Up Mogielica in the howling wind

The weather today was ideal for hillwalking - with the exception of the wind, which was blowing hard from the south-west. On television today we heard that the wind blew down power lines in south-west Poland leaving over 13,000 houses without electricity. I planned our march up Mogielica (1,171m above sea level) so that we'd be climbing it from the north-east - the mountain itself would shield us from the wind.

All was comfortable in the leeward side of the hill. But once we reached the shoulder of the mountain, we experienced the full force of the gale. Below: Sabinka snaps Eddie (scarf around ears and neck) as he leans back into the wind on the clearing near the summit.

At the summit itself, there's a 40m-high viewing tower. We meet several other brave souls who've made their way up to the top of Mogielica; however, apart from one other guy, no one else fancies climbing the wooden tower. At the viewing platform at the top, it's blowing so hard that neither of us dares actually stand up. We're both on all fours, pressed to the floor. The wind, I learn later, is gusting up to 110 kmh! I'm clinging onto the woodwork as I get some photos. Below: looking south-west towards the Tatra mountains. Worth comparing the views from the top with these taken in high summer.

Below: telephoto shot from the tower. The sun, when it peeks out from behind the flying clouds, sheds beautiful light on the surrounding hills.

On the way down to the Rydz-Śmigły pass where I left the car; last time I was here, haymaking was in full swing, as was billberry picking. Today, it's too late even for mushrooms - although we had some excellent fried mushrooms with our supper last night.

Eddie amazes me with his ability to perform prodigious feats of physical endurance on the smallest amount of food. He gets to the top of the mountain and back down again on one scrambled egg and half a slice of bread.

Another happy return to Dobra

I've been waiting for weeks to get back to Dobra; the perfect antidote to long hours at work and that malaise brought on by the rapidly-shortening daylight hours. (The busiest time of year in the office is between early September and mid-December.) Eddie, Sabina and I arrived at Dobra yesterday just after 3pm, to be met by friendly familiar faces and some lunch. Afterwards, a chance to grab the last moments of the dying day.

Above: looking down on the DK28 road as it snakes through Dobra and up towards Gruszowiec, between Ćwilin (left) and Śnieżnica (right). Some hill walking awaits!

After a massive supper washed down with wine, we retire. I manage to sleep 12 hours. There is indeed something about Dobra that brings about perfect rest.

Words fail me!

Intrigued as I am by 'linguistic gaps' between Polish and English and what they may signify in terms of cultural (nay! even biological!) differences between the two peoples, I was amazed my the realisation this morning that there's no direct translation in Polish of the verb 'to fail'.

Which is not to say the verb 'to fail' cannot be translated - it can, but only a negation of success.

To fail an exam - nie zdać egzamin ('to not pass an exam')

Words fail me - nie mam słów ('I don't have words')

He failed to catch up - nie zdołał dogonić ('he was unable to catch up')

It fails to meet my requirements - Nie spełnia moich warunków ('it does not meet my requirements')

In the case of a negation of a negation, 'not fail/never fail' etc, is simply translated as a positive:

She never fails to make me laugh - ona zawsze mnie rozśmiesza ('she always makes me laugh')

So Polish is not a language in which one can fail! See also this post - about luck and happiness. How can one translate that wonderful truism 'Failing to plan is planning to fail'? What could this say about Poles' attitudes to taking exams, carrying out the terms and conditions of a contract, launching political initiatives or new products on the market? - Failure can never be an option... but not succeeding clearly is! And not succeeding is clearly a better consolation prize than failing.

And is a society in which we have successful, less-successful and unsuccessful people happier/fairer than one in which we have successes and failures?

Polish-Canadian commemoration of 11/11

Tomorrow Poland marks Independence Day, the 92nd anniversary of the re-emergence of a Polish State from Russian, German and Austrian partition at the end of WWI. By this morning the flags were already out all over Warsaw. Returning from a meeting this afternoon, I was passing by the Canadian Embassy (in background of picture below) when I came across a small but moving joint commemoration of Armistice Day and Poland's Independence day.

