Lasopole, west of Chynów

"...find a new path. As you learn about where you are, new paths will take you further and further afield; the paths closer to home you will have trodden many times already." This advice, offered to me [see previous post], I followed.

"Learning where you are" - deep local topographical insight. Knowing instinctively each path, each field, each waypoint; knowing how to navigate even in the dead of night; intimate appreciation of the land upon which you tread. "Further and further afield" - constantly extending the boundaries of that deep knowledge.

And so, I walked to the nearest point from my działka beyond which I have not yet walked. This is the path running parallel to the DK 50, which then turned left into the village of Lasopole (population 84). I've not been here before - neither on foot nor by motorbike. Below, a view of Droga krajowa nr. 50, the southern part of Warsaw's de facto ring-road - as it rises above the embankment, just one lane in each direction. At the top of the hill, go down to to the next crossroads and turn left.

Below: having turned south away from the DK 50, a zig-zag road leads into Lasopole. There's a well-invested orchard to the right, complete with hailstorm netting. But as I'll come to see, the land between Lasopole and Drwalew, the next village to the west, is home to few orchards; the landscape is to take on an entirely different appearance...

Below: this wayside chapel stands at the centre of Lasopole. The road running off on the left soon loses its asphalt and turns into a footpath running through a field, ending up by the Czarna river. Sadly no convenient crossing over it to connect (even a small footbridge) to the centre of Chynów.

[Update 6 February 2024: I discover that though no online map, not even OpenStreetMap, shows this, there's a fallen concrete post placed across the Czarna, allowing pedestrians to cross in relative safety.]

Below: looking south from the centre of Lasopole, a long straight road leading to the old DK 50, that carried all the east-west traffic transiting central Poland before the bypass was opened in 2009. A different landscape beckons. 

Below: looking west towards Drwalew and the remaining buildings of the PGR (state farm). Large fields - not narrow strips; the corn crop has been partially harvested. The PGR works the land to a different scale than the local farmers' smallholdings. Hundred-hectare (250-acre) fields like this are rare in Mazovia, where, according to Poland's agriculture ministry, the average farm size is 8.9 hectares.

Below: medium-tension electricity lines leading towards the buildings of the PGR.

In the 1920s, this used to be a large estate belonging to one French landowner, aptly, a M. Longchamps (lit. 'Longfield' or 'Długopole'); he sold it in 1928 to a successful Polish pharmacist, Stanisław Klawe, who established a pharmaceutical plant on part of the property. After the war the pharma plant was nationalised to become Biowet, a manufacturer of veterinary medicines; the surrounding lands were collectivised as PGR Drwalew rather than be broken up into smallholdings. Below: the road from the wayside chapel at Lasopole to the old DK 50 forms the eastern boundary of the PGR.

Googling PGR Drwalew, I discover that the Polish state still has thousands of state-owned farms on its books - there are ten of them registered in Grójec poviat (county) alone! [Full list here for download as an Excel file.] Seven are state horticultural farms (Państwowe Gospodarstwa Ogrodnicze); two are state fish farms (Państwowe Gospodarstwa Rybackie); PGR Drwalew is the only classic arable farm in Grójec poviat in the Stalinist sense of agriculture - land owned and worked by the state.

Interestingly, three of the PGRs ('Danko HR') are part of a state-owned company, Danko Hodowla Roślin Sp. z o.o., belonging to the National Support Centre for Agriculture, of special importance for national agriculture, focused on breeding new varieties and the production of seeds. PGR Drwalew, however, has no such 'special importance' status. 

According to the Chynów gmina (commune) website, PGR Drwalew was connected to the town sewerage system in early 2019, and was at that time home to over 200 people (Drwalew's total population is around 900). Other than that, there's no mention of ths PGR online. Below: the gmina's official map, showing land ownership. PGR Drwalew is marked in pink, note how surrounding plots of land, privately owned, are far smaller...

Below: the old DK 50 between Drwalew and Chynów; since the bypass opened, it's very quiet here, only local traffic, which is good, as I have to walk this road all the way into Chynów (from the bottom right of the pink field in the map above). Cars were mercifully rare, and being local traffic, drivers tended to treat a pedestrian on the verge with due respect, slowing down and indicating.

