Last ride to work, summer 2007

Once the school holidays began, I'd ride my bicycle to work whenever I could. On Monday the school run begins again, three weeks later we'll cross the Equinox, nights will get longer, days colder. But this week, I managed three round trips to work, each of at least 36km. Cycle path nearly all the way - from home, through the Las Kabacki forest, into Ursynów, along al. KEN, then Dolina Sluziewiecka, Belwederska (the quiet stretch pictured above), past Lazienki park, down Agricola, and on to the office. If not too tired on the way home, I'd do a longer run through the forest; beautiful at this time of year, sunny, not too hot.

But that's it for 2007 - back on the bike commuting (hopefully) late next June.

Greenhouse sunset

The word 'greenhouse' today is associated with carbon dioxide and global warming, but down Jeziorki way it represents a dying way of life. Back in the 1970s, private market gardeners were allowed to run their own greenhouses to help supply Warsaw's growing population with fresh produce (that the inefficient public sector couldn't). 'Badylarze', the pejorative term of the time for the market gardeners, built greenhouses on the city's rim and burnt old tyres, bunker oil and unsold copies of Trybuna Ludu, and got rich producing tomatoes and carnations the year round.

These days, their businesses have to compete with growers from across the European Union. Many market gardeners have gone bust, their greenhouses lingering idle until the land gets sold for housing development. That's where the serious money is to be made round here these days.

This evening I snapped this greenhouse on ul. Trombity, one of dozens in Jeziorki, under a splendid sunset. How many will remain in five years time?

Where have the trees gone?

"Woke up this mornin', got those 'what's happened to that forest outside my bedroom window' blues". What once looked like Birnam Wood marching on Dunsinane* has gone, the self-sown silver birches that formed a line in a field between ul. Trombity and ul. Sarabandy have been cut down. To make way for what? Arable crops? Housing?

* Note for my non-native speaking readers: A reference to Shakespeare's Macbeth

Don't the moon look lonesome, shinin' through the trees?

Total familiarity. Walking home this evening along ul. Karczunkowska, I might as well have been in Ohio, Kentucky or Minnesota sometime in the 1950s. The full moon sky, the scents of late summer, the landscape, suburban houses on the edge of town... Atavistic resurgence in its fullest, made manifest in its familiarity.

At times like this, I feel I have lived before, I live now and will live again.

"Don't the moon look lonesome, shinin' through the trees" - a line from about a hundred and one blues songs. Above photo: 30 sec exposure at f3.5.

Heron over ul. Pozytywki

I've seen it before, but it has always proved elusive. Today, while walking around the pond by ul. Pozytywki (lit. "Music-box Street"), I caught this grey heron hovering over the water before flying gracefully off to the west. Perhaps the two anglers sitting by the pond had put it off competing for fish. The lump under its throat is its retracted neck, which bends into an 'S' shape for flight.

Late August cultivation

Where others use lawnmowers, here in Jeziorki we use tractors. Looking out east from our garden, I get a strong deja vu thing about 1950s America again. Only the satellite dish makes the scene look contemporary.

Neuroscientists will say that deja vus are all just a matter of electrical impulses in a certain part of our brain. I don't buy that. My flashbacks are too consistent in terms of time and place (just had another one in the kitchen). USA, 1920s to 1950s. Here in Jeziorki, these flashbacks are triggered with magnificent regularity and intensity, which give me a strong suspicion that indeed, I am living a blessed afterlife, right now.

"...said the spider to the fly"

Today I found this splendid specimen outside my bedroom window. Overnight it had caught a fly, which it was cocooning in silk prior to digestion. These large garden spiders, called 'Krzyzaki' in Polish on account of the cross on their thoraxes, are prevalent in late summer and into the autumn.

Last night's electrical storm (small pic below) hit Jeziorki hard. At quarter to four I was awoken by a flash of lightning instantly followed by an extremely loud thunderclap.The lightning was bright enough to illuminate my room through the curtains. I jumped out of bed to grab my camera, went for the light switch - nothing. Electricity was out in the house and indeed in all our neighbours' houses. Power was restored to Jeziorki by 10 am.

Another summer storm

Woken up by one early this morning, recording another one late this evening. A powerful electrical storm made its way north skirting Warsaw's western fringes. This shot was taken half an hour after sunset. The wind was blowing up fiercely, hence the blurred outlines of the trees in this 30 second exposure. During that time, I counted up to seven separate flashes. (Below:) Our estate waiting for the storm to hit - photo taken some quarter of an hour earlier.