Kilometres of new asphalt for Gmina Chynów

My stays at Jakubowizna are getting longer - Friday to Tuesday this week. Meetings in Warsaw tomorrow, so time to return to Jeziorki. While I'm out in the countryside, I can observe a huge leap in infrastructure development locally. The railway line is nearing completion - without doubt, there will be two working lines to Warka by September (Warka to Radom will be a longer story). And alongside the railway, new asphalted roads will make local travel easier, even if some level crossings will be closed.

Below: this is a completely new stretch of road, an extension of ul. Kolejowa south towards Krężel. At the moment, it only leads to the level crossing on ul. Spokójna, a dirt-track through a forest on either side. Note the southbound train, advertised as heading for Radom - it will run to Warka from where a replacement bus service will take passengers further. There's one white and one red light on, denoting single-line working. This should be over soon.

Below: new asphalt soon for ul. Kolejowa in Chynów. The road is being realigned to ensure a better angle at the level crossing

Below: new asphalt at the end of my road. A slightly quicker, and more comfortable walk to the station.

Below: Chynów station will soon have full pedestrian amenities - a foot-tunnel under the tracks to connect the two platforms - and more importantly, to connect Jakubowizna with Chynów.

Riding on old, bumpy, cracked, patched asphalt isn't a heap of fun on a motorbike which, true to its early 1950s pierwowzór has no rear suspension other than a sprung saddle and balloon tyres. Roads around here are a mixture - good stretches, bad stretches - and stretches with no asphalt whatsoever.

Below: looking down towards Chynów station. The big, recently planted orchard will need fencing. You can see my hardtail bike likes fresh asphalt.

Below: same stretch, later the next evening.

Below: Google Earth map showing extent of the new asphalt. Central stretch around Chynów station still missing. Total of three kilometres of asphalt between ul. Miodowa and ul. Spokojna, doubled up on the section between ul. Miodowa and the crossing at Widok.

Thoughts about Belarus and Poland

 As I have been predicting for a while, Belarus has become the focus for world attention. Lukashenko's faked election result has provoked massive popular discontent with people taking to the street, braving violent aggression from Lukashenko's security apparatus.

What next?

After Poland's presidential election, Poles didn't take to the streets. The incumbent Duda won; a man for whom I have little respect given that he has little agency in his own right and is an evident marionette of Poland's real leader - the divisive and authoritarian Kaczyński. But I accept his victory. It was a tight victory that without the endless bile of a party-controlled state broadcaster might have ended with a different result. Yet I accept the result and will wait out Duda's next term in office.

Not watching any TV or reading any Polish newspapers, my political observations are based on my journeys around Poland. In rural Mazowsze, there's no doubt that there were more posters for Duda up on fences, in windows, on balconies, than for all the other candidates put together. The Polish Catholic church (Church of Poland?) had an important role too in convincing the faithful to vote for a 'conservative'.

The final result of the second round of voting, 51% to 49% was tighter than Brexit, and like the Brexit vote was essentially a referendum.

Many Poles were bitterly disappointed by the result. I suspect that like me, after a few minutes' ranting about the river of shit that poured out of TV sets poisoning the brains of rural simpletons, I calmed down. It's over, I live with it.

Why didn't that happen in Belarus?

Because the situation in Poland was transparent. It was clear from the outset that it would be a knife's edge result. We could see from the streets, from conversations, that Poland is a tightly polarised society, and that the election could easily go either way.

In Belarus, people had had enough. After 26 years of Lukashenko in charge, the nation is going nowhere. Human aspirations and human potential are stultified. The economy is poorly; GDP per capita is about 55% of what it is in Poland. Lukashenko was one of the few world leaders to ignore and play down the risk of Covid-19, leading to an infection rate that's eleven times higher than that in Poland (assuming the figures are real). Belarusians can peer across their borders into the EU; they can see Poland, Lithuania and Latvia and their ever-increasing prosperity, progress and improved infrastructure, better shops, and healthier economies.

The result is that the vast majority of Belarusians demanded change on Sunday. Opposition candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya (Wow! Google Blogger not underlining her name with a squiggly red line!) was clearly set to win with a thumping majority. I followed events on Twitter closely, observing numerous journalists, analysts and academics with knowledge of what was going on. It was clear from the polling stations where the results were given (including diplomatic posts abroad) that Ms Tsikhanouskaya should win. A film-clip showing a portly middle-aged lady in a floral-pattern dress leaving a polling station from an upper-story window via a ladder, with a sack of ballot papers, said it all - Lukashenko was doing everything he could to fake the result.

