Beautiful May Sunday in Jeziorki

Hot! 25C this afternoon, marvellous weather, caught the sun (research shows that moderate amounts of sunlight are better for health than smothering oneself in sunblock) and walked over 16,000 paces.
The ballast mountain has become a local attraction, if only temporary, it will disappear when the work on the railway line's done. Nothing much new to report, hardly any activity today. A good vantage point, six metres up, to observe trains. Below: a Siemens Vectron engine hauls a full load of coal along the electrified main line past W-wa Jeziorki...

...and through W-wa Dawidy on its way to the Okęcie sidings, from where a diesel loco will haul the train back down the non-electrified line running parallel to the main line to Nowa Iwiczna, from where it swings off towards Konstancin-Jeziorna sidings and Siekierki power station. Below: note the Warsaw skyline, Warsaw Spire (just) visible on the extreme left of the phone and the Palace of Culture to the right. It's only a 25-minute walk from the Spire to the Palace, but the foreshortening effect of a 300mm lens makes them look equidistant from my vantage point. It would take three hours to walk from here to the city centre.

I was sufficiently intrigued by the power of the foreshortening effect to take the photo, below, and to annotate it accordingly, using the ruler tool in Google Earth. The lens, my Nikkor 55-300mm zoom, is set to 150mm (equivalent to 230mm in full-frame/35mm). Photo taken on 5 June 2016.

Below: the new 'down' platform at W-wa Jeziorki slowly taking shape - about a quarter of its length is now paved. I can see this work taking a long time to complete. Once this platform's ready and the 'down' line is complete, the whole process will have to be repeated for the 'up' line and 'up' platform.

Below: a town-bound train at W-wa Dawidy, where no fewer than six cyclists got ofp. The level crossing is totally sealed off. No vehicle (except perhaps scooters or light motorcycles) can make it over. Beneath the red-and-white barriers is an temporary earthwork bridge connecting the old and new platforms; this is the only way from one side of Baletowa to the other. For all other traffic - it's an 8.5km detour. Am I right in suspecting that a bus loop is being prepared by W-wa Dawidy station? And that a new bus route will run down ul. Baletowa once the new junction at Puławska is ready?

Ul. Karczunkowska, the famously unpavemented thoroughfare, is getting fenced in. Below: A new concrete fence appears on the eastern corner with ul. Pozytywki, facing the PWPW printing works. Aesthetically questionable, it will no doubt make walking past cars inconsiderately parked across the road from PWPW more difficult on dark and wet winter nights.

Another fence, below, on the stretch past the eastern corner of ul. Trombity. A new building, probably commercial or industrial, will be built here, so fencing - uglier even than concrete - has been erected. But at least it is temporary.

Below: I mentioned the golf course a few weeks ago - the land beyond Biedronka and scrapyard was fenced off, now it looks like a driving range will shortly open. Still much tidying up needed, but at least this nieużytek is now being put to good use.

Finally - some heartwarming news. The female swan nesting in the wetlands has raised a fine clutch of cygnets! I took a number of snaps, and looking carefully at the enlargements, it looks like at least four cygnets are visible. As I moved into position to take this shot, I startled a pair of grey herons who were wading between me and the swans. As the took off and flew low over the nest, the mother swan gave them a loud warning not to fly too close!

This time last year:
Three days - three Polish cities

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

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

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

This time seven years ago:
Feel like going home

This time eight years ago:
Mr Hare comes to call

Golf in Warsaw: update

This story needs not so much a comment as a follow-up. My initial reaction to the news that a golf course is being built in Jeziorki seems a bit optimistic; a bit like the old Radio Yerevan joke: "Comrade! Is it true they're giving away cars in Red Square?" "Well basically, yes, but the story you heard is not quite correct, Comrade - it's not Red Square but Arbat; it's not cars but bicycles - and they're not giving them away... they're stealing them."

So - what's the scoop on the golf course then? This Google Earth-based image from Marcin Daniecki will give more clarity...

