Hot in the city

Wednesday 16 September. Temperature at 16:30: 29C. Hot in the city. A day spent discussing the state of Poland's real estate and construction sector, and seeing it (in Warsaw at least) how it is, six months after the start of lockdown.

Below: I step out of W-wa Śródmieście station and onto ulica Emilii Plater, on my way to Q22. In the foreground, Daniel Liebeskind's Żagiel, Złota 44, to its right, the Intercontinental Hotel.

Below: on its way up, 38 stories and 155m tall when finished, Skysawa (how does one pronounce that? Skajsawa or Skysower?) is starting to emerge from ul. Świętokrzyska at the Rondo ONZ end. To the right, in the background, Spektrum tower.

Below: it's five to nine, I'm just about to enter Q22. I'm moderating our Real Estate & Construction Breakfast - for the first time in 14 years of doing them - as a webinar. Before the pandemic, at this time of day, the pavement is packed.

Below: view looking south from the 32nd floor of Q22. In the centre of frame, Varso tower, now overtaking Rondo ONZ 1, and when completed, Warsaw's - and the EU's - highest building.

Below: view looking west from the 32nd floor of Q22. In the centre of frame, Warsaw Spire. To the left of it, the cluster of office buildings around Rondo Daszyńskiego, with the Skyliner tower (190m) the tallest of them.

Below: back in the office for the first time in two weeks, and a quick peek to see how Central Point is doing. Not even at the halfway stage - but as lockdown got started, it was still a hole in the ground.

Below: Finished! Widok tower, and in front of it, the redesigned PKO Rotunda building.

Every building will be completed; unlike the crash of 2007-08, when construction came to a standstill, it hardly missed a beat this time round. But developers are not starting new projects. Everyone is waiting; maybe two years - to see the future of office work. What will be the balance between WFH (working from home) and coming into city-centre offices to meet colleagues? Once the pandemic eases (no sign yet!) the corporate world will eventually settle on an optimal, blended, hybrid model. But exactly how many desks will be needed remains to be seen - and this will determine the future growth of cities. The choice has always been between Upward and Outward. My guess is the latter. Unfortunately - sprawl will result.

This time last year:

Resting with the heroes

This time three years ago:
Polish employers' demographic challenge

This time seven years ago:
The rich, the poor, the entrepreneur

This time eight years ago:
Food: where's the best place to shop in Poland? 

This time nine years ago:
Bittersweet

This time ten years ago:
Commuting made easy

This time 11 years ago:
Work starts on the S79/S2 'Elka'

This time 12 years ago:
Warsaw's accident-filled streets

Out in the mid-September heat

Today's the 15th of September, and the temperature at half past four this afternoon was 28C. Heatwave territory! Time for an early laptop lid-down (well, I was answering emails at 10pm last night) and a late-afternoon walk around Jeziorki. 

The sun set today at 18:50, the one day of the year when it does so. Because of the asymmetrical horological shenanigans (clocks go back one month and a few days after the autumn equinox, but go forward only a few days after the spring equinox), there are no sunsets in Warsaw between 18:03 and 19:03 in the spring. Nor are there any between 17:21 and 16:19 in the evening in the autumn.

Every sunny day's a bonus and must be exploited - biologically, to soak up that Vitamin D, and psychologically, to build up a reserve of good samopoczucie before the Hammer of Darkness descends, as it will, in early November (this year accompanied by a second wave of Covid).

Below: O, happy outdoor life in Jeziorki, under azure skies... summer is still very much here. Time to make the most of it!

Left: Bella perennis, the common European daisy, or stokrotka in Polish. Still in flower, a good plant for the garden, "offering valuable ground cover, where low growth and some colour is desired with minimal maintenance, while helping to crowd out noxious weeds." [source Wikipedia]. Incidentally, the word 'daisy' comes from 'day's eye', the yellow centre of the flower resembling the sun.

Below: more yellow from goldenrod (nawłoć) still flowering, while the tansy (wrotycz) is turning brown, burnt by the sun. In the distance, the small estate of houses on ul. Kórnicka is nearing the stage of habitability. In the foreground, butterflies.

Below: and the sun still burns away the pond's water; Jeziorki's famed feature is disappearing before its inhabitants' eyes. I can but hope for some decent snow cover this year, and frosts.