Below: after the apple harvest, it's time to cut down old orchards before they become unproductive - typically nine growing seasons. Five rows of trees have been removed, roots and all (wykarczowanie) on the corner of ulica Działkowa and ul. Słoneczna, Chynów, yielding completely new vistas. It's a sudden shock, when a view that you've been used to for years changes. Old familiarity evaporates.

Below: back home, looking up the street towards my house, up the hill and into the trees. Solid fuel being burnt to warm homes.

I realise that it is six years since I bought my działka. Good to be far from the madding crowd, far from the hustle and bustle of a society hell-bent on sales and consumption. Scale back, withdraw, and slow down. De-materialise. 

Twelve kilometres walked today.

This time last year:
On etymology

This time two years ago:
Free will, determinism, and the supernatural

This time three years ago:
Hammer of Darkness cubed

This time five years ago:
Magic day, in and around Jakubowizna

This time six years ago:
Warsaw-London-Ealing

This time eight years ago:
With my father and brother in Derbyshire

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

This time 13 years ago:
Setting sun in the mountains

This time 14 years ago:
That learning moment

Fully automatic - intuitive intelligence

On the train to Wrocław, I partake of the diner car on the basis of use it or lose it - a place where for under £10 I can have a meal freshly cooked, served on china with steel cutlery with a craft ale. Having lunched, I return to my seat for the rest of the journey, and drift off into a reverie... Something tells me to take out my laptop and listen. I do so. 

And here, pretty much unredacted (the odd punctuation mark inserted here and there), though my interface, is my automatic writing [unlike this story, where I turned the channelled words into a short story] is as it came. My fingers fly across the keyboard, like an electronic Ouija board:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

{{ And let it go and let it flow and let the voices of the waves sweep along the tidal floor. True, it goes where it wants; it will take you to the old pear tree, under which moonbeams gather. To seek them, to touch them is to offer up old ways of being and cut loose old formal tethers. Motivated by moonlight, I close the door on those old ways. They have become increasingly redundant, clawed back by new realities. Water and warmth; that is important. Life sustaining life, thought begetting thought, endlessly. Truth is within grasp, being open to it allows one to sample its embrace. Machines, on which we have become dependent, may come and go, but life – the life that wants to live, the life that wants to be lived, will find a way. Are you ready?

On that moonlit night, find a new path. As you learn about where you are, new paths will take you further and further afield; the paths closer to home you will have trodden many times already. Check the winter moon – when it waxes full, when nights are long, let it guide you to the first new path you have yet to take. Where will it take you? Serene, thoughtful, alert. Energised by fields of thought from those who have passed on, true reflections upon that which leaves its mark. 

The sky holds clues – watch it diligently. Partake of it. Understand that you are of it, that it made you. And to it ultimately you will return. What is meant, what is sought? Enough people have asked, enough have fought and died. Ambitions stifle; be still. Directions at each crossroads will be offered to you. Choose not your path by force; flow. It is easy. It is easier than thinkers have painted it! Guidance is free, it permeates the Cosmos. Settle upon the way, it is bright. Life begets life, thought begets thought. Curiosity without gestures, but seek not alone. Others are seeking too – look out for them. Walk by their side.

Memories are milestones upon your way, fruitful recollection brings meaning to being. And so the paradox – the faster time flies, the stronger the sense of fulfilment of that which was meant to happen. Connection – try to stay connected; it is true, life distracts in many ways. Sparkle like reflections upon the waves, the sun just above yet far away.

Fold away that which folds easily, branches brush against you as you pass. Drop ballast, reject the conformity that moulds to a shape that rolls not. Eagerness is something not to lose, but eagerness to please is. Find earthy goodness, if it is not around you, move to where you can plunge your fingers into soil. As the sky, so the earth. Fertile, pleasing, generative, hopeful. 