Now, this image (rotated so that west is at the top) suggests that the golf course is occupying about one-third of the area I filled in with tees, fairways and greens. The left-hand side of this image is demarcated by Warsaw's city limits; across that line lies Mysiadło. Now, if Marcin's right, it is unlikely that even a nine-hole pitch-and-putt will fit into this area. May I suggest that it will be a golf driving range? There's less than 200m in any one direction, so I'd go for this.

Especially, as Marcin points out, the factory building within the red perimeter will be knocked down to make way for a 'scenic platform'. All makes sense now.

The Olympic Golf Club in Warsaw's Żoliborz is about this size, the Golf Park across the river in Józefów is a bit bigger, with both driving range and six-hole pitch-and-putt. Nearer to town in Wilanów on ul. Vogla is Golf Parks Poland with a putting green and three-hole pitch-and-putt and driving range. So - nothing even remotely full-size in Warsaw, not even a nine-hole course.

But what will happen in the area with the red question marks? Could still all make room for housing. The land at the bottom of the above pic is still very much agricultural, a tractor was making its way across it this evening, spraying the soil with weedkiller.

Let's have a look at the putative golf course/driving range as it appears today... The soil itself - very post-industrial, with bits of metal, rubber tyre and plastic sticking out. Will need a lot of remediation work doing to bring this up to the standard demanded by golfers.

Signs of recent activity by earth-moving equipment. Biedronka on the horizon, left.

From the south-west corner of the plot; photo taken while balancing on a tree-stump

The industrial building to the left will become a viewing platform?

 All very interesting! This development will be watched closely...

This time two years ago:
Review of Krzysztof Osiejuk's latest book

This time three years ago:
The Shard changes London's skyline

This time four years ago:
In praise of Warsaw's trams

This time five years ago:
Plans for the railway line to Radom
[five years on: still only plans]

The Nearness of Golf to Warsaw

As ever, I can rely on Marcin Daniecki for tip-offs re: local news. And today - what news! The site of the old rampa na kruszywa is to be turned into a golf course. Not a housing development, not a factory, not a municipal waste incineration plant. But a golf course! Hurrah! Obviously I'm not a golfer, but the appearance of a golf course on this post-industrial scrubland is to be welcomed. Manicured greens and well-tended fairways, tees, bunkers, water hazards, all maintained to a high standard, improves the environmental attractiveness of the area.

Below: I have mocked up an aerial photo taken from the latest imagery on Google Earth (dated 17 March 2015) to show the area around W-wa Jeziorki station. Click to enlarge. Note to golfers: this is a rough mock-up based on Ealing Golf Course, one of eight courses within a five-km radius of my former London home. Copy-pasted in Photoshop, I'd guess there'll not be room for a proper full-sized 18-hole course, but nine holes would fit admirably.

I wonder where the clubhouse will be located... and whether it will have fine dining facilities ?

Golfers will be able to come by train or by bus (the 209, which terminates by the station), but knowing the golfing community I'd guess they will come in their large, shiny new cars in order to show off outside the clubhouse car park.

As I wrote the Christmas before last, Poland is seriously under-golfed compared to the UK. The English county of Surrey (1,663km2) is home to 420 golf courses. Poland, a country of 312,679km2 - the size of 188 Surreys - can boast only 20 or so full-size 18-hole golf courses and maybe another ten or so nine-hole ones, according to the owner of Modry Las, one of Poland best (if not the best) courses. According to the Economist, the US has already passed 'peak golf' and the sport is in decline, for demographic and lifestyle reasons. But here in Poland, golf has everything to play for as society becomes richer and older.