Had he said that he won with a Duda-style 51.03% share of the popular vote, and that Ms Tsikhanouskaya had, say 40% with the rest sharing the remainder, there might have been more acceptance of the result. But no. The official exit poll showed 79.7%, the final result was 80.08% for Lukashenko. Yet internet polling in preceding months showed his support not even reaching 7%. And people knew that.

Belarusians were aware that there would be dirty tricks played at a massive scale, but there was widespread revulsion, and anger, at the crass way that their vote had been stolen, that their will had been overridden, and that there was no more to look forward to. Just another five years of marasm.

So taking to the street and striking was the only solution.

The goons we have seen on footage coming out of Minsk and other Belarusian cities are counting on Lukashenko to be there for them, as they are supporting him. Things will change. Unlike Poland in 1956, 1970, 1976 and 1981, this revolution is being televised. Millions (literally!) of smartphone cameras in the hands of ordinary citizens are recording the militiamen, the OMON, the Spetsnaz and other military and paramilitary formations as they mete out brutality to people standing in the streets to protest the stolen election. They surely know that they will be brought to book for their actions in August 2020. They should know that they will fail, and when the historical tipping point is reached, there will be no place for them in a democratic Belarus.

This time last year:
One man went to mow

This time three years ago:
My father's penknife and airport security

This time four years ago:
Post-holiday detox diet starts today

This time seven years ago:
Cycle ride up and down the S2 and S79 before they open

This time eight years ago:
Kraks and back in a day by train 

This time nine years ago:
Fountains by the New Town

This time ten years ago:
Old-School Saska Kępa

This time 11 years ago:
The land, the light

This time 12 years ago:
Rainbow over Jeziorki

This time 13 years ago:
Previously in Portmeirion

Goodnight, Belarus - may God keep you.

I go to sleep on a historic night - on a par with... With what? Poland on 12 December 1981 - the eve of Martial Law? Or Poland on 4 June 1989 after the partially free elections that saw the communist party overwhelmed by a total landslide? Or Ukraine on 21 November, when Yanukovych, corrupt puppet of Putin, fled the country?

For 26 years Lukashenko has ruled Belarus; the result of his post-Soviet leadership is that GDP per capita there is only 55% of what it is in Poland. Belarusians can see into the EU - their country borders with three member states - and they know exactly what they're missing.

Over the next eight hours, what will happen just over 100 miles to the east of where I'm sleeping? In Minsk, in Brest just across the border, in Gomel, in Vitebsk, in Grodno? Will Lukashenko's goons resort to deadly violence to suppress the masses who have taken to the streets protesting against a blatantly stolen election? Will we see more police changing sides to back the pro-democracy marchers - or is that just wishful thinking? Will Lukashenka stand firm, or will he fly to Moscow? Will Putin wade in (Russian media are suspiciously quiet about what's happening in Belarus right now)?

The West has had a hammering these past few years; Brexit, Trump, Covid - could Belarus be the start of a 'winds of change' moment, like the fall of the Berlin Wall - or is that too countercyclical a proposition to even consider?

I've been glued to Twitter - which at times like this proves itself to be far superior to Facebook or the tradition media (the BBC's headline 'Belarus election: President Lukashenko set to claim landslide win' is an utter embarrassment and will surely be held up to ridicule in decades to come). Anyone following the independent voices in Belarus can see that the BBC's coverage is lame and lazy.

 But it's time to sleep - what will the morning bring? Will I be tempted to open the laptop at 4am as I did on Brexit referendum night or during the 2016 US presidential election?

May God bless the good people of Belarus, who've suffered long enough under this dictator; may they finally realise a dream of freedom, which we in the West all too often take for granted.

This time five years ago:
Motorbike across Poland to buy fine Polish wine

This time six years ago:
Eat Polish apples, drink Polish cider

This time seven years ago:
Hottest week ever (37C likely to be beaten this week)

This time eight years ago:
Progress along the second line of the Warsaw Metro (now a normal part of city life)

This time nine years ago:
Doric arches, ul. Targowa

This time ten years ago:
A place in the country, everyone's ideal

This time 13 years ago:
I must go down to the sea again

Działka food

The weekly trek from Jeziorki to Jakubowizna is made with a recyclable bag of groceries to keep me fed from Friday to Monday evening. A staple on the działka is sausage stew, variations of which provide nourishment and keep the stomach full.