Jeziorki's swans didn't breed this year - maybe they're past it, maybe they were unable to find a spot to build their nest. They are sipping the surface curiously. The water is not only extremely shallow, it's mostly covered by algae bloom at the northern end. Today, other than the swans, I saw only a few ducks, not even coots or gulls. The grebes didn't visit this year.

Below: double-decker trains are back, though only from Piaseczno. This is Koleje Mazowieckie's 16:48 Piaseczno-Siedlce service, seen here between W-wa Jeziorki and W-wa Dawidy.

Bonus photo below, another passenger train headed into Warsaw, but taken two days earlier, the 19:17 from Chynów, on its way to Sułkowice, shortly after sunset. I love this photo!

This time last year:
Poland's ugliest building?

This time six years ago:
Weekend cookery - prawns in couscous

This time eight years ago:
Draining Jeziorki

This time nine years ago:
Early autumn moods

This time ten years ago:
The Battle of Britain, 70 years on

This time 11 years ago:
Thoughts about TV, Polish and British

This time 12 years ago:
Time to abandon driving to work!

This time 13 years ago:
Crappy roads take their toll

For or against?

Are you for it (but would like to see it improved) - or are so you utterly against it that you want to see it gone for good? When you are making a point about something, online in the social media, or in person to friends, colleagues and neighbours - what's your ultimate goal? Improving it or destroying it? Or is it that really, you just don't care one way or another - you're just in a shouty mood.

Take for example the EU. Do you think it's essentially a good thing, but with plenty of areas in which it could do better - or do you wish to see its demise as an organisation? If the former, then your criticism of the EU is constructive. If the latter, your actions are construed as destructive.

Which is it, then?

The Catholic Church. It has its failings. But is it better for Poland that it survives - and continues to be the national religion - or should it fade into irrelevance as it has done in many Western European countries?

Take Lukashenko. Is he a guarantor of stability, a bastion against Russian annexation? Or is Lukashenko a usurping despot whose time is clearly over?

Or Microsoft products: clunky, un-user-friendly operating system and a suite of applications that one just has to work with, ever hoping that future iterations will see improvements - or do you aim for a personal IT environment entirely devoid of Windows, Office or Explorer or Edge or whatever it's called?

I could go on. Brexit, Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping - you choose. Very few things are perfect in this world. We have a choice - strive to use our influence to improve them, or else use that influence to seek their removal.

Here's a metaphor. I'm not into football, but a supporter will have many suggestions as to how his team can be more effective - but should it fail to perform season after disappointing season, the ultimate sanction is to switch loyalty.

Why am I writing this? To ask myself what should be the stance of anyone wanting an open society based on trust and networked decision-making over authoritarianism regarding the Polish government.

The next parliamentary elections will not be held until November 2023 (unless a snap election is called, but this is a rarity in modern Polish politics). PiS has a parliamentary majority with 100 more seats than rivals PO. So - what to do until then? 

Seek to tear down this government - or improve it?

Improvement is the answer. My hopes are that within ideological differences within the government will lead to a the sidelining of Ziobro and his headbangers and more people of the likes of PM Morawiecki and minister of development, Jadwiga Emilewicz steering the country away from extremes.

This time six years ago:
Weekend cookery

This time seven years ago:
Laying down the sewers

This time eight year:
Still awaiting the official opening of viaduct on ul. Poloneza

This time nine years ago:
Fixie composition in blue and red

This time ten years ago:
What's the Polish for 'guidelines'?

This time 11 years ago:
Ul. Rosoła's cycle path - new route to work

This time 12 years ago:
First apple

This time 13 years ago:
Late summer spider-webs

My local craft brewery!

Yesterday evening, I treated myself to a bottle of Licho nie śpi ('The evil one does not sleep'), an oatmeal stout, 5.2% ABV. From Browar Perun (browar = brewery), home to such other favourites of mine as Topór Peruna ('The Thunder-God's Axe'), a Polish IPA, 8.2% ABV (strong!) and Braggot, a barleywine, 12.4% ABV (really strong, but smaller bottle).