Since the rampa was levelled with the ground, southern Jeziorki has been developing in a way I thoroughly approve of. The new Lidl and Biedronka, a garden centre (Szkółki Zamojskie), tennis on Karczunkowska - and under construction across the fields in Mysiadło - the European Tennis Training Centre. And what then of the fields between Jeziorki and Mysiadło? How about a dressage and showjumping centre? [Over in Mysiadło, a motor-sports centre has been established, with a rally cross circuit and some jumps for motorcycle scramblers. I don't know whether this has been formally approved, or whether local enthusiasts have adopted a corner of the abandoned collective farm (PGR Mysiadło) for their noisy activities.]

Posh sports, leisure and retail. All of which will make Jeziorki an even more attractive place to live. I look forward to welcoming Jeziorki golf course to our neighbourhood. All that's needed is a pavement for Karczunkowska...

This time two years ago:
The selective economic memory of Prezes Kaczyński

This time three years ago:
The British electrical plug and socket reigns supreme

This time four years ago: This time last year:
Easter, and the end of Lent

This time five years ago:
That Icelandic volcano (anyone remember what it was called?)

This time six years ago:
Views of Historic Toruń

This time seven years ago:
One swallow does not a summer make

Is Britain over-golfed?

My stroll today around Duffield was diverted when I came to this notice, which has not been here in past years. The Chevin golf club has put up signs preventing walkers from crossing its land, though for decades there has been a public right of way. Health and Safety, the new god that must be obeyed - one stray ball, one pedestrian struck in the head (or maybe a near-miss) and the walking public is now barred from this path. What was particularly annoying was that this path was dry, unlike the alternative, which would have involved me getting ankle-deep in mud.

SAFETY STRICTLY NO ADMITTANCE GOLFERS ONLY

On the plane to England, I read in BA's High Life magazine about how much of England is now covered in golf-course. The English county of Surrey (1,663km2), the article said, is now home to 420 golf courses. (Poland, by contrast, a country of 312,679km2 - the size of 188 Surreys - can boast only 20 full-size golf courses and maybe another ten or so nine-hole ones.)

But Surrey is not the most intensively golfed English county. The record holder here is Merseyside, where over 2.5% of its surface is actually covered in golf course. Although the High Life article did not have access to data from all English counties (Scotland, home of the sport, was not included), the conclusion was that around 1% of England lies under fairway, bunker or green.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Golf courses are well-maintained, their groundsmen stewards of the countryside, ensuring the grassland, hedgerows, coppices, ponds and streams thrive sustainably, buttresses against the onward march of housing, shopping malls, roads and assorted eyesores. Golf courses offer the chance of exercise to large numbers of middle-aged people who'd otherwise be flopped out in front of the telly and thus burden the health service.

On the other hand, golf courses are aesthetically unnatural; they can deprive walkers of access to the countryside, they are haunts of middle-class folk who drive miles in their SUVs around narrow country lanes to enjoy the privilege of knocking a golf-ball about. Badly needed housing cannot be developed because so much land is owned by golf clubs.

On balance then... taking all the above factors into consideration... (and speaking as someone who's obviously not a golfer, who's not swung a club for over 16 years)... a good thing. I would certainly like to see far more golf courses appear across Poland - and not just exclusive clubs, but ones set up and run by local authorities, as in England, where the sport is far less elitist than in Poland.

Before swapping London's suburbia for Warsaw, our house found itself within 5km of no fewer than eight golf courses, public and private, 9- and 18-hole (Perivale Park, Ealing, Brent Valley, West Middlesex, Horsenden Hill, Sudbury, Northolt and Hangar Hill).

If Poland were to have the same saturation of golf courses as Surrey, it would need another 80,000 golf courses. Having said that, half of Surrey's golf courses are under water as I write...

As I turned back into Duffield to walk along urban pavements rather than rural footpaths, a fluorescent-yellow golf ball whizzed past my ear, sailing over the wall of an adjacent house, then rolling down the lawn into the flower bed. I decided not to tell the golfer where his ball had landed and continued with my walk. "You're obviously not a golfer..."

This time two years:
Everybody's out on the road today

This time three years ago:
50% off and nothing to pay till June 2016