and they should be bought and consumed in huge amounts. These specimens were perfect. Picked today. Tasting of strawberries from our garden back in the Old Country, not of something imported in plastic punnets that visually resemble strawberries. The season will not be long, while Polish-grown strawberries are in season, it is our duty to stuff ourselves with them.

The stormy season seems to be moving earlier in the year. Will we have a repeat of last year, with a dry August?

This time last year:
Where's it better to live: London or Warsaw?

This time two years ago:
Jeziorki, magic hour, late-May

This time three years ago:
Świdnica, one of Poland's lesser-known pearls

This time six years ago:
Spirit of place
[Another 'why I love Jeziorki so' post. Walking around for an hour without bumping into a single soul? Try doing that within a nine-mile radius of Hyde Park Corner!]

Between Equinox and Equilux

This wheel's on fire... rolling down the road... From Warsaw to Szczytno (22 September) and back (24 September). No commentary, just the captioned photographs, whacked-up to reflect what I saw and felt.

Somewhere on the Krajowa Siodemka, south of Nidzica

Lovely, vivid, full rainbow - and I left my 10-24mm lens at home!

The road to Szczytno between Nidzica and Jedwabno

The road back to Warsaw between Szczytno and Jedwabno

Re-entering Warsaw's atmosphere, south of Płońsk

Back in Jeziorki; dusk.

This time two years ago:
Heritage or high-rise?

This time last year:
Shopping notes

This time four years ago:
My grandfather

This time six years ago:
Surreal twilight, ul.Karczunkowska

This time seven years ago:
From Warsaw to Seville, via Munich and Madrid

Two rainbows

My journey to work yesterday was interrupted by the closure of the Metro's middle section, due to the detection of gas in the tunnels. Turns out it was not gas as such, but the chemical used to give (odourless) gas a characteristic smell, tert-Butylthiol (TBM). This incident occurring as it did at the height of the high school final exam week (the matura, which Eddie is currently taking), there is a suspicion that this incident was some form of sabotage.

Anyway, unable to take the Metro to work, I took the tram from Wilanowska, and passing Pl. Zbawiciela, I had the chance of getting a clear shot at Warsaw's rainbow, restored after having being torched for the third (or is it fourth? I lose count) time. Note the fire hydrant in the middle foreground! Yesterday's Gazeta Stołeczna published a poll in which 61% of Varsovians are in favour of keeping the rainbow.  When it first appeared ahead of the Euro2012 football championships, I was sceptical, but now I find myself quite fond of this new symbol of the Polish capital's increasing tolerance.

This evening, arriving home from work, I saw a beautiful double rainbow over Jeziorki, which I snapped from the balcony with my 10-24mm Nikkor zoomed out widest. A polarising filter helped to crank out the maximum from the rainbow, with pleasing result. Under the rainbow, the State Valuable Paper Creation Plant (Państwowa Wytwórnia Papierów Wartościowych) caught in the rays of the evening sun.

This time last year:
Dandelions in bloom (about two weeks later than this year)

This time two years ago:
Warsaw's city centre - a deli-free zone
[Today, the rather poor delis have gone, replaced by better shops. Differ or die.]

This time three years ago:
Patching up the holes

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

This time seven years ago:
Flying in from the Faroes

Rysiek and Blanka's wedding, Gdańsk

After the best part of the day sightseeing (see separate post) in Gdańsk, I headed off by tram towards Oliwa and its famous cathedral, for the wedding of Rysiek and Blanka. (Rysiek's another old harcerz from West London's Błękitna Trójka, who I've known for the best part of half a century). As I approach the park situated behind the cathedral, I espy a triple rainbow! (click to enlarge). A double rainbow (ROYGBIVROYGBIV*), the two touching, plus a fragment of a third above and to the right. An auspicious sign!


Left: Oliwa Cathedral, looking towards its famous organ. An impressive place for a wedding. I was last here in 1977 on Montserrat - two coachloads of 15-20 year-old boys and girls of Polish parentage going to the fatherland for a religious pilgrimage organised by the Polish parish in Ealing. How different it all looked back then, the cathedral an oasis of splendour amid the drab shabbiness of everyday communist reality.

