At the end of the line

Three weeks ago, Eddie read an article in Gazeta Stołeczna that the No. 20 tram line to Boernerowo was being restored to use, after a three-year restoration. Time, then, to check it out. A fascinating line, mainly because it runs through such leafy suburbs. The last stops are in wooded landscape, making it unique in Warsaw.

Below: timeless Boernerowo, timber-clad houses from the 1930s, nestling among starodrzew (old woodland) - a bit like Konstancin, but still within Warsaw's boundaries.

Below: O happy outdoor life in Boernerowo! Woodland beckons the cyclist on long warm spring evenings after school or work. And all within a tram's ride of the city centre (no worries about traffic jams). Where the houses end, the forest begins. And in the forest, the runway of Warszawa Bemowo airfield, for general aviation. Picnic al fresco? Glass of Canadian Merlot, anyone?

Along the way to Boernerowo - the military technical academy (Wojskowa Akademia Techniczna, below), which today advertises a host of civilian subjects.

Definitely worth another trip out here at some time, lots of fine walking, wonderful atmosphere.

This time two years ago:
Another This Is Not America moment

This time four years ago:
Twilight time, Jeziorki

Inside Filtry

Well, it's one o'clock in the morning, and after six and half (yes!) hours of queueing, Eddie and I were finally let in through the gate and into Filtry - Warsaw's water treatment plant. A legendary place; well worth the wait to get in. Filtry. My father lived on ul. Filtrowa (lit. 'Water-filters Street') before the war; his family lives there to this day. This 30-hectare site, beautifully built and laid out, dominates the south-west fringes of central Warsaw.

The late-19th C. urban infrastructure project was initiated by Warsaw's Tsarist mayor, Socrates Starynkiewicz (a man who spoke no Polish) and carried out by an Englishman William Lindley and his son (also William Lindley). Hence Pl. Starynkiewicza and ul. Lindleya that link the waterworks to Al. Jerozolimskie.

Below and above left: interior and exterior view of the water tower and chimney in the middle of the symmetrical frontage of the waterworks, along ul. Koszykowa.

High-quality brickwork is one of the main characteristics of the waterworks. Our guide (who did an excellent job - taking groups of 40-50 people around the facility all night long) told us that Lindley was criticised at the time for choosing such expensive bricks - 125 years and two world wars later, he was proved right. Also, by spending big money on covering the filter beds with brick arches, he kept them from freezing in winter and being overrun by algae in summer. Pinching kopeks was not an option - today's public procurement managers would do well to learn from Starynkiewicz and Lindley.

Above: the shot that rewarded a six and half hour wait. Inside the slow-filtration beds. Quite something. Not normally lit, the filter beds are dark except when guided tours visit. It's worth remembering that this is a working production facility, rather than a museum; opportunities to visit are few and far between.

And on we go, to the early '30s fast-filtration building (above), the interior of which (below) looks like it could have been part of the set for the Coen Brother's Hudsucker Proxy.

If any of my Warsaw-based readers noticed a funny taste in their coffee this morning, it may have had something to do with Eddie tampering with the control panel (below).

(To put your mind at rest, this part of the filters is now only for show; a new facility was opened last year) The filters have had large amounts of money spent on renovating the historic parts - the site is applying for UNESCO World Heritage status - while at the same time the new facility below continues to do the work. The new building is architecturally consistent with the rest of the site; inside, however, it's boring though reassuringly antiseptic (below).

The tour ended at 02:15. There were still new groups entering the waterworks after us, so the guides must have had a hell of a day. There must also have been scenes of angry disappointment as the queue a hundred or so people back from us who were shut out as the filters closed were told they'd waited several hours in vain.

It is possible to visit the filters outside of Noc Muzeów; unfortunately for foreign visitors, details of how to get in are only in Polish on the Warsaw water authority's website. It is definitely worth visiting - even if it means a long wait. But better to line up a free-of-charge invite to visit the filters (every Saturday in July and August from 9:00am); smaller groups, longer tours.

For Eddie and me, Noc Muzeów ended with a night bus home; we arrived just before 4am as it was beginning to get light. Panie Hrabio! Już dnieje! As we waited for the N83 to arrive (a useful bus, linking the central station to Trombity), we gazed at the Palace of Culture (left). While Moni and her friends had managed to clock up five attractions in one night starting later and finishing earlier, we did only one - but it was worth it. For Polish readers, here's TVN Warszawa's round-up of Noc Muzeów 2011.