This morning, about to put the bottle into the recycling bin, I noticed the brewery's address - the postcode started with a 05-. Same as Jakubowizna... So glasses on to read the label - WOW! it turns out that the Perun brewery is located in Budziszyn, a mere 6.7km (4.2 miles) from where I'm eating breakfast. I dig deeper into the recycling bin and find three bottles of Topór Peruna - this summer's most-drunk craft beer on my działka. And one Braggot. And a Behemot Bafomet by Browar Perun, a Russian Imperial Stout (11.6% ABV). Must have blown my mind that one, as I have no recollection of having drunk it!

I decided to see the brewery (if only from the road, as it's closed on Sundays). After a morning visit from Student SGH, whose Politics, Economy, Society blog is the only English-language blog about life in Poland still going strong on my sidebar (after 11 and half years), I set off.

I reach my destination in just ten minutes! Passing Chynów and Edwardów, there it is (below), just past the sign marking the end of Budziszyn village, on the left heading south towards Warka. It might be a Sunday, but there are signs of life within - busy people evidently. Opened in 2017, same year that I bought Jakubowizna.

Great! Having located it, I shall visit during the working week and acquire a few bottles. But it's a Sunday... Which means that Piwnica Konesera ('the Connoisseur's Cellar') in Chynów is open (if nothing else, other than the petrol station). And here I can find a wide range of Browar Perun beers on offer. And so, on my motorbike with only a small rucksack, I buy a small selection. Noc Kupały (Slavonic feast of Midsummer's Night), a Polish Extra Foreign Stout (6.4% ABV). [Is it extra-foreign, or Polish-extra? Don't know - hyphens don't say.] Another Licho nie śpi and another Topór Peruna (both reliable), and a Behemoth Sol Invictus, a dunkel bock (koźlak).

I have the Noc Kupały with my supper. Excellent. Richer, stronger and more... rounded... than a Guinness.

In my worldview, beer should be brewed near where it is to be consumed. The idea of carting beer around the planet, burning fossil fuels to get it to distant consumers is wrong. And brewing as a global corporate activity does not breed genuine diversity of taste. Beers should be brewed by people whose passion is brewing - not by accountants, whose business is selling brands to please the shareholder, by offering beers that appeal to the broadest number of consumers. Lowest common denominator determined by focus group.

Small breweries, such as Perun (logo: Slavonic god's face, hop for beard, wheat for hair) are the future. 

Please do try Perun's varied and fascinating beers - I shall be delving deeper into their board of fare.

This time 10 years ago:
Time to change gear.

This time 11 years ago:

Spidery autumn

This time 12 years ago:
Early, cold start to autumn

The Wilderness and the Garden

I have an acre of land in Jakubowizna, fecund and unkempt. Upon it has stood these past 30 years a small house; the rest is vegetation. Grass, trees, flowers, weeds - all are thriving. Living, growing, expanding, getting in each other's way, reaching for the light, pushing their roots deep into the earth for water and the soil's nourishment. Berries and fruit grow according to their will, dropping when ripe.

And then along come I. In my hands, a scythe, a fork, a spade, secuteurs, a lopper, and shears. I see the weed, it stands in my path - I cut it. Dense trees - pruned back. Undergrowth hacked. Yet I have moral objections to slaughtering plant life; I see the bees hopping from flower to flower - I must spare the meadow. Yes - some lawn round the house, some paths through the trees and around the plot, access to the berries and the plum trees and apple trees...

Other than fruit-bearing trees, I would like three species of tree in my garden. Pine and silver birch - for aesthetic reasons. I love looking at those two trees especially when the sun shines on their trunks in the early evening. And the oak, the mighty oak that from the acorn grows. The sacred oak, from which, in Polish, my surname derives.

Left: this oaken sapling was spared the scythe, despite being on the path between the front garden and the house. Soon, the leaves will fall off it, leaving a bare, unidentifiable twig. I shall allow it to grow where it is. There's another one about a metre to the left of this one; likewise, I'll let it grow. But there will come a time when one will have to make way for the other. Oaks take up much space.

I have tried to replant oak saplings where I want them - but so far, my attempts ended in failure. So now I am planting acorns and pine-cones into soil loosely tipped into large glass jars (below). Will the seeds bring forth new trees? The jars will be left outdoors over the winter. We'll see in spring.

