Farewell to Ciocia Dziunia

To Wrocław (by night train) for the funeral of my late mother's oldest sister, Ciocia Dziunia, who died just before the New Year at the age of 94. The funeral took place at the Osobowicki cemetery, on the north-western edge of Wrocław. It's a cemetery that's become so crowded that only the urns of the cremated can now be buried here. So Ciocia Dziunia was cremated the previous evening, with the urn being delivered just in time for the mass at the chapel.

The weather was awful; just above zero, but with a blustery wind blowing. The melting slush mixed with the mud, here and there freezing into a slippery ice rink. I saw a mourner fall over. Later I was told that one of the four pallbearers had slipped at a previous funeral and had broken his arm. Because no one else could step in, he had to continue his duties in obvious pain.

The largest wreath was from Ciocia Dzunia's former employees at FWP (Fundusz Wczasów Pracowniczych - workers' vacation fund - the communist-era trade union-run holiday resorts. She ran the Kotlina Kłodzka district - as she said, 1,000 people, 100 buildings. Although she retired many years ago, they still remembered her.

The inscription shows Ciocia's Dziunia's official age - during the war, many people (my mother included) lied about their age to wangle their way out of this or into that. While my mother had no difficulty in getting the British authorities to accept her real birthdate after the war, Ciocia Dziunia was officially a year younger than she really was.

She was buried alongside her late husband, Marian Pytlarz, who died more than 20 years ago. He fought in the Home Army during WW2.

Below: under a canopy the grave into which Ciocia Dziunia's urn was laid to rest. The cemetery is indeed very crowded, hard to move about without treading on someone's plot.

After the funeral, there was a wake meal held in an nearby restaurant, plenty of reminiscences of a long, eventful life. From pre-war eastern Poland - the Kresy borderlands, now part of Ukraine, deported to northern Russia by Stalin, amnestied in 1941, Ciocia Dzunia stayed with her parents in Soviet Kazakhstan rather than leave the USSR with General Anders' army as both of her younger sisters did, she returned to a Poland run by the communists. In the end, she outlived communism by more than a quarter of a century.

This time last year:
Poland's roads get (slightly) safer in 2015

This time two years ago:
Convenience and the economics of bottled water

This time three years ago:
Locally, it's the little things...

This time last four years ago:
Warsaw bids farewell to its old trams

This time nine years ago:
Five departures from Okęcie

2017 - a year of round anniversaries

This year will see several round-number anniversaries which have a personal significance for me.

On 6 February, I will have been living in Jeziorki for 15 years. A very good choice of places on this planet to live, given its proximity to the thriving Capital City of Warsaw and yet its near-rural character. Over the years Jeziorki has done nothing but improve, albeit at a pace that could do with acceleration (cf. pavement for ul. Karczunkowska).

This Lent, which begins on Wednesday 1 March and ends on Sunday 16 April, will be the 25th one in a row I've done seriously, quitting alcohol and various other indulgences for 46 days. If I live to be 110, this will be the one factor that I shall proclaim led to my longevity. That and genes. For which I'm truly grateful.

On 1 April, I will have been blogging for 10 years. When I started, it was only meant to have been a year-long experiment, but through blogging more than any other social media, I have found my voice - and realised my limitations. I know I can write and take photos reasonably well - but I cannot work with moving pictures or with sound recordings. Ah - and in late February 2007, I bought my first digital camera, so ten years of digital photography too. More on this later this year.

On 22 July, I will have been living in Poland for 20 years. I'll be posting now and then over this year about some of the contrasts that have occurred over since 1997.

Sometime in September, I will have been working for the BPCC for 15 years, and the BPCC itself will be celebrating its 25th anniversary. Next year, in September 2018, I'll have been working here for 16 years, beating my 16 years at the CBI (September 1981-June 1997).

On 4 October, I turn 60. [A biggie this, brought home to me with force by the fact that from that day on, for the rest of my life, I am eligible for a 30% discount on rail travel in Poland.] A bit of "ARRRGH!", a bit of  "Thank God I'm wiser than I was".

2017 is the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, hippies and the counterculture revolution. Which I vaguely remember from old black & white newsreels.