Noc Muzeów - Museum Night - at Filtry

After our failure to get into the Filtry (waterworks) at last year's Noc Muzeów, Eddie and I were determined to get in this time. We joined the queue to get in at half past six - 30 minutes before the guided tours began. The queue was unbelievably long; the tower in the distance is roughly where the queue ended. I counted some 800 people in front of us. After queuing for around two hours, I reckoned that we were one-two thirds of the way from the back of the queue to the front.

Queuing was made bearable by the open-house at the Polish Japanese Institute of IT across the road (clean toilets, cheap buffet, sushi, Japanese pop music), and a general good spirit among those queuing.

Around midnight (!) it was touch-and-go whether we'd get in; rumours were flying around the queue - they'd let in people until one am (the published time) - another 120 people, then 200; tempers were starting to get frayed, with people having waited over six hours (and forfeited the chance of visiting any other attractions that night). The clocked ticked towards one am; the queue moved forward at the rate of a metre every ten minutes... would we make it?

I learned a lot about the mass psychology of queuing; if you don't flake out in the first half hour, you're likely to stay through to the end. The guy in the photo (foreground, right) was getting more and more pessimistic, about humanity, Poland, the waterworks authorities; after more than six hours he bugged out, convinced we'd not be let in; 20 minutes later, he would have been proved wrong. The rest of the people queuing around us were fine. As we entered the critical last half hour, a sense of solidarity emerged - there would be no pushing in!

This time last year:
Warsaw's Museum Night 2010

This time two years ago:
On transcendence

Bus crash on Puławska

Today's bus accident on ul. Puławska left eight people hospitalised and another 30 hurt as a southbound 739 left the road by the Wyścigi tram loop and careered down an embankment, smashing into the crash barrier on ul. Rzymowskiego that passes under Puławska. The accident happened shortly after half past two, three hours later Rzymowskiego was still closed to westbound traffic. Below: you can see the tracks left by the bus on the embankment - passengers must have been petrified as it dived down into the cutting into the path of oncoming cars.

Below: half past five looking east up Dolinka Służewiecka. Rather a lot of public service vehicles still in attendance.

Below: the bus had been hauled back to free the driver, who according to first reports had fainted at the wheel. This stretch of road has had its fair share of accidents, most notorious of which was the death of one motoring journalist and serious injury of another as the Ferrari they were driving left the road and literally flew into a pillar supporting the fly-over. The speed limit here, by the way, is 50 kmh/ 30 mph.

Another infamous series of events at this spot - a young man driving way over the limit crashed into a pillar and died. His friends held a vigil here to mark his demise, and while doing so, another driver going too fast ploughed into the group killing one mourner.

And just one bus-stop further up ul. Puławska, there was this serious bus fire three years ago.

This time last year:
The iron filings factory: an economic parable

This time two years ago:
Nine faults of Warsaw cyclists

This time four years ago:
Got to get ourselves back to the garden

What's the Polish for 'puncture'?

My Cannondale Caffeine is four years old, and well-used; it's never had a puncture - until today, that is. And upon this particular day, it had three punctures.

Left: puncture number one, fixed (or so it seemed). In my rucksack a spare inner tube and neat double-action pump. All done in six minutes, and I'm off on my way to a lesson at the law firm.

I cycle a hundred metres further, and the brand new inner tube punctures. I call in to say that I'll be a bit late, throw the bike on a 319 bus bunged up in barely-moving traffic and head off slowly up Puławska to Metro Ursynów.

I tie the bike up at the Park + Ride (below, ten stands for every bike) and hurry to my lesson. I arrive 18 minutes late.


The Park+Ride is equipped with bicycle repair tools. Including (so suggests the icon) a track pump with pressure gauge. The very acme of sophistication! "Has your bicycle broken down? Borrow tools, free, from a parking supervisor", says the sign, sponsored by the city transit authority and a bike shop/workshop on Saska Kępa and Solec.

After my lessons, extended by 20 minutes to make up for tardy arrival, I pop into my local bike shop on ul. Czerniakowska for a new inner tube, puncture repair kit and a repair of the rear wheel. All done, I proceed to work. And on my way home, I replace the rear wheel at Ursynów P+R, and ride off towards Jeziorki... but on ul. Poleczki a sudden massive explosion - a catastrophic failure of the new inner tube (below). I am as sick as the proverbial parrot, pile the bike onto a 306 and then a 319 and get home, eventually, crestfallen. Big time.