Below: bride, groom, family and friends on the cathedral steps. Over 140 guests, including 100 or so who made it all the way from England. Mercifully, it didn't rain on the group photo nor on the greeting of the guests. Interestingly, meeting many old friends of my generation living in Britain or in Poland, I was struck by the diversity of ages of their children - from two to 29.

Below: Bride and groom meeting the guests. Outside the cathedral it was chilly for this time of year; just across the Baltic, Stockholm shivered in temperatures of just +6C, a record for early June.

Below: the wedding reception took place in Stara Cegielnia in Rzucewo, near Puck, some 60km away from Oliwa. This beautifully restored brickworks was next door to Zamek Jan III Sobieski, which I suspect had more to do with the area's former Prussian rulers than with the Polish king who saved Europe's bacon at the Battle of Vienna.

To kick off the night's celebrations, Rysiek dons folk costume and with his bride performs a traditional Polish dance (left) before leading off all the guests in a Polonaise.

I wish Rysiek and Blanka a long and happy marriage, full of love, companionship, shared interests and - a trio of little ones.

Above: the view from Rzucewo. In the distance, the Hel peninsula. The celebrations went on until five in the morning, by which time it's broad daylight.

*The mnemonic Richard Of York Gave Battles In Vain = Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet

This time last year:
Wetlands in late-spring

This time last year:
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Puławska and Pozytywki
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Sarabandy and Karczunkowska
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Trombity and Kórnicka

This time two years ago:
Another time, another place

Biblical sky

As I wrote this time three years ago, this is the time of the Ice Saints. On cue, they came; St Pancras and Servatus, and with them unseasonably cold weather crashing in after a hot start to spring. On Friday, it was 30C, yesterday 12C, today the thermometer was showing 9C. Cold rain lashed down on Warsaw.

But by this evening, sunshine began penetrating the leaden skies. Eddie observed from the kitchen rain falling through the lowering rays - ideal conditions, I noted, for a rainbow to appear (as it usually does) to the south-east. And a chance to try the new 10-24mm lens. Now, my old lenses (18-200mm, 18-55mm) both start at 18mm (equivalent to 27mm on a full-size sensor or 35mm film camera) - are not wide enough to capture a full rainbow end to end. In the past, I've had to stitch together two photos to form a panorama - not an easy task.

Well, as you can see, the rainbow's there, made the more visible by using a polarising filter (makes a big difference, which you can see by rotating it). Sadly, the rainbow was not full - the rain was only falling on the right side of the frame. Traces of a secondary rainbow can just be seen to the upper right of the main one. The lens is set to 14mm, so 10mm is totally ample to catch a full rainbow (125th sec, f5.6, 160 ISO).

Jeziorki to Jeziorki via big local rail loop

As I mentioned earlier, once a day a Koleje Mazowieckie train passes through W-wa Jeziorki on its way to Pilawa, via Czachówek and Góra Kalwaria. Eddie and I decided to go for a Dad'n'Lad rail excursion and do a full loop, returning to Jeziorki from Warsaw, to which we'd get to the other way from Pilawa. Above: 18:20 - our train arrives. The heavens are about to open.

As we reach the junction at Czachówek , it starts bucketing it down. The deluge means we had to quickly shut the windows to avoid soaking the train's upholstery. Above: behind the trees is the east-west rail line that our train will merge onto.

Beyond Góra Kalwaria. For the first time, we cross the Vistula on a scheduled rail service on the Skierniewice-Łuków line. Above: Eddie's shot of the rainbow (it came out better than mine!) Circular polarising filters really help with rainbows. In the distance, the Góra Kalwaria road bridge is visible.

The landscape on the other side of the river is as flat as it is in our part of Mazowsze; the rainbow accompanies us much of the way to Pilawa. We stop at three stations between Góra Kalwaria and Pilawa: Warszówka, Osieck and Jaźwiny; there are no platforms here, just a white-painted kerb at ground level. At each station, just one or two people descend. Remember, this is a new service, so locals still need to get used to its existence. Currently, only two trains a day stop at these stations; from Pilawa to Warsaw (between 4:40 and 5:00) and from Warsaw to Pilawa (between 19:30 and 20:00).

