Now that's what I call winter vol.12

What a beautiful sight met my eyes as I opened the curtains this morning: winter as it should be. Time for breakfast, scan the paper, some light household duties, and off with the camera to snap some Jeziorki winter magic.

Sunshine and snow; the perfect winter combination. I stroll to the north end of ul. Trombity, turn left into the footpath that is the continuation of ul. Kórnicka and cross the tracks, headed for Zamienie.

The wind is from the north-west; it's beginning to cloud over. Air temperature is -2C, slight windchill (-3C). Overnight low was -6C, so not one of the coldest nights I've experienced in my 12 winters in Poland.

This is a view along ul. Kórnicka, across the tracks. As I mentioned last month, the far end of this road, where it joins ul. Dawidowska in Zamienie, has been renamed ul. Sikorki. Just about visible in the distance are large mounds of earth, delivered to the building site on Dawidowska.

Returning from Zamienie by way of Dawidy Bankowe. Above: fields between Dawidy Bankowe and ul. Trombity. Splash of green in the field on the left is spring onions.

Left: On the pedestrian railway crossing on ul. Kórnicka, looking towards ul. Baletowa and W-wa Dawidy station. A Belavia Boeing 737 approaches Okęcie airport.










This time last year:
Winter train
The day becomes noticeably longer
So cold the lock freezes on the inside

Welcome to 2009

The New Year, welcomed in with a firework display at Pod Skocznią, the rather posh district of Mokotów (most famous resident: General Jaruzelski). This year's barrage lasted just over 20 minutes of full-intensity, non-stop explosions, some five minutes longer than last year - a useful indicator. But everyone is expecting a significant slowdown in the economy. Let's hope it's not too dramatic in terms of job losses.

This time last year:
2008 welcomed in with fireworks

2008 in Jeziorki: another view

I shall let these photographs, taken by our neighbours, Grażyna and Kamila Wojciechowicz, offer another view of the changing seasons in Jeziorki, and the magic atmospheres of this unique part of suburban Warsaw. All photos taken this year on ul. Trombity.

Rampa - a year-end look

Thanks again to Jeziorki resident Marcin Daniecki for these pics, taken on the last morning of 2008. They show that, despite the imminent economic slowdown, work on the Rampa site is proceeding apace. The photo below show cranes and pipes, presumably laying drains.

The old tyres, that had been used prevent landslip from the sides of the embankment leading up to the ramp are still here, piled in heaps (below). There are signs that someone has tried to set them on fire, mercifully without any great success.

Below: Where once ran rails. This shot leads me to ponder whether this land (to the west of the scrapyard on Karczunkowska) will be part of the plot. The new road will run to the east, emerging on Karczunkowska opposite ul. Nawłocka. So what will happen here?

Below: looking like a blasted WWI battlefield on the Western Front, mud churned up by machinery, earth heaped up in great mounds, then frozen.

Below: the newly-arising road linking Mysiadło with ul. Karczunkowska. Will it be called ul. Żmijewska (Adder Street), as it once was before the Rampa site was built? (See this post.) How long before this new road starts disgorging hundreds of cars an hour onto ul. Karczunkowska?

Below: abandoned building on ul. Karczunkowska. Not sure what its purpose was, today a hang-out for the local substance-abuse community. Further investigation required!

Below: A final look at the Jeziorki Stonehenge, the last remaining pillar that once held up the ramp. The destruction of this site has been without doubt the biggest local event of 2008. I wonder what will be here in a year's time...

Parrots in Ealing

Moni, Eddie and I arrived at my parents yesterday, where the big excitement was the recent arrival of a flock of ten parrots, who seem to have domeciled themselves in the back garden. The willow tree (apparently one of the finest in southern England, and subject to a tree preservation order), which has served as a perch to wood pigeons and other local species, is now regularly visited by several parrots at a time. As I write, Eddie tells me there's five in the tree.

Can anyone say what type of parrot this is? Where are they from? How did they get to West London? Are they likely to breed in this climate? Where will they nest?

UPDATE: Thanks, KG for identification of these birds as ring-necked parakeets, and the Wikipedia quote. My good friend Andrzej Poloczek of Hither Green, London SE13, followed up with links describing the current state of feral parrots in south east England here, and here. The second link is to a BBC website which has many comments from people seeing such sights.

This time last year:
Christmas lights in Jeziorki
Okęcie and Heathrow compared

Walking in Derbyshire

Staying three days at my brother's family in Derbyshire, we were blessed with perfect weather on Boxing Day. Ideal to walk off the gastronomic excesses of Yuletide. As I've mentioned, Derbyshire has some of England's most beautiful countryside, something that's missing in Mazowsze. The rural aesthetic there is quite different, more stark.

Above: A well maintained hedgerow, undulating landscape and rationally sized fields. The low winter sun casts long shadows, even at midday.

Part of our walk took us across the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway, which leads from Duffield to Wirksworth. I hope that before too long this line will run again, both for rail freight (from the quarries at Wirskworth) and for tourism. Right: A mile marker along the single-track like, indicating that we are 133 and three-quarter miles from London St Pancras.

This time last year:
Same place, different weather

Traffic at 38,000 ft

Flying yesterday from Warsaw to Heathrow by BA (civilised flight - from Okecie's Terminal 2 rather than that blasted cattleshed, Etiuda, and at 12:30 not 06:00), I took the 80-400mm lens in the hope of some good air-to-air shots. And I was rewarded, somewhere over Holland, when an Air France Airbus A330 that had been flying parallel and ahead of our aircraft turned towards us and flew over. A split second later and the Airbus had shot past. Photo's lack of sharpness due it being taken through two panes of less-than-optically-perfect and smudged glass.

This time last year:
Foggy Day in London Town

Last Christmas before the recession [?]

It's been a good year at work; over the course of the past 12 months, six people have joined us in our Warsaw office and two have moved on. The vector of business has been upward. How will things be next year? Photo by Natalia, gingerbread man by Tessa, Chateau Perey by Avis (the car hire firm's generosity paid off, as I hired one of its cars at Manchester airport the very next day).