Three punctures in one day. Ah! What's the Polish for 'puncture', as in "I had two punctures on my way into work, and one on the way home"? Stanislawski gives 'puncture' as przebicie opony (seven syllables for two) or the more informal złapać gumę (lit. 'to catch rubber'). A flat tyre? Flak (as in 'tripe'. Without the onions.). Nothing less informal. (Płaska opona is not an option.) Getionary? Check here and here.

This time two years ago:
Welcome the Ice Saints

This time three years ago:
The devoted Shriners
Like a Kodachrome

This time four years ago:
The future of cities (and suburbs)

Lost in the wonder of it all

The first time it struck me was as I was pushing my bike up the steep part of the Vistula escarpment above ul. Myśliwiecka. Below: Thousands upon thousands of dandelions backlit by the sinking sun. A sight that truly stirred my soul. A dozen attempts to capture the scene, delicately juggling different exposures to bring out the white seedheads while not losing the shadow details, then more work in Lightroom and Photoshop to get an approximation of what I saw and felt at the time. (Click to enlarge images.)

Below: Park Ujazdowski, above the escarpment. More of the same - dandelions in flower are everywhere (and my sympathies go out to those allergic to the pollen). The plant, however, has medicinal properties, including "assisting with urinary tract infections in women" and is said to possess "anti-inflammatory effects".


Left: even more dandelions, by the Wyścigi tram loop along ul. Puławska. The sun, that four and half billion year old thermonuclear reaction that keeps us alive, has today been warming the earth and blessing us with its rays. As I write, just before 9 pm, it's still over 22C, having hit a high of 25.3C earlier today. Hard to believe that just one week ago, Warsaw was waking up to the sight of snow on the ground.

This time last year:
Meet my five bicycles

This time three years ago:
Celebrating my garden

Loose lips sink ships - Part II

Eileen took a lunchtime break from work and quickly walked up the cobbled streets to St Francis' Church for confession. She just had to talk to Father Boyle. Low-hanging dark grey clouds blew in across the Mersey, drizzle turned to cold, heavy rain. There was no relief from the misery.

"Bless me father, for I have sinned. It is three weeks since my last confession and here are my sins."

Once again she explained to the priest how she was sure that someone had passed on to Nazi spies details of Allied shipping movements. "Now, Father, would you have heard someone confessing to giving secrets to the Germans?" Behind the screen of the confessional Father Boyle shook his head. The poor girl was losing her mind. He had been observing the process over the months. "Not only has no one confessed to me, and I can assure you, my daughter, that I've not heard any priest even suggest that such a sin has ever been mentioned in the confessional. Mind you, I heard quite a few stories of betrayal after the Irish Civil War. Not this time. Not this war. Put it out of your head, my daughter. I want to make myself clear - you must forget about Billy. Many women have suffered loss of a loved one - a father to their children - and are somehow they are coping. We must learn to cope. Pray to Jesus to give you the strength to overcome your grief and look forward to the future..."

Spring was coming. Memories of that hellish February day when Billy's mate Danny had told her about the loss of the Newton Ash with no survivors were most unbearable when the skies were leaden. But the freshness of that April lifted her spirits. And soon the first full summer of peacetime would follow, and with it Wakes Week, when the factory would close and the annual works outing to Southport would take place.

Eileen's workmates were good. They strove to get her mind off her loss. It was now a little over three and half years ago since her boyfriend's ship was sunk! But Eileen's mind would still wander over to that fixed notion that someone's carelessness or spite had done for Billy. And all those places associated so deeply in her mind with their time together. Father Boyle told her to abandon black mourning clothes and to buy a summer dress, which she did. New songs - ones without any association to the dances that she'd been to with Billy - new songs on the wireless had the power to drag her thoughts away from tired old obsessions.

And came August; a fleet of coaches stood outside the factory to take the young men and women to Southport for a week of revelry. Crates of beer were loaded on board, there was laughter, singing. Somehow the sea, glinting to her left in the sunshine was not that merciless devouring force, but a merry adornment to a happier future. Eileen managed a smile in the bracing winds that blew down the beach.

Running along the sand with her friends, she felt better than in years; ice creams, ginger beer, giggling on the sea front - and then, behind the bandstand - stop the world - it was him.

