Welcome the Ice Saints

Not a lot of people in the English-speaking world know this, but across Central Europe, these are the days of the Ice Saints. From a very pleasant +23C on Saturday afternoon, the daytime high today managed to muster a mere +15C; quite a difference. Despite the sunshine, strolling outside in my shirtsleeves today, I felt distinctly chilly.

The feast days of St Pancras (after whom London's most glorious railway station is named), St Servatus (the patron saint of paper napkins) and St Boniface fall, respectively, on 12, 13 and 14 May. The days are accompanied, even with all the climate change that's going on around us, by a noticeable fall in temperature. And so, on cue, it was today.

The 'cold gardeners', as the three saints' days are called, culminate in Cold Sophie's Day (Świętej Zofii) on 15 May. Observant Poles - observant of weather patterns that is - avoid outdoor events during this week. I do recall a couple of barbeques through which I've shivvered, huddling around the charcoal, at this time of year.

And not a lot of people in the Polish-speaking world know that the German-speaking world also has its Ice Saints!

SUPPLEMENTARY (Weds 13 May) : I cycled to work for the fourth time this year, and for the first time it was too cold to remove my jacket either on the way in or riding home. Daytime high today +14C, strong sunshine, strong northerly wind.

This time last year:
Devoted shriners
Jeziorki like a 1950s USA Kodachrome
Nowa Iwiczna, Mysiadło and the Rampa
Celebrating the sublime garden in May

This time two years ago:
The Future of Warsaw's Suburbs

Sweet summer rain, like God's own mercy

An early thunderstorm brings some blessed relief to the drought but the rain fell for only a few minutes. Right: Dark clouds to the east, the storm passes over. Houses on ul. Sarabandy lit by sunlight from the west. It has been a very dry four weeks. Farmers and economists are looking to the skies for much needed precipitation. Without it crops fail and food prices rise. Food is still a significant part of Poland's inflation basket. Deflation is hitting the UK and America, while consumer price inflation in Poland is still growing at an annualised rate of 3.9%.

With all the other woes circling the economy, a poor crop caused by drought would be particularly unwelcome.

Below: the downpour from my bedroom window, photo taken just a few minutes before the one above. We could have done with a few hours of rain.

Quiet afternoon in Jeziorki

Above: Looking across at ul. Karczunkowska from W-wa Jeziorki station. It's half past four on a sunny spring day. Jeziorki is a great place to live. May it long remain a quiet, low-density suburb.

Below: The centre of town is not too far away, but turn to look in the other direction, and the countryside beckons.

Below: Looking south. It won't be too long before this will be the route of the S7 on its way from Warsaw towards Radom, Kielce and Kraków. While it's still fields, I make the most of it.

This time last year:
Rush 'hour' gets longer and longer

In search of the Sublime Aesthetic (II)

It's rare that an image strikes me as this one did, taken last week 'on an airfield somewhere in southern England' by Nick Morris, triggering a flood of emotion. This is art, not anorak-fodder. I shall not go into what type of aircraft this is, when it was built, its registration, etc; suffice to say the image is quite spectacular and embodies my aesthetic ideals.

Looking at this picture, my soul is transported to another time, another place.

This time last year
Flight from the Faroes

Landing over Ursynów

Most of the time, aircraft inbound to land at Okęcie use Runway 33, assuming a prevailing north-west wind. With the wind blowing from the south, they'll take off from Runway 15 (the same one, but pointing the other way). So much of the time, planes are landing or taking off over Jeziorki. Which, as I've blogged before, is cool with us. When the wind is strongly from due west, planes will land over densly populated Ursynów.

Once a year, ususally in June, Runway 15/33 is closed for repair. Planes then use the other one (11/29), landing on Runway 29. This is met with howls of protest from residents of Ursynów, while I say "hurry up and fix that runway, because I miss my planes!"

Above: A LOT Polish Airlines Boeing 767 flies over Platan Park, ul. Poloneza earlier this morning.
And the weather has changed back again; after yesterday's dark skies and rainfall, it's set fair once more.

This time last year:
On being assertive in Poland

Making plans for Jeziorki

I'd not seen these plans before. They are here, on the Warsaw city hall website. Three new roads are planned for Jeziorki. All three are drogi zbiorcze or 'feeder roads'.

To the south, ul. Agaty will run eastwards to connect the new estates of Mysiadło to ul. Puławska - this one I knew about. To the north, ul. Sporna will be stretched westwards to meet ul. Kinetyczna across the railway tracks and across the new S2 expressway. Linking the two - oh horror (says the NIMBY* half of my brain) will be ul. Hołubcowa bis, an extention of the existing Hołubcowa running south across ul. Baletowa, parallel to the railway line, then running south-east through fields, cutting across ul. Nawłocka and ul. Karczunkowska until it runs into ul. Agaty**.

