Autumn ploughing

The view from my bedroom window early this afternoon. Time passes, measured by the endless cycle of sowing, reaping and ploughing. Will this field be allowed to lie fallow after five seasons of oats? Whatever happens, I'm happy to see agriculture continue rather than the land sold for housing.

View the same field in late-March, mid-April, mid-April again, mid-May, early-June, and late-June.

From Łady to Falenty

Yesterday we organised an event at the conference centre in Falenty. To enjoy the cocktail reception to the full, I left my car at home and made my way back by 715 bus from Jeziorki to the nearby village of Lady (pron. 'Wuddy') and proceeded on foot to Falenty. A 35 minute walk. En route I snapped at few shots as dusk was gathering. Above: leaving Lady. The horizon here as flat as it can possibly be. Below: the sun sets behind a cloud bank.

Below: Approaching Falenty. November 8, and most of the trees are bare. It is shortly after 4pm, and now the clocks have gone forward, late afternoons are gloomy indeed. It will be five months before the clocks go back to summer time.

My Father's House

My father spent his childhood in this apartment block on ul. Filtrowa 68. His family moved in when the building was built (late 1920s), and he lived here until the Warsaw Uprising. The building was erected for employees of PKO, my dziadek Tomasz was a bank clerk and eligible for an apartment in this prestigious development. My aunt and her family still lives in the same building, though one floor down (the top storey was destroyed by bombing during the war).

Our children have two grandparents who were born in Warsaw before the war and who took part in the Uprising. So although both children were born in London, they are 50% Varsovian by blood – and indeed 75% Mazovian, as my father-in-law comes from Kozienice, some 80km south of the capital.

Earlier this year the facade was restored to its former glory, though painted a historically-inaccurate shade of salmon pink; before the war, my father says, the apartment block was painted cafe-au-lait. Property prices in Warsaw being what they are, this centrally-located piece of real estate has become very expensive.

"My father's house shines hard and bright
It stands like a beacon calling me in the night
Calling and calling, so cold and alone
Shining 'cross this dark highway
Where our sins lie unatoned"

Bruce Springsteen, "My Father's House" (from the album Nebraska)

Conclusion of cemetary weekend

Back to St Catherine's church in Sluzew as Eddie did another turn selling votive candles with his scout troop. Moni came along to lay candles in the cemetary. The picture above was taken at a 30 second exposure at f22 - right at the other end of the exposure spectrum to the mosquito photo in the previous post. Moni managed to stand quite still throughout. Like posing for a Daguerrotype.

(Below:) Looking down across the cemetary towards the apartment blocks of Sadyba. One of the chimneys of the Siekierki power station is visible on the horizon. There are definitely fewer candles burning today than on previous days; fewer people, lots of rain.

Lightening up somewhat, I take Eddie to McDonalds to dry off and eat something before joining Moni (she sings in the church choir) at the Dominicans' abbey for mass. While tucking in to Chicken McNuggets, Eddie quotes this hilarious dialogue from the Simpsons episode '22 Short Films About Springfield': (from http://www.snpp.com/ - the best Simpsons resource)

Lou: You know, I went to the McDonald's in Shelbyville on Friday night --
Chief Wiggum: [interrupting] The McWhat?
Lou: Uh, the McDonald's. I, I never heard of it either, but they have over 2,000 locations in this state alone. Must've sprung up overnight.
Lou: You know, the funniest thing though; it's the little differences.
Chief Wiggum: Example.
Lou: Well, at McDonald's you can buy a Krusty Burger with cheese, right? But they don't call it a Krusty Burger with cheese.
Chief Wiggum: Get out! Well, what do they call it?
Lou: A Quarter Pounder with cheese.
Chief Wiggum: Quarter Pounder with cheese? Well, I can picture the cheese...


(Above:) "Well, I can picture the cheese... " Eddie, as Chief Wiggum in The Simpsons episode 22 Short Films about Springfield. The couple over his shoulder were evidently very much in love. God bless them.