Concentric thoughts rippling from you touches upon concentric thoughts from other seekers. Mark your way as you go. Increase in gratitude, for it multiplies the graces bestowed upon you by fate. Different words when your hair is grey, different words when you are young. Restlessness settles, new landscapes beckon on your doorstep, ridge after ridge unto the river. Upon the plain there is calm, a quiet that is lacking in the towns of your youth.

Consume effort on concentration. Don’t give up when distraction tugs; distraction is not a fork in the road but a hole into which you stumble. Tread lightly and be sparing in your material demands. 

Connections appear and disappear – observe them as such. Patterns will repeat, they might whisper, they might shout. They are there to be noticed; the tunnel in space and time through which you pass is lined with them, patterns of all shapes and of all sizes. Guides and mirrors they are, new ways of considering that which you have considered before. 

Do not worry unduly. }}

Dictated on this day, between Lubliniec and Brzeg.

This time two years ago:
A deeply spiritual experience
[Andy and I were shooting historical weapons again last Friday!]

This time three years ago:

Poland experiences its first wave of Covid

This time six years ago:
Gliwice's new station

This time eight years ago:
Reanimated - my father's car 

This time nine years ago:
Defending Poland against hybrid warfare 

This time ten years ago:
Another office move

This time 12 years ago:
PiS splits again - Solidarna Polska formed 

This time 13 years ago:
Tesco vs. Auchan

[Since then Tesco has left Poland and I'm boycotting Auchan - let its owners choke on their fucking roubles.]

This time 16 years ago:
My father's house

On human failings

Student SGH's latest blog post has prompted me to respond. And so (at last!) I'm publishing a post that I've been putting off writing for several days – a post about procrastination and attention deficit.

It occurred to me that one reason I find completing tasks difficult – particularly when I'm not facing any external deadline – is that my mind tends to wander off to something more interesting, more curious, more affecting. Then off I go, at a tangent. [Since starting to write this I've been distracted by a dozen small tasks, each getting in my way.]

It's this trait that I wanted to write about, in particular when combined with certain traits found along the autism spectrum, namely nerdish RRBI (repetitive and restricted behaviours and interests). 

As I've written before, I believe that most of us live our lives affected to a certain degree by one psychiatric spectrum or another, whether it's autism/Asperger's, ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, narcissism, schizophrenia etc – in most cases well below the threshold for diagnosis. And these traits can co-exist – two or more, at low levels, low enough not to be picked up by the casual observer - or indeed, even by the subject. [This case shows how difficult it is even for healthcare specialists to spot the symptoms in themselves.] 

Looking at my life, my education, my career, my personal life, I can now look back and identify how my inability to focus has held me back from reaching my own internally-set goals and ambitions. However, having said that, to balance it out, the RRBI has been helpful in narrowing down fields of interest. 

And here I return to the great question I've often asked, regarding specialists vs. generalists, the former being more likely to be on the autism spectrum, the latter having a degree of attention deficit. My father used to tell me off as a child for trzymanie zbyt wielu srok za ogon – literally, holding too many magpies by the tail – rather than focusing on, and completing, one task.

So the two tendencies - one being the pursuit of specific and narrow areas of interest, the other being a tendency to lose focus and wander off – lead to my main characteristic – inconsistency. Straying between "That was really good!" and "That was crap." 

Because my mind does indeed wander, it takes me longer to get things done; it takes me longer to learn. I now realise, aged 66, why it's taken me so long to acquire a deep understanding of those things I deeply understand – and how to communicate my understanding of them. But then again, this returns me to my threads about longevity. A long life of life-long learning will allow you to gain deeper knowledge of individual topics (if you are a scatter-shot generalist), or broader knowledge across a wider range of topics (if you are a focused specialist).

Masking one's behavioural failings requires good self-knowledge, emotional intelligence, and the ability to read how people see you. [One set of autism-spectrum traits that I lack is the inability to empathise or socialise. So just the RRBI. And the ADHD trait that I lack is the hyperactivity. Just the attention deficit.] During my socialisation period (age 10-50), the RRBI was kept in check, so that I'd fit in. Don't talk to girls about trains. Now, I'm less bothered to mask. I am as I am.