Above: Having crossed Baletowa, ul. Hołubcowa bis will run along here...

Above: ...passing through orchards and fields...

Above: ...and will then swing left to reach ul. Karczunkowska and beyond.

While this will do much to reduce jams on ul. Puławska, this road and the S2 Puławska bis on the other side of the tracks will bring to an end the rural character of the south-west Jeziorki for good. But when will all this happen?

According to the Multi-year Investment Plan of Ursynów district (here), the only planned roadworks for Jeziorki between now and 2013 is the tarmacking of ul. Poloneza (long overdue - it's now baked solid and dusty as anything) and a viaduct over the new south Warsaw bypass.

According to this study by Siskom, the three new feeder roads, the Sporna and Hołubcowa extention and ul. Agaty are due to be built between 2015 and 2020.

So plenty of time - knowing Polish construction timescales, I can add another ten years to that easy. By then, a lovely place in the country will have eased the loss of Jeziorki's semi-rural character.

* NIMBY - 'not in my back yard' - progress by all means, but not when it impinges upon my quality of life. Not a notion I share. Put up or ship out, says the rational half of my brain.

** ul. Agaty, also known as ul. Kuropatwy bis. Bird names (Kuropatwa = Grouse) should stay east of ul. Puławska where they belong. Names of semi-precious stones are a novelty around here. No - this new road should have a musical name, in keeping with the convention of street names of west Ursynów. From the Lambada to the Alpenhorn. So I propose ul. Jazzowa.

This time last year:
The Sublime Aesthetic revisited

This time two years ago:
This is not America. No?
The marshes at the crack of dawn

A change in the weather

Five days into May and there's a change in the weather; the relentless blue skies finally clouded over yesterday and, for the first time since Easter, rain at last fell on to the dry and dusty Mazovian plains. It rained overnight, it rained for much of today. It's about to rain now. Above: stormy sunset photographed from upstairs balcony. Wind caused camera shake.

Farmers and gardeners will be happy; April was just too dry for this time of year. And the nice thing about the rain is that it did not fall as a sudden, intense deluge. A few more days like this would come in handy.

I cycled to work today and got caught out by a shower on the way home; I diverted via the Metro (from Politechnika to Natolin); by the time I arrived it had stopped raining and the rest of the way was dry. I note the ban on entering the Las Kabacki forest has not yet been officially lifted, yet this evening the forest was full of cyclists, joggers and walkers.

This time two years ago:
At last - the blessed rain

(The above old post is so apposite. The first three lines for those who don't feel like clicking through: "Today we had rain; lots of it. At last - it hasn't rained in over two weeks. Good news for farmers, gardeners and frogs. The grey sky offered contrast from the generally cloudless blue that we enjoyed since 20 April.")

To a delightful weekend in the country

Off to Podlasie for the long weekend - business and pleasure. The business - three days to get the translated proofs of The Silent Dark Ones ready for the typesetter. The pleasure - between the work, the chance to walk in the country and catch some sublime atmospheres (klimat).

My hosts, Ziggy and Zosia, have a beautiful country residence 25km north of Białystok in the village of Mamrotowo. The surrounding countryside is my idea of rural perfection. It's different here to Sweet Home Mazowsze - gentle undulations, silence, larger fields, winding byways, pine forests - real solitude; a sense of eternity untroubled by the goings-on of the outside world.


Here in Mamrotowo, bird life is abundant and interesting. Just down the road from the house is the biggest storks' nest I've seen, in effect, a two-storey construction. Zosia tells me that when the storks flew in, on 29 March (same day as our swans in Jeziorki), they set to adding an extra layer to the existing nest built on an telephone pole. This could be because the storks were worries of an extended winter, or that a different pair had settled in the nest and wanted to add their own personal touch to it. The nest is so big, the storks can hardly be seen over the top of it.

Above the fields, the storks will seek thermal currents that will enable them to soar to high altitudes. Storks can feel the thermals under their wings as humans can feel the slope of a hill under their feet.

This young stork circled ever higher until in the end he was out of sight.

Work meant that the walks were short; the best one was at sunset on Saturday. Below: I caught this wayside chapel (there's a cross or chapel every 50 metres or so around these parts) as the sun went down behind the trees.


This time last year:
Eurasian collared dove
Inside the Museum Museum
Cycles in the Las Kabacki forest
Farewell to the Rampa line
This time two years ago:
Into the mountains for May Day
Flags are out for Poland's national day
World's longest weekend (well, last year it was)