London icon

On my way to a meeting on Thursday, I had the chance to cross Tower Bridge - one of London's many truly iconic landmarks (Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, etc). At the time it was built, 112 years ago it might have looked kitch, trying hard to blend in with the medieval Tower of London next to it. Below: Detail from the wrought ironwork on the northern approaches to the bridge - evidence of the fierce municipal pride of the Corporation of the City of London. In its heyday, the bridge spanned the River of Empire; its solid bulwarks and batiments the gateway to the Pool of London.

Early spring in London

Although taken in early February, these crocuses on my parents' lawn in London have been in flower for the best part of a week. The daffodils will bloom any day.

Spring is always much earlier here than in Warsaw; this year, the Frost Gods have been indolent in bringing us a proper winter. So while this year spring will lag behind London, it will no doubt be much earlier than usual in Warsaw.

And people still doubt the fact that global warming is upon us. Although I miss a decent frosty winter, I'm delighted that our gas bill will be much lower than it was in 2006, when it was so high it near-ruined our summer holiday!

From the family archive

At my parents' in London. My parents have been looking through their old photographs, and this one (right) caught their eye.

My mother, then 18 years old, receiving her teacher training diploma from General Anders, Nazareth, June 1946.

Along with her family, she was deported on 10 February 1940 from her home in Wołyń (then eastern Poland, today in Ukraine). Along with around 140,000 Polish citizens rounded up and deported that day, my mother's family was transported deep into Russia and resettled in a labour camp. My mother was 12 years old at the time.

Having left the USSR with Anders' army after the "amnesty" granted by Stalin to Poles in August 1941, my mother travelled through Iran (then Persia), via Iraq to Israel (then Palestine). She stayed in the Middle East throughout the war, studying, and arrived in Britain in 1947.

Taking off from Okecie

A lovely shot from a LOT Boeing 737, a minute or so after departure from Warsaw's Okecie. The view takes in the lakes at Rybie and Raszyn; we can see where al. Krakowska splits and Janki, where one road heads south for Krakow and the other south-west to Katowice and Wroclaw. The pancake-flat nature of Mazowsze's landscape is clearly visible.

Crowded skies over Europe

I like to fly to the UK in a south-facing window seat (during daylight hours). At 30,000 ft, above the clouds, the view is quite sublime. Flying out on Monday morning, northern Europe under ten/tenths cloud cover, the view from the plane is akin to looking out over Arctic snowfields. The skies are getting crowded. The horizon is busy with air traffic. Above: A WizzAir Airbus A320 heading for Warsaw passes us going the other way. Below: An eastbound Boeing 737 passes (at a somewhat more comfortable distance). But what's that other aircraft crossing its path?

Below: A sequence of maximally blown-up enlargements of the mystery aircraft that climbed rapidly from under our flight path and above the Boeing's one. The order in which they were taken was top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right. My guess is that the plane is either a Eurofighter Typhoon or a Dassault Rafale. The third picture (a blow-up of the photo above) shows the plane dramatically altering its angle of attack, a manoeuvre that a civil jetliner would be unable to perform.

I spoke too soon!

Hah hah! Looks like I got it wrong. Just six hours after taking the photos in the previous post, it starts snowing. The temperature falls by 3C to +0.8C; the snow settles on the lawn and on the fields, but not on the paving or asphalt. Tomorrow I'm flying off to London for five days on business; I trust the flight will not be delayed as a result of this snowfall. 

Right: Our garden from outside the kitchen window; compare to these the third and fourth shots from this post; below: garden from my bedroom window; compare to photos in previous post. (Note: I managed to stitch these two together into one panorama, impossible with those clouds!)

 

No sign of winter returning

Poland is said to be a country of six seasons, with both autumn and spring divided into two distinct sub-seasons. Autumn is composed of 'babie lato' or 'złota jesień' (both names denoting a continuation of warm, dry summer weather into late September and October), and then the leaves fall from the trees, the weather gets wet and sleety, the day shortens drastically, while we await the first frosts and snowfalls of winter proper. Similarly before spring proper arrives, we have a sub-season called 'przednówek' or 'przedwiośnie'; the snow and frost has gone, but there's no sign of nature bursting into life yet.

Above: The view from my room this morning. A touch of blue sky to lift the late-January gloom.

This is where our seasons have got to this year. The snows were brief and mild. Since mid-January, the daytime temperature has been well above average, indeed, I'd be surprised if this doesn't turn out to be the warmest winter in Warsaw since records began.

The blue sky in the two photos above has come and gone, greyness has rushed in. Planes coming into Okęcie are landing from over Ursynów (Runway 29), as they do when the wind is directly from the west, rather than over Jeziorki (Runway 33), when there's a prevailing north-westerly wind.

Another old-school shop in Warsaw

Across the road from Warsaw's Sheraton Hotel is a cooperative food store that goes under the Społem brand, (indeed one of over 4,000 such shops around Poland). Społem, or to give its full name, the National Supervision Union of Consumer Co-operatives (KZRSS) "Społem", is a real throw-back to the old days.

Well, there are still Co-ops in the UK, so I won't labour the anachronism point. But once upon a time, Społem was the state monopolist on all food retailing. Well do I remember entering these shops in the 1980s. All that was available was vinegar, matches, baking soda, parcel string, scouring powder, bottles of fizzy mineral water with rusty caps... er, that's it. Things changed; foreign players - Tesco, Carrefour, Real, Biedronka and dozens of others entered the Polish market, but Społem is still with us.

Let's analyse the shop front. A sign says POLECAMY MROŻONKI (WE RECOMMEND FROZEN PRODUCE). Potential customers are wooed with the come-hither slogan: WARZYWA OWOCE W CIĄGŁEJ SPRZEDAŻY (FRUIT VEGETABLES ON SALE CONTINUOUSLY). A hand-written sign announces January's key name-days; an aide memoire to persuade the local Eugeniuszes, Bogumiłas and Rajmunds (and friends thereof)* to pop in for a celebratory box of Ptasie Mleczko. This gauche lack of retail sophistication is rather nice to see these days.

There's much charm in these post-communist throwbacks; Warsaw would be a duller city without them. Click here for another old-school Warsaw shopping experience.

* These first names are almost exclusive to Poland's over-70s.