But then there's another trait - and I'd argue a character-neutral one – that keeps (lost focus again, time to make some breakfast)... [Two conference calls and some office work later, I finally get round to finishing this post, and realise I forgot how I intended to finish this sentence.]

So – what do I consider to be the worst human trait? 

Psychopathic/sociopathic behaviour, especially when presented in conjunction with narcissism. 

Which human beings are doing most damage to humanity right now, in the past, and – unless restrained by societies – in the future? Egotistical psychopaths, megalomaniacs using murderous force to get their way. If only Putin and Xi had been hamstrung in life by chronic procrastination! [But then some other evil bastard would have got to run those two systems; I'd have to move on from psychology to political science...]

I have worked with and for psychopaths – ultra-competitive, heartless, ruthless bastards, trampling over human lives, over the people who find themselves working for them, who have to endure stress, humiliation, job loss – and all because one man (and it's nearly always a man) has personal wealth-and-power goals to meet. And most psychopaths are highly skilled at masking these traits. Fortunately, such people are far fewer in number than procrastinators. Unfortunately, the psychopaths tend to gravitate toward (or rather push themselves into) positions of power, using power to enrich themselves, and using those riches to buy more power. This is the worst human trait. Until we fully understand the ladder of authority, and turn the hierarchy that's innate in mammalian societies into networks built upon consensus, we will have to live with psychopaths ruling over us.

Procrastinators won't push the nuclear button. 

About procrastinators, I worry not.

This time last year:
Sunny Sunday meditations

This time seven years ago:
To Dawidy Bankowe, Łady, Zamienie and back

This time 12 years ago:
Town planning and the Sublime Aesthetic

This time 13 years ago:
On the long road from Zero to One

This time 14 years ago:
Łódź Rising

Early-November reflections

I decided that my cemetery visit yesterday wouldn't be to Chynów, but to Rososz - a longer (14,000 paces there and back) walk, but to a smaller, quieter and newer cemetery, surrounded by forest. The parish church was built in 1985, the earliest graves in this cemetery dates back to the late 1980s. Time to come to reflect in the stillness, upon life and death. I set off at half past three, planning to arrive shortly after sunset.

These two photos represent the whole cemetery, with one row of graves behind me. Rososz itself has a population of 75 residents (2018 data), surrounding villages (Rososzka, Dobiecin, Jurandów and Zbyszków) maybe another 300 more. There is a third of a century's worth of graves here right now - I wonder how the cemetery will look in ten, in twenty years' time.

Below: from the edge of Adamów Rososki, looking west towards Jakubowizna and a setting sun. On the outward leg of my walk - I returned in total darkness, much of the way through the forest.

Below: the same place, across the street, a day later. Machcin II to the left, Jakubowizna straight on, Adamów Rososki to the right.

It's that time of year when apple traffic is at its most intensive. Below: tractor hauling two trailers loaded with fruit heading south from Adamów Rososki to the nearest punkt skupu (point of purchase). 

I have been getting into the habit of going to bed at 10pm and rising at 6am. This gives me back that hour of daylight that the weekend's time-change has stolen from us all. So a morning walk is all the more pleasurable. Below: the trackside road, Chynów, one of the XII Canonical prospects, half an hour or so after sunrise...

...and half an hour or so after sunset. I love this place.

Further walk in the forest. In the distance I see some red discs - my immediate assumption was that these were discarded children's toys. As I got closer - I see large toadstools. The white 'warts' are are remnants of the membrane that enclosed the entire mushroom when young.

This time four years ago:

Autumn moods, Ealing

This time five years ago
Walks in the early-November sun

This time eight years ago:
Foggy evening, London

This time nine year:
Kraków - Europe's top short-break destination 

This time 11 years ago:
Rzeczpospolita publishes infamous 'trotyl' Smolensk story

This time 12 years ago:
Wilanowska - south Warsaw transport hub

This time 14 years ago:
Powiśle on a cold, clear autumn morning

This time 15 years ago:
Okęcie "to remain Warsaw's only airport"

This time 16 years ago:
Searching for autumnal perfection

On Death.