It takes about 20 minutes to prepare and contains all that's important to one's diet. The cornerstone is the sausage. There are four different ones that I can use. The most common is a Spanish chorizo, spicy and red. Then there's the 'raw, slow-maturing Polish sausage' (kiełbasa surowa długodojrzewająca), which is now a regular on the sausage shelf at Lidl. Less commonly used is Catalonian fuet or a French saucisson sec, whenever these appear. The sausage needs only slicing before it goes into the deep skillet.

The carbohydrate base is either chickpea or lentil; an alternative is Melvit's Trendy Lunch, a boil-in-the-bag mixture of lentils, bulgur wheat and pearl barley. This takes longer to prepare, needing a separate 15 minutes before joining the sausage.

Vitamin C comes in the form of cherry tomatoes (eight per portion) and spinach, which is put in at the same time as the sausage goes in. Flavour is added - fresh lime juice, and one piri piri chilli pepper. A fillet or three of anchovy from the jar can also be added; another flavouring ingredient I often use is the rind of a Parmesan cheese, cut into tiny cubes. Too hard to eat, but when cooked it softens to a chewy consistency and imparts a deep savoury flavour.

Eaten from bowls rather than plates, it sets one up for a few hours hard labour out on the land!

The cooker has gas rings, gas comes from a LPG container, which is now well into its second summer.

The loaf of bread (chleb górski, from Lidl) on a Friday is still fit for eating on Monday, providing it's toasted. Again, sausage slices well, with some Parmesan cheese sliced and some slices of cherry tomato, a fine zapiekanka can be made for breakfast.

On another note - suitably nourished, I venture forth for a stroll, long past sunset, this evening and last night. The sky is clear, the air smells of high summer, fecund, ripe; the stars are up there and I am reminded of such Augusts in Stella-Plage, in France. At such moments, I feel the direct connection between myself and the Eternal and Infinite.

This time last year:
Proper summer in Warsaw

This time two years ago:
Poland's trains failing in the heat

This time three years ago:
"Learn from your mystics is my only advice"

This time four years ago:
Out where the pines grow wild and tall

This time seven years ago:
Behold and See (part V) - short story

This time eight years ago:
Syrenki in Warsaw

This time nine years ago:
What's the Polish for 'impostor'?

This time ten years ago:
Running with the storm on the road to Mamrotowo

This time 12 years ago:
St Pancras Station - new gateway to London

This time 13 years ago:
Mountains or sea? North Wales has them both

Between wakefulness and sleep

The mind is where we are really at; our consciousness. We slip in and out of it as we go to sleep. If you have a nap during the day and wake up in the night for a wee, you will be passing through this fascinating zone six times in a 24-hour period. It's a universal phenomenon, biologists believe it affects most species of animals too, yet we pay it too little attention. 

Healthy sleep is a blessing; I am fortunate (and grateful) for not having any difficulties with falling asleep at night and sympathise with those who do. I can be fast asleep within a minute of my head touching the pillow. Faster than it takes me to give thanks for the day in most cases!

The moments of passing from one state to the other fascinate me; I try to observe what's happening to me as the day's events are processed in my mind. I find myself contemplating some issue, trying to unravel it, and then discovering that, although it's familiar to me, it did not actually happen. At this stage, with this going on, I fall asleep. This is the subconscious seeping into the conscious; it feels real - but isn't connected to reality. Trying to think about this phenomenon too analytically at the time may bring me back to the fully wakeful state - otherwise, I just drop off into sleep quickly.  

My return to consciousness is usually flavoured by the last dream I had. If I am awakened suddenly - by a noise, or by a startling dream - that dream, and its atmosphere, remains strongly present in my mind. The worst dreams I find are those that are circular, repetitive and boring rather than excitingly frightening. 

"I had this strangest dream..."

I will have a daytime nap two or three times a week - usually after going to bed late the night before (writing or editing photos) and waking up early. A half-hour to 45-minute snooze in the late afternoon is refreshing. And it gives me another opportunity to experience that magical moment of slipping out of consciousness. Waking up again after a daytime nap can be disconcerting, especially during the winter months of darkness. Is it morning? Or early evening?

A late coffee (taken after midday) won't keep me awake as I go to bed, but it will stop me from falling asleep quickly when I wake up in the night. The caffeine that's still in the bloodstream has a potent effect. This can lead to frustrating minutes of sleeplessness. It is in this condition that consciously focusing on the transition between wakefulness and sleep can be counterproductive. As I finally feel I'm starting the journey, I suddenly return to being fully awake again.