Since I bought my first house nearly 40 years ago, my father always warned me against planting trees too near buildings and fences. As a soil engineer, he knew well the damage roots can do to brickwork, concrete and pipes. Climate change means stronger winds; my neighbours, mindful of the fact they've recently seen gales of record ferocity, have felled or pruned all the tall trees that could potentially topple onto to their house. Forest fires, though not yet a major threat here in Poland, are something of which I'm aware, which is why I intend to have a gravel drive on the eastern side of the plot, between my house and the untended forest next to it, to act if necessary as a fire break.

So my first principle is keeping plants back from the perimeter of the house and garage. 

Privacy is important, but not with a fast-growing conifer screen, rather I would prefer the trees already along my fence-line to grow, but pruned sensibly. The north end of the garden, from where the sun doesn't shine, can be more densely wooded. In good time.

Stinging nettles are said to be good to eat - though in spring, before they flower. I'd like to plant sorrel (szczaw), I love the taste.

This time last year:
Back in Aviation Valley

This time two years ago:
My flight to Rzeszów - delayed!

This time five years ago:
English as she is used in Europe

This time six years ago:
Where asphalt is needed - Nowy Podolszyn to Zgorzala
[six years on it's still not there]

This time 11 years ago:
I cycle to work along the cyclepath along ul. Rosoła

This time 12 years ago:
First apple 

This time 13 years ago:
Late summer spiders webs

Jabłkowizna

Apple time again! Jakubowizna and surrounding districts are starting to get the harvest in. This is the beginning of four intensive weeks of apple-picking and getting them to market, via the punkt skupu - or purchase point. The air is starting to smell cidery, as the apples that have fallen prematurely are beginning to ferment. And there are many of them; on my street there are about 20 orchards.

Below: narrow tractors hauling narrow trailers carrying crates full of apples.

Below: seconds later - apple jam. Three tractors manoeuvring, ulica Wspólna, Chynów.

Below: a well-run commercial orchard - trees kept low, planted in rows, easy to tend, easy to pick. Top-class apples destined for the table and lunch-box.

That orchard close up; such gorgeous ripeness - all ready to be picked. But do remember these apples have had their fair share of chemistry pumped on them as they matured; to eat them 100% safely, dip them in diluted baking soda for ten minutes, or just peel them. Apples destined for processing including pressed fruit juice have been subjected to far less pesticides and are safer.

Like 2018, this is another bumper year; however, prices are holding up. Wholesale price paid to farmers for jabłko przemysłowe ('industrial apple' suitable for processing) in this region between 50 and 60 grosze per kilo (10p - 12p), and higher price for premium, unblemished table apples (jabłko deserowe), depending on variety and condition.

Below: farmers who keep well-run orchards can expect to reap the rewards of their labour. Payday is but once a year; each year it can be different, depending on quality and quantity of apples - and the market.

The sun is setting ever earlier; today, it set at 19:11, the same time as on 2 April. I watched it set over Wola Pieczyska, the village across the railway line and DK50 from Jakubowizna, as the lights came on, and a southbound train approached Chynów down the new track, below.

This time five years ago:
Low water level - Jeziorki lakes

This time six years ago:
Around the Czachówek diamond, again

This time nine years ago:
Second line of the Metro runs into delays

This time ten years ago
Army helicopters in action at Kielce defence show

This time 11 years ago:
World's largest helicopter over Jeziorki

God and gratitude

In your worldview, there may or may not be a God. You may not need an invisible friend in the sky, being a rational type of person. I very much feel there is a God, a purpose to the Universe, a far deeper meaning than a collection of atoms turning into a lifeform randomly and becoming conscious for a few decades, before death and that's that. Such is my worldview.

This post is directed at my materialist-rationalist readers who don't believe in any supreme being or overarching force/direction guiding the universe.

This post is to do with gratitude. 

Do you ever feel the need to express gratitude for your lot? Are you ever grateful for life, for consciousness, for health, for what you've experienced? I feel moments of existential gratefulness several times a day; times of reflection, times when I reflect that things could have been far, far worse today than they were. Sometime those feelings are particularly strong, other time, they're weak, vague - but nevertheless there, and have been since childhood. 

Covid accentuates these reflections. I've long had the habit of using the times spent brushing my teeth each day to give thanks for my health, and of those around me. I think of all those times in a shop or train last week or the week before when I could have randomly caught Covid off someone but didn't - and I feel grateful that I've managed six months into the pandemic without coming down with it.