All Hallows' Eve, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead. My mother died on this day eight years ago, my father died on 29 October four years ago. I am also minded at this time of the boys from my Polish scout troop (3. Londyńska Drużyna Harcerska Błękitna Trójka), all born within a few years of me, who have already died, way too young. 

How we cope with the concept of death depends totally on our worldview. Those who would class themselves as rational materialists, holding that there is nothing but matter, and that death is a final snuffing out, would, I imagine, have a harder time coping than those who sense greater forces at play.

My worldview is based on the assumption that consciousness is the fundamental property of the Universe; spacetime and matter are emergent properties of consciousness - not the other way around. This is grounded in interpretations of quantum mechanic, which posit that consciousness is necessary for the collapse of the wave function - that until a conscious observer looks at the outcome, a photon is both a wave and a particle. When the Universe began, it required a consciousness to observe it, I would intuit.

My assumption is that consciousness survives death, though stripped of the ego and other biological markers. Consciousness returns into the panpsychic unity of everything; and from here, my personal subjective experience would suggest a new bodily incarnation that will also glimpse past lives through flashbacks and dreams. These are just strong, frequent and familiar enough to make me sense that this represents the continuation of consciousness beyond biological death.

Now, most of us remember our childhood and our adolescent years, despite the fact that our brains are made up of entirely new material to that which lived out those memories. In a similar way, my life-long flashbacks and dreams give me reason to believe that such anomalous memories were first experienced by my consciousness but in another biological vessel.

Near-death experiences are frequently reported by people who have returned from clinical death (including by my mother after her first heart attack); these NDEs also serve to suggest that slipping from biological life is a pleasant experience. Yet for many near-death experiencers, it is vastly more; a view beyond the veil.

Even if you are of the materialist mindset, you can still take comfort from the fact that after bodily death, after the moment that the vital life-force leaves the biological entity it had inhabited - not a single atom stops its motion. Yes, complex molecules will eventually breakdown as the body decays or is cremated, but bear in mind the lifetime of the hydrogen atom (posited to be 10¹⁶⁰ years). Which is 54 orders of magnitude further in the future than the heat-death of the Universe (a mere 10¹⁰⁶ years away), so no worries. there. And given that 63% of all the atoms in your body are hydrogen, that's nearly two thirds of them that will see out the end of the Cosmos. Not bad, eh? Even materialists must concede that they will be survived by atoms - can those be vectors carrying consciousness forward? 

Panpsychists will hold that consciousness evolves, it orchestrates, gaining in complexity - so I am ready to believe (though I cannot prove) that future incarnations of my consciousness will be more aware, more understanding, and I'd even say morally improved (if we can equate God with Good). Biological evolution is a scientific certainty - I would posit that spiritual evolution is real, through the continuous cycle of rebirth of our eternal consciousness as it slips into yet another body as it passes by, along the eternal journey from Zero to One.

As I get older and wiser, my fear of death as an absolute snuffing out, followed by a nothingness that I cannot even experience, is fading. The actual state of death scares me not - it's just getting there - the frailties of old age, the indignity of disease, especially dementia. That is frightening. Exercise and diet are all-important to maintain health as long as possible.

This time two years ago:
Improvements on the Radom line

This three years ago:
Rural rights of way, revisited

This time four years ago:

Cause of death

This time five years ago:
Opole in the late-October sunshine

This time six years ago:
Work begins in earnest on the Karczunkowska viaduct

This time eight years ago:
Sublime autumn day in Jeziorki

This time nine years ago:
CitytoCity, MalltoMall

This time ten years ago:
(Internet) Radio Days

This time 11 years ago:
Another office move

This time 12 years ago:
Manufacturing a City of Culture

This time 13 years ago:
My thousandth post

This time 14 years ago:
Closure of ul. Poloneza

This time 15 years ago:
Scenes from a suburban petrol station

October's benign end

With the exception of one day when the temperature just before dawn neared zero, it's been a warm October - yesterday's daytime high was 18C. On my walk, it was warm enough to cause me to stop, remove my jacket and shirt to take off the t-shirt under them before dressing again. Today has also been clement with a 17C high. Checking my electricity use on the działka, I see that not having to heat the house for nearly all of October means that I am nicely on target from getting energy costs down to zero (balanced with output from my solar panels).