As well as a group of military attaches from the NATO embassies in Warsaw (below), there were also a number of Polish WWII veterans of the armed forces in the west, and their families. Most of the veterans gathered today fought alongside General Maczek in the 1st Armoured Division, who stayed in the west after the war and emigrated to Canada. There was one veteran from the September 1939 campaign. All looked remarkably well and fit for their age - not a walking stick to be seen!

The ceremony was held by a monument consisting of two boulders, one from Poland and one from Canada (in photo top) commemorate the Polish and Canadian soldiers who fought side-by-side in WWII.

Off to Dobra for a few days - hope to post something from the mountains.

Death on the tracks

My train to town was late this morning, by a full 40 minutes. I could tell something was wrong when instead of my train an earlier, semi-fast train to Warsaw ran through W-wa Jeziorki without stopping and then the next two trains heading south passed along the northbound platform (below). In the far, far distance, where the rails converge, I could see the lights of a stationary train, somewhere beyond W-wa Dawidy station.

There were no announcements from the level crossing gatekeeper, though it turned out he knew full well what had happened. My train arrived at quarter to ten. Below: on board the train to town, passing the flooded fields, sodden after five consecutive rainy days.

Jeziorki? Bagno, Panie!

We passed the stationary train - a double decker - which I assumed had broken down. Later, in the office, I posted an enquiry on the railway news group pl. misc.kolej, to discover it was not a breakdown, but a suicide.

A reply to my enquiry linked this clip from TVN Warszawa. It appears a 60 year-old man threw himself under the Radom-bound train some time before six am.

The TVN Warszawa reportage makes three interesting assertions. One is that the land between Jeziorki and the airport is 'some bog' ('jakieś bagna'). The second is that the police had 'great difficulty in arriving at the scene'. I am not surprised. Ul. Hołobcowa is one of the muddiest, pot-holed, most impassable streets in Warsaw. The third is the headline - "Death on the tracks near Piaseczno". Twaddle. It happened seven and half kilometers from Piaseczno, three from the airport, four from Ursynów. So the 'near' is a complete misnomer.

A suicide must be an awful experience for the train driver. At the instant the train hits a human being, the driver can do nothing; unlike the car driver than can at least attempt to swerve past. The psychological damage to the helpless train driver may linger for a long long time. Left: Coroner's photo-grapher snaps the scene of the suicide.

Tesco vs. Auchan

Dropping Moni off at the Metro in Ursynów this morning, I took the opportunity to visit the Tesco in Kabaty to do at least part of the weekly shop. Ever since moving to Jeziorki in 2002 I've been doing the big supermarket trip to Auchan, and only Auchan, once a week.

It's the closest large retailer to our house, the vast shop is incredibly well stocked, and it's easy to get to (one right turn onto Puławska, one set of lights, then a handy viaduct straight into the car park).

But things are not as rosy at Auchan as they once were. Firstly, a number of our favourite brands have been disappearing off the shelves. Recently (to my horror!) Lavazza coffee has gone. For me, the only coffee brand that's comparable in quality of taste is Illy, which Auchan also doesn't stock. The children's favourite shampoo (Herbal Essences) has disappeared too. Secondly, Auchan's loyalty card Skarbonka is but a pale shadow of its former self. I could once count on racking up 200 złotys over the course of a year. This year, I'll be lucky to get back 70 zł.

So on to Tesco. Main attraction is in the wine department. Here, one can buy outstanding own-brand dry red wines from Chile and Australia. The Chilean one cost 8.35 złotys a bottle, the Australian 7.99. Tesco's global buying power and blending expertise ensure that for this price, one comes out with a wine comparable with a 18-22 zł bottle purchased elsewhere. These two are stunningly good for the price; the Chilean one is strong on Carmenere grape, while the Australian is Shirazy, both are well-balanced and are full of fruit flavour. Discovered in Czarna Białostocka while on a visit to Ziggy's this summer, these two wines alone are a good reason to pop into a (larger) Tesco.

I was impressed on entering the Tesco in Kabaty by the fruit and veg department. Although the variety of products on offer was definitely smaller than in Auchan (no pomegranate in season, for example), the produce was well sorted (nothing mouldy, soft or going off), well presented - and you don't have to wait in a separate queue to weight it.