2017 is the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Punk, which I remember totally because I was there. [Incidentally, I missed the 40th anniversary of my first punk gig, the Sex Pistols supported by the Clash at Lanchester Polytechnic. This appears to have been in late-November 1976.]


This time last year (apt for this anniversary-related post):
Walking on frozen water

This time two years ago:
Fireworks herald 2015 in Jeziorki

This time three years ago
Jeziorki welcomes 2014

This time four years ago:
LOT's second Dreamliner over Jeziorki

This time five years ago:
New Year's coal train

This time eight years ago:
Welcome to 2009!

This time nine years ago:
Happy 2008!

2016 - a year in numbers

For the third year in a row, I've been logging some aspects of my drive towards a healthier life. The most important part, other than diet, is walking coupled with moderate exercise. How's 2016 been?

Goal: long, healthy, active life

I keep repeating this, but it's true. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. If you are determined to live a long, healthy and active life, you should be more than just vaguely aware of how you're doing, but keeping track and monitoring progress just like a responsible business manager would do, keeping an eye on the key performance indicators (KPIs).

Public Health England announced the other day that 80% of my age group (40-60) in the UK are overweight, unfit and drink too much alcohol. So I took the online test (you can take it here). I scored 7.5 on a scale of 1 to 10. So - room for improvement. It helps if you totally avoid sweet snacks, cakes, biscuits, sugary drinks and confectionary, as I do.

Walking is excellent exercise. Unlike running, it is low impact (you can't do your ligaments or sinews in), and it's useful. Recommended by the NHS, the World Health Organisation and the Surgeon-General of the US, 10,000 paces as a daily target. This, depending on the size of your pace (mine's 80cm) represents around 8km/5 miles of walking each day. And this is generally at the expense of time spent in the car, polluting and congesting the city.

So this year (with an 80cm pace), I walked 3,098km (1,922 miles) down slightly from 3,136km (1,945 miles) last year. Since I started counting paces on a daily basis on 1 January 2014, I've walked 9,101km (5,646 miles).

I'm still using a Tanita PD-724 3-Axes pedometer (below), which I take with me everywhere I go. As long as it has a decent (not cheapo no-name) battery, it will serve you extremely well. Having said that, my new smartphone comes with a health app (Huawei Health) that is more accurate than WalkLogger (which I had in my old Samsung Galaxy SIII). These days, there's no excuse for not measuring your paces daily.

If you use your car as the default means of getting about, you have no chance of racking up 10,000 paces in a day. If you slow down the pace of life, use public transport, use that time to catch up on reading, and walk between meetings etc, it's not that difficult.

Continued improvement in terms of alcohol consumption. My weekly average intake across the year was 25 units, down on last year's 28 units. Now, 28 units was (just) within the "3-4 units a day" that used to be recommended by the UK Government. To many people's dismay, this target was reduced to 21 units a week for men (14 for women), and then reduced again early this year (to 14 units a week for men and for women) My target for 2017 is not be quite as ambitious as 14 units; I'll be aiming at 21 a week. Looking back at my spreadsheet records, last year every fourth day was alcohol-free, this year it's been every third day. [1 unit = 25cl of spirits (40%), 200cl of beer (5%) or 75cl of wine (13%). In other words, not a lot.]

Giving up alcohol totally is pointless, unless you have an addiction problem. Study after study shows that moderate drinking is healthier across a lifespan than living a life of total abstinence. And if alcohol in moderation improves your social and artistic skills - why not. Just be aware of the limits.

Exercise - this year help has come in the form of Michał Borzyskowski from Australia, a fitness trainer and reader of this blog. Michał has helped keep me motivated over the year, extending the duration of my exercising season (which used to be Lent-only) into October. He's also suggested a routine of strength-building exercises to rebuild my right shoulder muscles after a recurring rotator-cuff injury which has its roots back in July 2008. I have invested in 1kg and 2kg weights plus a pull-up bar.

So sit-ups, the main exercise for keeping the fat off the waist. This year was better than last year. Daily average across the whole of 2016 was a 72, compared to 41 in 2015. But I stopped in early October, as the nights started drawing in, and calorific intake increased again. My waist circumference is now 39 and half inches (100.5cm), less that it was this time last year (40 inches/101.5cm) - it should be 36 inches (91.5cm).