So - let's get out and about and revel in the splendour of the autumn sun... Below: the sun is low in the afternoon sky, between the trees of the forest north-east of Dąbrowa Duża.

Below: the road from Machcin II towards Dąbrowa Duża and Rososz beyond.

Below: the road from Adamów Rososki to Machcin II.

Below: mushroom time - the gatherers are out in force, but here are the toadstools that no one picks.

Canonical Prospect of Jakubowizna - the row of birches where the orchards give way to the forest.

And back at home - beautiful colours.

"Doo-doo-doo, lookin' out my back door" - the forest next door from the rear balcony.

Fingers crossed for more fine autumnal weather.

This time last year:
Disclosure day tomorrow?
[More like 26 July 2023!]

This time two years ago:
Coping with time change (go to bed an hour earlier!)

This time three years ago:
A sustainable food system for rural Poland

This time four years ago:
Sifting through a life

This time six years ago:
Throwing It All Away

This time seven years ago:
Hammer of Darkness falls on us again

This time eight years ago:
The working week with the clocks gone back

This time ten years:
Slowly on the mend after calf injury

This time 11 years ago:
Thorunium the Gothick

This time 12 years ago:
Łódź Widzew or Widź Łódzew 

This time 14 years ago:
A touch of frost in the garden

Cross-country train-travel tales

It would seem simple enough - to get from Chynów to Rzeszów without having to go up to Warsaw, then down to Kraków, then across to Rzeszów. I consult rozklad-pkp.pl. Indeed - there is an alternative - I could go Chynów-Radom-Lublin-Rzeszów. Not bad. Except I'd have to waste a hour and half waiting in Radom for the Lublin train and over two hours in Lublin waiting for the Rzeszów train. 

And then, by accident while waiting for a train home on Wednesday, I glanced at a printed timetable on the platform at Piaseczno station... I could get from Warka all the way down to Przeworsk, and from there it's just a short hop on a local train to Rzeszów. And I'd be there three hours earlier. And the ticket is cheaper - so why isn't the PKP website showing such a possibility?

And so, having bought my tickets online, I leave home at quarter past six, catch the local 06:31 Koleje Mazowieckie train from Chynów to Warka (on time), then jump on the Witos InterCity service from Warsaw to Przemyśl, due in Warka at 07:03. All good. Below: here is the Witos drawing into Warka station, three minutes late, having left W-wa Gdańska at 06:16. The train is just three carriages long.

Is there a catch? Well, two, catches actually. The first is that he old-school loco-hauled rolling stock (clean, I must say) lacks a buffet car. So sandwiches, fruit, and a thermos of tea from home were needed for the journey. Not a proper alternative to a lunch cooked on the train and served with a craft ale. The second is that the track modernisation works between Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski and Sandomierz, meant to have been finished in early September, are still ongoing - which mean a replacement bus service between those two towns. 

The train passes through Radom, then swings round Skarżysko-Kamienna, diverting off the main line to Kielce and Kraków to head south-east. Below: view from the back carriage of the junction outside Skarżysko-Kamienna. The main station is off to the left, the line to Radom and Warsaw off to the right.

Below: the Witos ends the first part of its journey - everyone out! Many passengers were Ukrainians heading home with heavy bags - dragging them over the footbridge wasn't convenient.

Below: the front of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski station, with the second bus being prepared for departure (photo taken from the first bus which has just pulled out). 

Below: crossing the Vistula by (railway replacement service) bus. Lovely moody landscape.

Over the Vistula, in the industrial part of Sandomierz well away from its charming old town and castle, lies its railway station. And here, our two railway replacement buses arrived, an hour or so after leaving Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. Below: another loco-hauled set - this time with just two carriages - waiting for passengers to make their way from the buses. 