Above: approaching Pilawa from the west, through the forest that runs through Augustowka, a favourite place of ours. There is a significant railway junction here, with five lines converging on Pilawa station; from Lublin to the south, Łuków to the east, Mińsk Mazowiecki to the north, the Otwock-Warsaw commuter line to the north-west and Skierniewice to the west. The forest is criss-crossed with rails, and an overgrown embankment after track-lifting. I refer to it in this oft-visited post.

At Pilawa, we buy tickets for the express train to W-wa Wschodnia, Warsaw's eastern terminal. Above: The 19:49 Przemyśl to Warsaw service is about to reach Pilawa. The 50km journey to Warsaw goes the long way round, not through Otwock and Józefów but skirting Mińsk Maz. Though there's more rail to cover, the train moves quickly and there's no intermediate stops. We are scheduled to arrive at W-wa Wschodnia in just 47 minutes. Here we will board a stopping service bound for Radom, that will drop us off at Jeziorki.

As the train turns west at Mińsk Maz, we catch some strong evening sunlight. The thunderclouds and rain have passed over, the air is clean and fresh, the quality of light beautiful.
Approaching W-wa Wschodnia. Above: A panorama of Warsaw's city centre, still dominated by Stalin's gift to the Polish people, appears ahead of us. Clicking on the photo, you will see on the Palace of Culture, five miles away, an image of Gary Cooper, 11 stories high. This is based on the iconic 'High Noon' poster used by Solidarity to encourage Poles to vote the communists out of power 20 years ago.

Above: We've changed trains (a hectic dash from Platform 1 to Platform 6 at Wschodnia) and are crossing the Vistula again. Looking south from the railway crossing towards the Poniatowski bridge, which carries road traffic and trams. Eddie remarks that there's something about rail travel that cannot be beaten going by road. We ponder for a while, but can't quite define that something that makes going for a train trip for its own sake so special.

Standing at W-wa Służewiec station, I take this shot of ul. Sasanki flyover (above) as it crosses ul. Żwirki i Wigury. This is the site of the future junction with the S79.

Home again, after three hours. I set up a long exposure shot on the tripod as our train heads south for Radom. Total cost of journey, Eddie paying half price, was just under 45zł, which relating to Scatts' post about value-for-money anorakism, works out at around three quid an hour for real quality time. Below: Map of our journey (click on it for detail).

Planning this journey was made much easier thanks to PKP's timetable site, found here.

Rainbow over Jeziorki

First day back at work and yet another accident on ul. Puławska forced me to take the back roads home. The sun was setting, the easterly sky dark with rainclouds. Ideal conditions for a rainbow - then lo and behold! there it was. Golden sunshine, golden wheat, glowering sky. A few snaps were in order. Above: The far end of ul. Trombity.

Left: ul. Dumki as it joins ul. Kórnicka. I reckon that crock of gold's somewhere between Dumki and Trombity...

Post-summer holiday note: ul. Kórnicka has had speed bumps installed. Good. This will slow down the rat-runners, who, frustrated at the speed bumps on ul. Trombity, would accelerate as soon as they get round the corner. This new feature means that for the Piaseczno rat-running community (on their WPI plates) there's now no stretch of flat asphalt on the backroads running parallel to choked-up ul. Puławska. Only trouble is, there's no alternative and the public transport's inadequate.

Rainbow of hope

This evening my brother and I attempted again to go for a walk - with his younger son we drove to Belper to see the River Derwent (above) which had burst its banks a few weeks ago. The sky was glowering, the rain beginning to threaten; as we returned to the car, the clouds cleared the west, and low, strong sunlight illuminated the valley. (Below) The resulting rainbow, beautifully framing Belper and the Derwent Valley. Let's hope the passing of the rainclouds means some better weather tomorrow. My sister-in-law tells me that full rainbows are often visible from their house in the evenings - as indeed they are from our house 1,200 miles away. The rainbow was the same size and intensity as this one.

Full rainbow over Jeziorki

After this evening's storm, the sun re-emerged low in the sky to create this wonderful rainbow.

(Left) Zoom shot of the rainbow's end. The photo is unaltered digitally; it really looked this spectacular. For chasers of pots of gold, it seems the rainbow ends on ul. Sarabandy, just in front of the primary school.

I am reminded of the childhood mnemonic 'Richard Of York Gave Battles In Vain' = (infra) Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, (ultra) Violet.