1 January will traditionally be the day to get back into it!

Measurable and manageable
	2014	2015	2016
Paces per day walked (average across whole year)	9,800	10,700	10,600
Alcohol consumed (units per week)	33.4	28.0	25.0
Alcohol-free days over course of year	94	123	155
Sit-ups per day	65	41	72
Portions of fresh fruit & veg per day	N/A	4.3	5.0

I'm also keeping a log of fresh fruit and vegetable intake. Recommended daily consumption is five portions - this year I managed that goal (5.0), up from 4.3 portions a day every day across 2015. A portion is 80g of fruit/veg, 125cl of pure fruit juice. Now, maybe too much of my intake is fruit, not enough is vegetable. But our supermarkets are helping - celery sticks are starting to make an appearance, good to dip in hummus. Seven or even ten portions of mainly veg is said to be the real target. But the problem is time - time to prepare. So I've focused on the easy-to-eat portions, like cherry tomatoes (a handful = 1 portion); banana; tangerines (in season) seedless grapes (in season); freshly pressed apple juice (not from concentrate); and always to go for the salad option, broccoli, carrots, spinach, whenever possible.

No sugar, no cakes, biscuits or confectionery (other than sugar-free gum). At all. None. Zero. We don't need it - not even in the smallest amounts. No salt-snacks. Meat - only the highest quality, and then rarely. Fish and dairy products, nuts, pulses, rice, potatoes - this is fine. I will, however, cut down on the burgers in 2017 - either from fast-food outlets or shop-bought and home-fried ones.

My father, 93, continues to be an inspiration to me in terms of keeping going, active, mentally and physically in good shape, into advanced old age.

For our own good, and for the good of society and the healthcare system that society has to maintain, we have huge individual responsibility to watch our lifestyles, avoid the temptations of in-car idleness and sugary foods, exercise daily and monitor it carefully. Some of us have good genes; we should give thanks for them by treating our bodies better as we age, and leave the health service to focus its finite resources on those whose illnesses were caused by bad luck rather than by foolish lifestyle choices.

This time last year:
2015 - a year in numbers

This time two years ago:
Economic forecasts for 2014 - and 2015?

This time three years ago:
Economic predictions for 2014

This time four years ago:
Economic predictions for 2013

This time five years ago:
Economic predictions for 2012

This time six years ago:
Classic cars, West Ealing

This time seven years ago:
Jeziorki 2009, another view

This time eight years ago:
Jeziorki 2008, another view

This time nine years ago:
Final thoughts for 2007

Derbyshire at Christmas

The traditional Yuletide pilgrimage around England. Last year, it was 13C on Christmas day, this year it was 14C as we crossed the Peaks. [Looking back over this blog, I can also see snowy Christmas days, but the temperature trends are on the up.] Below: somewhere along the A6 between Buxton and Bakewell. Delightful scenery.

Below: from the same spot, a lay-by on the edge of the Peak District National Park camera turned through 90 degrees, zoomed out a bit.

Back in Duffield, the weather on Boxing Day was sunny though with a strong wind in the west. Time for a short walk with Dziadzio.

The landscape with its many folds and ridges catches the eye in the distance, and my Nikon Coolpix P900's long lens can pull out the compositions

Before a late gammon lunch, time for a second walk, with Moni, Eddie and our local guide, Cousin Hoavis. Along the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway (no trains running today), to Hazelwood, then up Nether Lane to Hob Hill.

And back towards Duffield...

The sun sets behind the ridge along which runs the Wirksworth Road.