Billy, pushing a pram, a young woman by his side. It was Billy clear as anything. From twenty paces, he looked straight at Eileen, with an expression of guilty terror, eyes wide open, mouth agape... he said a few words to the woman and then abruptly made a 90 degree turn, shoving the pram into the empty roadway and disappearing into the throng of holiday makers on the other side of the street.

Eileen described the scene to Father Boyle. Was it wrong, she asked of the priest, that she'd have preferred Billy dead?

This time last year:
Stunning infra red photos of Jeziorki

This time two years ago:
Sweet summer's rain, like God's own mercy

Loose lips sink ships - a short story

"There'd never be anyone like Billy for me, ever again." That thought ran obsessively, over and over, in Eileen's mind for the past three years, endlessly; cruelly. She kept tormenting herself at the loss of her boyfriend who went down with his ship in the North Atlantic, just as the war was starting to go Britain's way. With his shock of bright red hair and his permanent grin, a short man so full of energy and life, Billy had given her so many wonderful moments among the dance halls, tea rooms and picture houses of wartime Liverpool.

At first she denied his death. He could have been picked up by a U-boat and then kept a prisoner by the Germans. But the war ended, her hopes diminished then finally faded. She kept that photo of the two of them taken at Jerome's photo studios when he was on shore leave before Christmas 1942; a small one in her purse, a larger one in her lodgings and a similar one above her workplace at the Dunlop factory.

She'd gaze upon it so many times each day. Billy. One day, looking at the calendar, she realised he'd been gone for longer than they'd actually been going out together. And a year later, she could still not get him out of the forefront of her mind. Billy. Six months younger than her, he was. Always 'exuberant', though never crossing that border into 'wild'. Self-control, her mam called it; her mam loved him just as dearly as she did. “An actor giving it all just to his one girl,” that's how her mam described him.

In all her life, Eileen had never been as happy as during those two years and three months during which she and Billy had been together. And all those little gifts, those little luxuries he'd brought Eileen back from New York. Every trip over. Now she kept them in a little museum-shrine on her dressing table. He'd spend every minute of his shore leave with her whenever his ship docked in Liverpool. Kissing passionately under the Ovie.

“What on earth did he see in me?”, she'd ask herself while they were on the town, dancing so energetically at the Rialto or Locarno. She thought of herself as plain, even though objectively speaking she did have a good figure, a narrow waist and longish legs. Eileen was lacking in self-confidence all her life, and Billy gave it to her. And all of her girlfriends and workmates looked on at them admiringly, jealously even.

Two years and three months of bliss, followed by three years of morbid despair. Guilt at the pleasure gone; Catholic guilt. "The sin of pride", Father Boyle used to called it when she confessed to him about how pleased she was when the other girls would watch her dancing with Billy. When she shared her loss with her parish priest, the sympathy he offered was tempered by his knowledge that the dead boy was a Protestant from North Wales. But the dark church interior with its stone floor, statues, candles and smell of incense and wax offered her temporary relief from the constant association of happier places with memories of Billy, all those places where they'd stroll and chat, and spend time together.

For weeks after hearing the news that Billy's ship had gone down with all hands off Iceland, Eileen still held out hope that maybe he'd been picked up by some other vessel, but that hope took a long time to die. Had it taken Billy a long time to die? Had he drowned, trapped in a diminishing pocket of air below decks, his lungs fighting to the very last to expel sea water? Had he died of exposure in the pitiless cold of the North Atlantic in winter? Had he burned alive in a sea of flaming gasoline or been blasted to pieces as a torpedo ripped into the side of the ship? Or drifted in a lifeboat until hunger and thirst had claimed the last man on board? These thoughts dwelt in her mind; wanted but unwanted, they would pierce her consciousness day after day, at work and at rest, summer and winter; these thoughts could be brought on by the sight of the open sea from Wallasey, or of a Merchant Navy seaman on the tram or the strains of a tune they'd danced to; there was no avoiding Billy's memory.

"Loose Lips Sink Ships," the visiting American sailors would say. "Careless Talk Costs Lives" was on posters in the pubs and on the brick walls. Whose lips? Whose careless talk? Which of her workmates at the Dunlop factory, in a fit of jealousy at her happiness, had informed a Nazi agent as to when Billy's ship was setting sail? Father Boyle? Was it Irish nationalists? The longer she wallowed in the tragedy, the more convinced she was that some blabbermouth was to blame for her unending sorrow.

Part II here.

This time three years ago:
Driving home at the end of the working day

(Funny that; once I'd drive to work and consider it normal. Today I consider it odd and anti-social.)