Rationalists would counter "Only 70,000 confirmed cases out of a population of 38 million. Your chances of catching it were only 1 in 584. And you take proper precautions."

But even so, it's good to be grateful for good fortune, is it not?

And if we do feel gratitude, to whom should one be grateful? We continually teeter on the edge of chaos, do we not?

If there's no God, if everything that happens is coincidental or mathematically pre-ordained from Big Bang to the end of time - what is there to be grateful for? What happened just happened - end of story. Romantic sunset? Lovely bike ride? So what. Feeling good physically and mentally? Just the way it was. One day you're up, next day you're down. Have you got any influence over events that may or may not befall you? No. 

I must say, this is not my worldview. I do believe that we have some influence on the outcomes of our lives - not just the positive choices that we make, decisions that could turn out one way or another - but blind chance. The speeding driver that didn't see you. A virus or tumour. Early-onset dementia. Heavy shit coming down. Can being grateful for good fortune in your immediate past stave off bad things happening to you in the near future? I certainly believe there's a link. I can't prove it going forward - but my past experience has suggested it has been so.

There is the allied concept of appreciation, of being appreciative of the good things in life. Now, being grateful is different in that you have to be grateful to someone for something. Being appreciative doesn't require an object - only a subject. In this context, is appreciation enough - or is even the act of appreciation (without any link to whom one should be appreciative towards) an acknowledgement of a higher realm?

Below: a late-evening storm is coming - wind is rustling the tall trees, the downdraft from a cloudburst. Within minutes heavy rain would be pouring down on Jakubowizna. But the day was good - I managed two (local) motorbike rides, 12,000 paces of walking, and a lot of gardening, sunshine and 26C top temperature. Bought a heavy-duty doormat and a few things for the kitchen. Weekend music: Fat Old Sun, by Pink Floyd. Grateful for the day.

This time last year:
Defending one's country is a costly business

This time eight years ago:
Back to work

This time nine years ago:
Clinging onto summer - cycling to Powsin

This time ten years ago:
Composition in blue and yellow

This time 11 years ago:
Z-9

This time 12 years ago:
My favourite aircraft

This time 13 years ago:
Утомлённые солнцем

Energy, focus and state of mind

I can see a seasonal trend in my life; summertime and the living gets easy - I'm less demanding of myself, I do less exercise, less writing; if the sun shines for long enough, the motorbikes beckon, otherwise walks, time on the działka, pootling, pottering - not really getting anything accomplished. I feel guilt if I'm not accomplishing. Am I fulfilling my human potential? Or am I recharging batteries ahead of a season of hard work and poor weather? Looking back at Lent earlier this year, I managed one blog post per day and ten sets of exercises a day every day for all 46 days. Over the lazy days of summer, I'm only averaging around three sets of exercises a day and a similar number of blog posts per week. And feeling guilty about it.

Summer seems to have come to an abrupt end, with several dull, rainy days in a row. Rather than cherishing the return to a time of higher productivity, I am sensing the dread at the approaching Hammer of Darkness, even though it's still two months off. That time of year after the clocks go back, when seasonal affective disorder starts kicking in. Time to withdraw; time to open the doors to the rich, inner world of the Imagination. But this year there's the American presidential elections, which could once again go so horribly wrong. And Belarus. And Brexit. And Covid. Known unknowns, things that could spiral into tragedy all too easily.

Below: smoke from the blazing local-authority waste-dump on ulica Mirkowska in Konstancin, 9km away, merges into low ceiling cloud, yesterday evening. Grim, dismal, depressing.

Light. We need the light, literally and metaphorically. Even on moonless nights, a cloudless sky gives views of a starry firmament, pinpoints of light, reminders of the prospect of worlds alive with sentient life and an ordered, unfolding universe. But clouds cover. They create ambiguity, uncertainty, a lack of definition. Cloudless days in mid-winter, short though they be, bring vastly more joy than overcast days in late summer.

This time last year:

50 years on - Gunnersbury Grammar school reunion

This time three years ago:
All things visible and invisible

This time five years ago:
Work starts on Warsaw-Radom rail modernisation

This time six years ago:
Won't be long 'til summertime is through

This time eight years ago:
It was a good year for the apples

This time ten years ago:
Early-September moan about the commuting