Below: abandoned, broken into, vandalised, burnt and partially collapsed; house on Hazelwood Road

This time last year:
Across the High Peaks

This time two years ago:
Derbyshire's rolling landscapes

This time three years ago:
Our Progress Around the Sceptr'd Isle

This time four years ago:
Out and about in Duffield
and
Christmas Break

This time five years ago:
Boxing Day walk in Derbyshire

This time six years ago

Derbyshire in the snow

This time eight years ago:

Derbyshire in the sunshine

This time nine years ago:

Derbyshire in the drizzle

Solstice sunset, ul. Gogolińska, Jeziorki

The shortest day of the year is behind us. From now on, the days will be getting longer, the sun will set slightly later - although it is not until 5 January that the sun will rise earlier. Today, the time from sunrise to sunset in Warsaw was seven hours and 43 minutes. And 12 seconds. Four seconds more than yesterday

Out to catch that setting sun. Below: from the platform of W-wa Jeziorki station. In the foreground, the muddy pool churned up by the contractor's vehicles is freezing over; today's daytime high was +2C, and as the sun sets, the temperature at ground level falls below zero.

Across ul. Karczunkowska, down ul. Gogolinska to take the photo (below) from the top of one of the ballast mountains by the tracks. The sun sets through the trees... Let me change perspective and zoom in a bit...

The trees - silver birches without leaves and various conifers - lining ul. Gogolińska are now brought in closer...

And I zoom in again (to 600mm equivalent) to catch the sun through the branches of the fir trees.

Turning south, a Lufthansa Airbus A380 cross the heavens, the condensation trails from its four giant turbofan engines still lit by the sun that's already dipped below the horizon for those of us down at ground level.

Below: my brother has rendered my photo (seen originally here) in the style of German artist Anselm Kiefer, catching the atmosphere of the late afternoon in winter with a light frost and a dusting of snow.

Three more months of gloom before the clocks go forward at the end of March. But even the gloomiest days of the year can yield artistic inspiration.

Tomorrow sees the beginning of the annual Yuletide pilgrimage (Luton-Ealing-Duffield-Stockport-Duffield-Ealing-Luton).

This time last year:
Conspiracy to celebrate

This time two years ago:
The Mythos and the Logos in Russia

This time three years ago:
Going mobile - I get a smartofon

This time four years ago:
The end was meant to end today (remember?)

This time five years ago:
First snow - but proper snow?

The time six years ago:
Dense, wet, rush hour snow

This time seven years ago:
Evening photography, Powiśle

This time eight years ago:
The shortest day of the year

This time nine years ago:
Bye bye borders - Poland joins Schengen

Christmas illuminations in Warsaw - the champion

At this, the darkest time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, we crave light and warmth; and so religion steps in to organise a feast that coincides with the passing of the Winter Solstice and the start of the process of the lengthening day. To celebrate, lights. The lights of Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, Yuletide... the night sky, the darkness must be kept at bay until the sun begins to return.

Warsaw is splendidly illuminated this year. The substitution of high-wattage lightbulbs for energy-saving LEDs has allowed those responsible for lighting Our City at this festive time to go full-on creative, allowing ever-greater flights of fancy.

This particular example reached me via the internet a few days earlier; a dinner at the Amber Room at the Pałac Sobańskich on Al. Ujazdowskie gave me an opportunity to check out this particular piece of art. WOW. This is an illuminated tribute to the legendary Jelcz ogórek ('cucumber') bus that served Warsaw in the 1960s and '70s.

Warsaw's main thoroughfares are ablaze with illuminations at this time of year; the Royal Route (Trakt Królewski) has more lights along its length than ever before. This is Plac Na Rozdrożu.

The lights will be on until early February; just what's needed to lift the spirits while the nights are long.

The subliminal message from the City of Warsaw here - love your public transport, and use it.

This time last year:
Changes on ul. Baletowa
[A year on, the 715 and 737 bus routes serve this street]

This time three years ago:
UK migration - don't blame the Poles

This time four years ago:
Jacek Hugo Bader's Biała Gorączka reviewed

This time five years ago:
Thoughts upon the death of the Dear Leader

This time sixe years ago:
Global warming or climate change?

This time seven years ago:
Progress along the S79

More news from the line - Nowa Iwiczna

Prompted by comments as to the current state of works at Nowa Iwiczna, I walked down there yesterday to take a look for myself. As I approached the newly opened 'up' platform, I found a conveniently situated post holding a no-longer functioning signal. Shinning up the ladder, I got a much better perspective on the layout of the station. Now, looking at this scene, I confess to being confused.

Firstly, the new 'up' platform (Peron 2) has been built to the north of ul. Krasickiego, not to the south, as on the original plan. It looks as though a 'down' platform (Peron 1) will be built parallel to it (you can see the first concrete element in place in the bottom right of the photo below).