Unseasonal warmth, unseasonal mosquitoes

A long weekend of double-digit temperatures and no frost. The mosquitoes have responded to this by thinking that spring has arrived (very) early, and have hatched out in their multitudes. Bring them on, I say! The next touch of frost and they'll all be dead, hopefully not having reproduced and laid their eggs. Mosquitoes can be nasty. Our first weeks in Poland, back in 1997, coincided with a massive plague. My bedroom was covered in hundreds of splatted midges, many containing doses of my blood. Mosquito plagues are brought on by mild winters that end early, followed by wet springs. (Link to Polish Wikipedia page about the local mosquito, Culex Pipiens.)

I've often wondered what's the point of a 1/4000th top shutter speed - see above. This photo was taken at that speed, with ISO set to 1600. And that still does not entirely freeze the beatings of those tiny wings!

All Souls' Day, Sluzew nad Dolinka

Eddie's scout troup was tasked with selling votive candles outside St Catherine's church in Sluzew. On the way, I caught this sunset (below) in the wing mirror while waiting at the lights. Over the four-day All Saints' festival period the roads are choked with cemetary visiting families.

The churchyard of St. Catherine's was used to bury Home Army soldiers murdered while in custody by the communist security apparatus between 1945 and 1956. Below: the memorial to those soldiers, ablaze with votive candles.

I came home, played Henryk Górecki's 3rd Symphony and wept.

Searching for autumnal perfection

Autumn in Jeziorki is truly hitting its aesthetic peak - the leaves are gold, but largely still on the trees. November in Polish is listopad - literally, 'leaf-fall'. By the end of this month, the trees will be bare. But while they're in leaf, and gold, and sun shines, I am driven to record autumnal perfection. Above: The far end of ul. Trombity, a WizzAir Airbus A319 inbound to land. Below: Silver birches and greenhouses, ul. Dumki.

 

As I stroll along ul. Dumki I contemplate upon the nature of Man's aesthetic faculty. It's better developed in some than in most. What's the evolutionary benefit? How does being able to find beauty in art, music, poetry, landscape, architecture - how does this improve your genes' chances of biological success? Surely physical attractiveness, intelligence and drive are all - or is there room in our make-up for a soul? Do people lacking aesthetic faculties lack soul? A significant question, for today is All Souls' Day, in Polish Zaduszki, a feast that has its roots in the pagan Slavonic celebration of Dziady - Forefathers.

Wszystkich Swietych - All Saints

All Saints' Day (Wszystkich Swietych) is one of the key Polish national holidays, with most Poles visiting graves of departed family members on or around this day. Cemeteries are ablaze with votive candles, bought in their tens of millions. No grave was without its bouquets or candles.

We visited the local cemetery in Pyry, a half-hour walk north from Jeziorki. Above: the military quarter with the graves of Armia Krajowa (Home Army) partisans who gave their lives fighting the Germans in the Las Kabacki forest in 1944.

A time to reflect on life, death, growing older and What It's All About. Families silently reflect upon these big questions together by visiting the cemeteries in multi-generational groups. Poland as a nation draws its strength from this.

The universe is indeed held together by a web of coincidence. Yesterday in London I fortuitously came across two pieces of music I'd been searching for since 2001. Two song cycles by Ralph Vaughan Williams - On Wenlock Edge and Songs of Travel. I'd borrowed a recording many years ago from the public library, then bought the cassette (the tape snapped). I've not found any MP3 format files since I started looking. Yet as I was transferring a PowerPoint presentation from a colleague's memory stick - what should I find on it but a single MP3 file consisting of both pieces.

The songs of On Wenlock Edge, poems from A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad set to Vaughan Williams' music, are emotionally powerful at this time of year. The lyrics of Is My Team Ploughing? are especially moving, a dead young man's dialogue with his surviving friend who's now, as we learn, living with his girl.

Songs of Travel, poems by Robert Louis Stevenson set to music, have similar bleak, contemplative air; consider the refrain from The Vagabond:

Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,

Nor a friend to know me;

All I ask, the heaven above,

And the road below me.

Above: On the corner (another Miles Davis title slips in!). Eddie squatting on the pavement on ul. Gajdy, in Pyry on our way home from the cemetary. This is the street where we used to rent a house before moving to our own place on ul. Trombity. The white streak across the top of the photo is an airliner inbound to land. The house behind Eddie was lived in by our friends Mark and Lesley and their boys Konrad and Adam; they moved to Shropshire (more coincidence, see above) in 2003.