The rest of the journey passed without hitch, though progress was slow - the standard of track is well below that now enjoyed by the Warsaw-Radom line. I popped out at Przeworsk to have a look around (a pretty nondescript town, to be honest), and then returned to the station for onward travel to Rzeszów. Below: the town hall; the modernised square is already starting to look drab and the public free wifi doesn't work.

Below: a big centrally-funded project in progress at the moment involves stopping the town sliding down the escarpment. Here, the job is done, but there's still much building work going on behind me and round the corner in the distance. 

Interestingly, Przeworsk has a narrow-guage railway station next to the main line one, though this is tourist-traffic only, and out of seasons runs Sundays only.

Another little rail bonus in Przeworsk is this Ol49 steam loco, standing outside the main-line station.

I return to Przeworsk station to catch a Podkarpacka Kolej Aglomeracyjna train a few stops west into Rzeszów. Just over half an hour's journey and I arrived at my destination. In good time for our event. Alighting from the train at Rzeszów Główny, I find that the station is still in the midst of renovation work, just as it was a year ago and four years ago. Will it never end?

Once the connection between Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski and Sandomierz is complete, the journey will be quicker and more convenient - but will PKP's online timetable apps be smart enough to suggest this route in future? The Witos (Warsaw-Przemyśl calling at Warka) service opens up new possibilities of exploring the south-east corner of Poland - into the Bieszczady by train.

This time two years ago:
Mother of Invention

This time three years ago:
Autumnal lockdown walk

This time four years ago:

End of the warm and sunny part of autumn 

This time five years ago:
Remont of Metro bridge over Puławska

This time six years ago:
We are what we read, what we watch, what we listen to

This time ten years ago:
Extraordinarily warm autumn

This time 11 years ago:
On behalf of the work-shy community

This time 12 years ago:
Classic truck cavalcade

This time 13 years ago
Suburban back-roads clogged with commuters

This time 14 years ago:
Autumn gold, Łazienkowski Park

This time 15 years ago:
Quintessential autumnal Jeziorki

An autumn day in Warsaw

To town to moderate a panel discussion about packaging waste at the British Embassy, so off the beaten track (with the current rail diversions, Warsaw's new embassy district is even harder to reach by public transport than usual). Train to W-wa Służewiec, tram to Metro Wierzbno, Metro to Politechnika, and then a pleasant walk from there. 

I notice that the old Hungarian trade office on ulica Szwoleżerów 10 has been fenced off. Fearing it may under threat of demolition, I walked around the perimeter and saw a notice saying that it is about to be modernised. Great - it's a wonderful piece of post-war Modernism and deserves a second life. Poking my lens through a gap in the fence, I snap the building. At the moment, it wouldn't look out of place in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

Built in the early 1970s, the building functioned as a showcase for Hungarian products (which I suspect were in as short supply on the Polish market in communist times as they were back home). It fulfilled this role until 2012, when it was closed. It was listed in 2016, preventing it from being demolished - a likely fate given the number of embassies that have sprung up in close proximity to this building. The British, Indian, Japanese, Spanish, South Korean and Netherlands embassies are all clustered around here, and were all built in the 21st century.

The walk back from the British Embassy to catch a tram back to W-wa Służewiec took me up ul. Agrykola, a lovely car-free thoroughfare running down the Vistula escarpment, with the Łazienki Palace park to the left.

Below: a favourite prospect of central Warsaw, from Aleja Niepodległości as it crosses ul. Wawelska.

Public transport functioning flawlessly - my tram (visible in the photo above), gets me to W-wa Służewiec in good time to catch the Radomiak fast train to Chynów - the journey from takes all of 22 minutes!

This time last year:
The end of the apple harvest
[Still going strong this year!]

This time two years ago:
Ignoring the UFO phenomenon?

This time three years ago:

A tipping point in history, but who's tipping it?

This time four years ago:
Poznań by night

This time six years ago:
West of Warsaw's central axis

This time ten years ago:
Plac Unii shopping centre opens

This time 12 years ago:
Visceral and Permanent, Part II 

This time 13 years ago:
Autumn colours, locally

This time 14 years ago:
Edinburgh