Given that we pass through this state at least twice every 24 hours, it's worth having a go at consciously 'being there' and applying some analysis to how it happens in your case. Remember, we can all agree to the gram how heavy you or I are; we know to the minute how old you or I are - but what goes on within my mind is something only known unto me - and what goes on within your conscious mind is something only known unto you.

It can be a deeply mystical experience - for me, it is reaching out into the Hereafter; a reminder that consciousness and quantum mechanics allow for a far greater range of possibilities than our daily routines allow.

Close your eyes and drift away... but to where?

This time three years ago:

Hammersmith, on Thames

This time six years ago:
In search of quintessential English countryside

This time seven years ago:
Behold and See - short story, Pt III

This time 10 years ago:
Another return to Penrhos

Rososz and the toponymy of the Polish countryside

In England, it's straightforward. Type in the name of a given village into Wikipedia, and the chances are you'll find that with a slightly different name, it was mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086.

Poland's history has been less kind to its wieś than England's history has been to its villages. The tides of war, occupation, uprisings, partitions, swept this way and that, taking away that certainty one has about the land, the names it had, and the stories of the people that lived there.

Locally, I was intrigued by a village to which you'll see lots of signposts for round my parts - Rososz. On the map you'll see an Adamów Rososki, a Barcice Rososkie, and a Rososzka, all within 3km of Rososz. A village that lends its name to long-established outlying settlements in its vicinity suggests importance. And if you do a bit of digging, and you'll find that Rososz was once the seat of the gmina (municipality or commune) of Rososz (from 1952 to 1954). So - a significant place, you'd think.

But try finding it! 

Below: old-style sign, predating the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Symbols, which led to the creation of the current style of Polish place-name signage. The familiar white-on-green signposts still use versions of a typeface first devised in 1975.

Yes, Rososz has a parish church. But it was built as recently as 1985. And yes, there's a cemetery. But the oldest graves there date back to the late '80s. So how did Rososz become the seat of a gmina? Furthermore, spending a few hours walking around, I could only see one building that would have been standing in those Stalinist times (below). Everything else is newer. What happened? 

Gateway to Rososz: a five-way junction, suggesting a former importance as a communication hub. Behind me, the road branches right for Rososzka and left for Zbyszków.

Place names give us a frame of geographical reference. Consistency and accuracy are essential when referring to a place to prevent confusion. Yet in the Polish countryside, borders blur, a part of one village melts into a part of another; one expands, another shrinks, the names on the map remain the same. Below: it looks like someone's not happy with Adamów Rososki.

Below: approaching Adamów Rososki on foot from the other side, I came across this sign, which I photographed from two angles. From the side, it can still clearly be read as 'Adamów - R'. Yet from head-on, it's just a white rectangle, the black lettering painted over. 

Machcin has spread out, spawning a Machcin I and a Machcin II, each containing a cluster of houses. On what basis does that sandy road turning right from the photo above become a part of Machcin II rather than a part of Adamów Rososki or Gaj Żelechowski? Is it the Will of the People or the whim of a desk clerk?

Sandy roads are almost impassable on a normal motorbike; it's like riding over sand dunes. So I walked to Rososz. Despite my best efforts to retrace my footsteps, I took a wrong turning on the way back and ended up walking 21km rather than the 16km I'd planned. My route took me through Zbyszków, Barcice Rososkie, Gaj Żelechowski and Machcin II. [I must say that Google Maps is useless in the field on a smartphone. It's literally showing me three kilometres away from where I know I am. Plus I can hardly see the screen on a sunny day.]

There used to be a bit of this going on in Warsaw - looking at relatively recent maps of Jeziorki, it was hard to tell what was the real administrative name of our part of town. But then along came the Miejski System Informacyjny, with unified nomenclature for all districts and sub-districts. Gone were Dawidy Poduchowne and Jeziorki Niemieckie/Jeziorki Polskie - everything become Jeziorki Południowe. I suspect it will take a bit longer to settle these issues in the countryside.

Below: straight on for Mińsk Maz. (pop. 41,000), turn right for Rososzka (pop. 137). And a station... with steam engines? Like having a biplane as the symbol for an airport.

Below: Rososz ain't happy either. Why should Rososzka be highlighted on this road sign, rather than Rososz? Road goes the same way after all... (same road junction, sign from the other direction as the one above).

Below: bonus photo - today's photo of bike + tank

This time last year:

Reflections of the 75th Anniversary

This time two years ago:
In praise of Polish mineral waters

This time three years ago:
Going back to my roots - Mogielnica

This time four years ago:
My father's walk around Jeziorki

This time six years ago:
What's the Polish for 'sustainability'?

