The Marian month of May

May in the Catholic calendar is the month of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the villages that lie just beyond Warsaw's borders, there are many roadside shrines to Our Lady. We have a few close to Jeziorki - in Zamienie, in Zgorzala - and this one, pictured above in Łady (pronounced 'Wuddy'). The shrines are decorated with flags and bunting (in the Marian colours of sky-blue and white), or, in this case, simply flowers. At this time of the evening, you may well see a group of (mostly) women from the local parish singing hymns to the Virgin. Below is the Marian shrine at Zamienie, a village notable for the fact that it was home to a vaccine plant built in the early 1950s. The factory has now gone, the site is awaiting redevelopment. Many new homes will be built here.

Hissing of the summer lawns

Although there's no drought - last week brought thunderclouds and mid-afternoon downpours ever other day, the greenery is beginning to lose its mid-May hues and yellow tinges are beginning to appear. In the picture below, the yellowing edges of the lawn are evident. The answer - lawn sprinklers. Early today, our children returned hot and tired after a bike ride, and refreshed themselves by lying on the lawn under the sprinklers. In the evening the water brings relief - there was no rain today, despite the magnificent clouds brewing up to the east of us.

Late May reflections

A week on from Thomas Bewick's "most beautiful day" and the year has turned; the air is hot and sultry, the grass decidedly yellower than a week ago, swarms of insects (thankfully not biting ones) infest the air. More summer than spring now, nature is mature, fecund. Warsaw is full of seeding poplars, their white down blowning into urban corners like snow. Not much around Jeziorki, nor of poppies, much in evidence around the city's green verges. Here, cornflower in blossom is the predominant sight.

In the UK, the cornflower is endangered due to overuse of herbicides. Here, it is abundant. Above and below are two fields on ul. Sarabandy, the road running parallel to ul. Trombity.

Like ul. Trombity, ul. Sarabandy has the same mix of suburban and rural and is a charming street to walk down at dusk, the air full of the scents and sounds of summer.

Present rising, future loading

Today I had to take an early morning train to Poznan. Outside Warsaw's Central station, I snapped this pic (below) of the newly-opened Zloty Tarasy development lit by the rising sun, with a shadowy Stalinist-era Palace of Culture in the background.

Symbolic. The future is loading.

The year's most beautiful day?

18th/19th century English naturalist, Thomas Bewick, claimed after many years of observation, that May 18 was the most beautiful day of the year in England. His day may well be correct for Poland too. After the cold snap that happens around St. Sophia's Day (15 May), the weather usually improves. Yesterday was fine - today perfect. Everything is in leaf, the greenery of nature fresh, unburnt by the sun, yet it's warm enough to be T-shirt weather.

Today's walk took me to the southern fringes of Jeziorki, to Warsaw's boundaries with Mysiadlo. Below is the pond on ul. Pozytywki, where I saw a grey heron as well as the usual ducks and black-headed gulls.

Further on, across the fields south of ul. Katarynki, I could see the derelict buildings of the old state collective tomato farm in Mysiadlo (below), which will soon be developed into new homes. The size of the development (80 or so hectares, I estimate) means several hundred more cars joining the morning and evening rush-hours in and out of Warsaw.

Twilight time

Yesterday's walk, setting off half an hour before sunset, getting home half an hour after sunset, left impressions of the perfect spring evening, the air full of the scent of May flowers, cleaned by the day's earlier thunderstorms. The road reflects the light of the twilit sky, streetlights come on, the night beckons. Trombity at its very finest.

The sky, after the sun has cleared the horizon, continues to be sufficiently luminescent to make photography still possible. Trombity is at its most charming soon after sunset, from May through to early September.

(Above) Trombity's 'silver birch house'. Ground-level lighting, an immaculate lawn and an impressive stand of birches make this the street's - indeed Jeziorki's - visually most impressive and beautiful front garden.

Got to get ourselves back to the garden

Above: The view from our kitchen window, Sunday morning. There's something about being in the kitchen which triggers past life memories; America or Scandinavia, in the 1940s and 50s. I have the rare privilege in living in the exact place of my chosing; was I drawn here by a strong sense of "I've been here - this is familiar - yet I've never been here". Our kitchen - oaken cabinet units and the aroma of coffee, is the spot where more frequently than wherever else I find myself aware of having lived before and indeed of living a blessed afterlife.

Agricultural progress

Yesterday evening and this morning, the field next door was being sprayed with something. It is interesting to see just how fast the crop has come up in the six weeks since the seeds were sown.

Below: Click here to compare the same field viewed from my bedroom window on 2 April.