But while Tesco's own-brand products are high quality and cheaper, the branded stuff is more expensive than at Auchan. Take pesto for example. Tesco's own brand pesto costs 5.12 zł for a 190 g. jar while my favourite brand, Gran' Italia, costs 11.99 zł. And guess what - Tesco's pesto differs little in taste from the best branded one, and costs less than half price. The Gran' Italia costs 8.98 zł at Auchan - a 25% difference, but then Auchan doesn't do an own-brand pesto. Toothpaste too; Sensodyne Ultraszybka Ulga is 15.69 zł at Tesco and 11.98 zł at Auchan. However, Tesco does stock both my favourite coffee and my children's favourite shampoo.

Having split this week's shopping between two supermarkets, I will adopt the following strategy for the future: visit Tesco once a month to stock up big-time on the stuff that Auchan has stopped selling, buying plenty of fresh fruit and veg while I'm at it. The remaining weeks, I shall continue shopping at Auchan.

Over the course of a year, I'm spending tens of thousands of zlotys at the supermarkets. It's a spend that needs to be handled wisely.

On the long road from Zero to One

Consciousness. Patient, expanding consciousness, growing in awareness from day to day. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster - when a sudden event or inspiration generates a qualititive jump in one's understanding, bringing about a quantum leap to another meta-level. Whatever the pace, the direction is the same; from Zero towards One.

In childhood the world around is made of shapeless blocks, vague monoliths, from which, with age and experience - and the chisel of thought - emerge statues of understanding. From out of crude lumps of unhewn observation they emerge, honed ever more finely, delicately nuanced, catalogued more precisely, with each passing year.

Watch an infant's wide unfocused eyes play over an unfamiliar room, pulling together sense and structure from what is around him. He has seen this all before. No?

We edge slowly along from uncertainty towards certainty, from darkness to light - yet we are not even the tiniest fraction of the infinitely long road from Zero to One.

There can be no rest from this process. We must all learn to unseat the reptile in the brain, that dim and selfish animal, and allow in the angelic; this is spiritual evolution; willing yourself ever closer along that billion year-long path towards God-ness, absolute understanding, total universal unity and infinite consciousness.

We will all die, but the atoms that make us, those atoms currently in formation within our DNA, within our protein - those atoms will keep on spinning as they have done for many billion more years. What have we taught them? For when they return to the soil, they will spin on, bearing with them fragments of memory and will and consciousness. And when they return from out of the dark collectiveness of that soil once more as individual and conscious life, they will be another tiny step closer to God.

Autumnal blues

It's early November but the trees have already shed all their leaves. The weather changed late on Wednesday night; rain has been falling on and off since, although the temperature has stayed warm (a high of +15C today).

Above: path leading down the Vistula escarpment from Al. Jerozolimskie to ul. Kruczkowskiego.

Above: avenue of trees alongside the Kanał Piaseczyński, between the British Embassy (to the right) and Legia football stadium (to the left). Trees are almost entirely bare too. The canal is an 820m-long ornamental waterway that runs between the foot of the escarpment under the Zamek Ujazdowski castle and ul. Czerniakowska.

Last dry run? On Wednesday I made the most of the weather by cycling from home to a meeting in Konstancin and then onto the office; 32km covered. Right: the singletrack trail that snakes along the southern edge of the Las Kabacki forest.

But it's that darkness that gets everybody; just gone 3pm today and everyone in the office was in a state of gloom induced by the darkening sky; despite the impending weekend it's still five months before the clocks go forward and we can leave work in daylight again.

And as I wrote two weeks ago, that is a very depressing thought. We have moved from that first half of Polish autumn - złota jesień ('golden autumn') into słotna jesień; the damp muddy greyness that stays until the Frost Gods arrive bearing with them the first snow.

I reach W-wa Jeziorki station at six pm this evening; it's been dark for nearly two hours already. Any pleasure I may have derived from walking home is entirely mitigated by the drizzle, the darkness and the fact that the entire route home is muddy.