This time eight years ago:
Last chance to see Amber Gold's billboards in Warsaw

This time nine years ago:
The Twilight Rambler

One photo for the Warsaw Uprising anniversary

From the batch of photos so kindly sent by my cousin Teresa from Canada. Dated October 1996, captioned in my mother's hand "Kolacja w naszym domu. Panowie to koledzy Bohdana z Powstania Warszawskiego". (Supper at our house. The gentlemen are Bohdan's comrades from the Warsaw Uprising.) My father, then 73, raising a toast across the table to Albert Jarosz and Józef Malinowski, their wives and my mother (right).

The date suggests a gathering commemorating the end, rather than the beginning of the Uprising.

On a personal note, I am sad not to have attended this year's commemorations, but I feel that keeping away from mass events (even if wearing a mask!) makes sense at a time of pandemic and rising numbers of new infections.

This time last year:
'W' Hour on the big day

This time two years ago:
My father at the 74th anniversary of the Uprising

This time three years ago:
73rd anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising with my father

This time four years ago:
Godzina W remembered with my father - a day of emotions

This time seven years ago:
Godzina W commemorated in a more civilised way

Godzina W eight years ago (2012)

Godzina W nine years ago (2011)

Godzina W 11 years ago (2009)

The cost of Covid complacency

Being a bit of a spreadsheet nut ("if you can't measure it, you can't manage it"), I've been tracking the pandemic in Poland since the outset. One particular indicator I'm watching is the spread rate. Back in February, my brother alerted me to the maths of a pandemic; if the number of new cases doubles every day, then within a month every person in the UK would be infected. Yes, from one to 68 million within 25 days. So a daily doubling of cases = spread rate of 1.0. A doubling every second day = spread rate of 0.5, and so on.

As epidemiologists who were at the forefront of the battle against Ebola fever said, to stop a virus you have to act quickly and decisively. This happened in Poland, where the government announced a full lockdown with quarantine on 13 March, when the number of confirmed cases in Poland was 15 and total deaths from Covid-19 was just two. By contrast, the UK government vacillated. Advisors talking persuasively about 'herd immunity' and pub-chain owners protecting their revenues led to weeks of dithering; the UK finally locked down by the time the genie was out of the bottle - on 23 March with 6,650 cases and 335 dead.

The outcome is well-known. The UK went on to suffer more than any other country (apart from Belgium and Andorra) in terms of deaths per million (677). Compare that to Poland's 45 deaths per million (data from today from worldometers.info).

So things are good in Poland?

They were. 

Since lockdown, the spread rate in Poland tumbled. The daily spread rate in the two weeks before lockdown averaged around 0.5 (new cases doubling every two days). At that rate of transmission, everyone in Poland would have become infected by the middle of April. That didn't happen of course. By the end of March, the spread rate in Poland was down to 0.14. By the end of April, it was 0.03. This was peak-lockdown. By the end of May, it was 0.02. There was more progress in June, falling below 0.01, reaching a pandemic low of 0.006 on 5 and 6 July. That equates to a doubling of cases every four months, or 70,000 cases by 1 November.

But we've allowed ourselves to become complacent. "There is no pandemic," I heard a mask-less man telling his girlfriend on the platform of W-wa Jeziorki two weeks ago. Mask-wearing in shops means covering the chin; something done for the sake of appearance. Holidays, travel, things are pretty much back to normal. The economy too - in June, Poland's industrial production exceeded June 2019 levels!

The result of this complacency is that the spread rate has started to rise. This is now the third week in a row of rising spread rates. Today it reached 0.015. This means 70,000 cases by 21 August, a doubling of cases every three weeks rather than every four months!

This morning's numbers from the Ministry of Health look alarming, with 657 new cases recorded. That's more than ever, and is approaching the current levels in the UK (846 yesterday). Rising numbers of deaths will no doubt follow.

I have to announce that with great sadness I shall not be taking part in the Warsaw Uprising commemorations tomorrow. I had been looking forward to going to Powązki military cemetery and laying flowers on my uncle's grave, as my father had done in previous years. However, given the crowds, the number of elderly people likely to be attending, I can only see this as being harmful. I'm sure my father would have understood.

This time last year:

Uprising commemoration - Day Three

This time three years ago:
Ahead of the Big Day

This time four years ago:
Once in a blue moon

This time six years ago:
A return to Snowdon - Wales' highest peak

This time seven years ago:
On the eve of Warsaw's Veturillo revolution

This time nine years ago:
Getting ready for the 'W'-hour flypast

This time ten years ago:
A century of Polish scouting