Crossing ul. Krasickiego, I walk to the old platform, which is still functioning as the 'down' platform, serving southbound passengers from the eastern track. Now the puzzle, which has been referred to here before. Note the short, unconnected, stretch of rail crossing Krasickiego, stopping at the old platform's edge (below).

Looking at the detailed plan of the station modernisation, below, (click to enlarge, north to the left), it seems there's been a major change made since the plan was drawn up in May 2007. The new 'up' platform, which was meant to be to the south of Krasickiego, is now to the north. Look closely at the horizontal orange lines - they represent the original track alignment here. Now look at the horizontal red lines - they represent the planned alignment - the coal-train line has already been re-aligned (the summer closure of Krasickiego); the unconnected track crossing the road in the photo above corresponds to the westernmost of the three red lines.

But how will the track align after the new 'down' platform is finally built? Will the old alignment of the 'down' line remain unchanged? In which case, what will that unconnected stretch be doing? A mistake? Or will the new 'down' platform curve round to the east, parallel to the 'up' platform? We will wait and see.

In the meanwhile, on the walk between W-wa Jeziorki and W-wa Iwiczna, I see that much of the two ballast mountains between the tracks and ul. Gogolińska has remained in place. All the ballast has been laid; will someone come and remove this? I hope not. I hope that soil and grass will cover these heaps, and a local landmark will emerge, vantage points a few precious metres above these flat Mazovian fields. The caravan serves as a base for the security guard(s) here to look after construction material strung out between the two stations.

Same goes for my ballast mountain between W-wa Jeziorki and W-wa Dawidy (below). The finishing works on the two stations are continuing (including the level crossing keeper's hut at W-wa Dawidy), but the line itself is 100% ready. The ballast mountain should be left, as it affords views which are notably absent in this landscape. As Bill Bryson wrote about his native Iowa, "if you stand on two telephone directories in Iowa, you have A View."

Below: and here it is - The View. Not a particularly good day today, what with the low cloud and remnants of Thursday's smog, but worth getting up on those tetonas (Spanish) to look down over Dawidy Bankowe, Dawidy, Jeziorki - and Warsaw on the horizon.

May these two ballast mountains claim their rightful place in the landscape of Jeziorki.

Incidentally - for the record - this weekend was abysmal for Warsaw-bound travellers on Koleje Mazowieckie on the Radom line. Yesterday, a Radom-Warsaw train was delayed for 45 minutes because of problems with the overhead power lines at Dobieszyn. Today was far worse - an accident at a level crossing south of Grabów nad Pilicą resulted in delays of 2hrs 20 minutes.

This time last year:
Modern governance for a complex world (prescient post!)

This time two years ago:
Contagion - CEE's foreign-exchange markets

This time three years ago:
Muddy Karczunkowska

This time five years ago:
Ul. Trombity - a step closer to dry feet?

This time five years ago:
Matters of style

This time seven years ago:
Real winter hits Warsaw

This time eight years ago:
This is not Mazowsze, no?

Smog

For the first time in nearly ten years of blogging, of over 2,400 posts, I'm writing about air quality in Warsaw. On Thursday, there was a smog alert for the city; to encourage motorists to leave their cars at home, public transport was made free-of-charge for the day. The cause was high atmospheric pressure coupled with light wind; a temperature inversion in which air closest to the ground was trapped by a layer of warmer air pressing down on it.

Below: view from the office, Friday 16 December. The sky is cloudless, visibility is poor due to particulates in the air, which will neither rise into the heavens nor blow away in the wind. Look at the low contrast on that distant chimney stack at Kawęcznyn (and compare with pic here).

Below: Tuesday 13 December, view from W-wa Dawidy station's new 'up' platform, looking across the fields to the Siekierki power station in the distance. Remember the words of Beata Szydło on her campaign trail last year: "The future of Polish power generation is coal."

The smog comes from fossil fuels being burned at ground level, the smoke from which cannot dissipate into the higher atmosphere, being pressed down by a layer of warm air. What's to blame? Cars, power stations - but to an even greater extent the crap that people in the suburbs burn to heat their houses. Of all Warsaw districts, the most polluted in this smoggy period was leafy Wawer. Here, old detached houses are the main villain, out-polluting everything else.

Same out here in Jeziorki; I step outside, and the smell of smoke fills the air. The indigenous people are heating their houses by burning coal, rubbish, old copies of Gnash Dziennik, linoleum, mouldy rolls of wallpaper from the summer house - anything vaguely combustible that's been stored over the summer with the boiler in mind. I come back from my walk and my coat stinks like I've spent the night in a London pub before the smoking ban.

While the newer houses in Jeziorki are heated with gas (tak źle, tak niedobrze) or bunker fuel, old habits of Warsaw's pre-suburbanites die hard. At least rubber tyres are no longer being burnt, and the acrid smell of burning plastic waste is a rarity. But notice on both photos above, and below, the smoke is not rising. It comes up out of the chimney, to fall back down to ground level thanks to the temperature inversion. Below: photo taken in Jeziorki this morning, 17 December.

The City of Warsaw's offer to let people come into town on Thursday by free public transport did not really work. Who cares about saving 15zł on a dobster* when you can afford to drive a 150,000zł black four-wheel drive with darkened rear windows? "I've got a great big black SUV, I've spent loadsamoney on it, and I intend to use it to drag myself a few kilometres to my city-centre office. So people can see me drive by and be in awe of me. Smog? Not me mister. Not my problem." Below: midday on Thursday 15 December, when we should all be travelling to town on free public transport.

Below: an example of egregious car use by a driver who must know the exhaust is shot. I snapped this miscreant in Wrocław in September. Cars like this should be taken off the road and not allowed back on until the issue is fixed and a strict test passed.

Worth mentioning that Paris, a capital city with a far greater smog problem than Warsaw, lies in a country where 75% of power comes from nuclear (the highest percentage in the world), where dziady don't burn crap to heat their houses, where far more commuters use public transport, and where small-capacity motorbikes and scooters are commonplace. But it's bigger than Warsaw, so those cars are an environmental problem. Warsaw must tame the motorcar (especially the short-distance, one-per-car commuter) before the things get as bad as in Paris.

In my grey-jumper'd childhood in West London, I remember the signs on lampposts reminding residents of the Clean Air Act 1956, introduced in the wake of the Great Smog of London in 1952, which killed thousands of people. The law, revised in 1968 into more comprehensive air pollution prevention measures, made it illegal to burn wood or coal, or anything else other than smokeless fuel such as coke.

I wrote this two and half years ago, in April 2014:

London was hit by some serious air pollution at the beginning of this month, with warnings on TV not to conduct strenuous exercise outdoors, and to keep vulnerable groups of people inside. 

This article on Politics.co.uk suggests that 4,000 Londoners a year die from air pollution, and yet politicians are afraid to tackle the issue. Here's a highlight... 

"Across the UK, more than one in 20 deaths each year are now caused in part by air pollution. That's almost 30,000 people whose deaths could be avoided. But while politicians queue up to warn about the dangers of sugar and passive smoking to children, very few are willing to say anything about the deaths our addiction to cars has caused." 

In London, no doubt here in Warsaw too, air quality will get worse before it gets better. In the meantime, don't drive if you really don't have to.

As I predicted.

Polish citizens evidently don't take to the 'nudge' theory of policy making; more stringent measures need to be taken to avoid smoggy days by banning the burning of anything other than high-grade coal or coke (if at all!) and doing what the Parisians do - only let half of the cars drive into town on smoggy days - based on odd- or even number plates. And this government needs to invest more heavily on wind and solar power. I tyle, i już. I may be an economic and social liberal, but on matters environmental, I am illiberal.

*Dobster = bilet dobowy = 24-hour public transport ticket.

This time last year:
Snow in December: A memory or figment of my imagination?

This three years ago:
A muddy walk along ul. Karczunkowska

This five years ago:
Ul. Trombity - a step closer to dry feet?
[Asphalt yes, but still no pavement]

This time six years ago:
Matters of style

This time seven years ago:
Real winter hits Warsaw

This time eight years ago:
This is not Mazowsze, no?