Covid is over - what did we learn?

Three years ago, we were locked down amid the first wave of Covid-19, uncertain of what would follow. Would we survive? Would our loved ones survive? Because of a promptly announced lockdown in Poland, the first wave of Covid - the wave that surged across the planet before any vaccine could be rolled out - largely spared us here. But the second wave, in spring 2021, was far deadlier, with over 600 deaths a day at the peak. 

Last week, the World Health Organization declared the pandemic over; 6.9 million deaths connected to the disease. This compares to 17m dead during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1920. The pandemic, as predicted, has become endemic, and will return in waves from time to time, likes colds and flus. Unless there's a new mutation that will come and get us, we'll get used to Covid-19 waxing and waning like the moon. Booster jabs and masks will no doubt be back some time - this autumn? Who knows?

Back in 2020, I wrote three posts in which I set out how I thought the world would change as a result of the pandemic (here, here and here). Written at a time of deep uncertainty, of living through something no one alive ever remembers living through before, I can now see today how resilient we are as a species, how we're able to adapt, evolve, move on - and yet how stupid - wilfully stupid - we can be at the same time.

What did I get right?

Above all, the world of work has changed for good. A survey conducted by corporate real-estate advisors JLL reveals that the average office worker goes into the office 2.6 days a week. The direct consequence of this is that most companies don't need as much office space as they once did. A CEO of one firm I talked to in January said that their 1,000m² of floor space was occupied by an average of just ten employees - and with nearly three years until the current lease contract expires, he's looking for someone to sublet half of that space. This experience can be multiplied hundreds of thousands of times across the global economy. Warsaw's skyline is no longer full of cranes erecting super-tall structures - projects started before the pandemic are all being completed, after which there will be a pause as the market determines how much office space will be needed going forward - and where. Meanwhile, flex-space and co-working offices are all the rage, especially with new IT businesses starting up or moving into Poland.

Traditional retailing is being hammered by e-commerce. I cannot recall the last time I walked into a non-food store (other than buying a second-hand shirt and cardigan from a charity shop in December). Lockdown spurred the acceleration of e-commerce in Poland, the value of which more than doubled between 2019 and 2023 (from 70 to 154 billion złotys, according to PwC). 

Covid is one of several reasons why China is looked at with growing mistrust by the West. A result of this is phenomenon of  'friendshoring' - nearshoring (itself the reverse of 'offshoring') to friendlier countries. This is an area in which Poland can gain. Example - a British firm with a long and proud tradition, household-name brand, ceased all UK manufacturing in the1990s, offshoring it to the Far East. After several consolidations, it ended up relying on just five factories - all in China. Came the pandemic, and the delivery time rose to 15 months. So this firm approached me to see if it could find a partner in Poland. We shall see. This story is being repeated by a great many businesses from the Western world seeking to make their supply chains more robust.

What did I get wrong?

The civil aviation sector is returning to normal - at least for tourism, despite higher fares. Business travel, though, is still some 25% down on pre-pandemic levels, largely as companies realise how much money can be saved from holding meetings online. Never mind Jet Zero - never mind that passenger planes criss-crossing our heavens are emitting vast amounts of CO₂ and other greenhouse gasses - folks still feel entitled to fly off on holidays.

Restaurants, cafes and bars are generally doing well (at least in Polish towns and cities). Those that survived the lockdowns have put up their prices significantly, improved service, tweaked the menu and are filling up nicely.

Mask-wearing has ceased to be common practice and is now unusual even on crowded trains or buses - it seems the average Pole isn't afraid of colds, flus or the now largely non-lethal SARS-CoV-2 virus. I stopped wearing one towards the end of March as the daily data showed the rate of new infections falling quickly. But do masks work? To my non-technical eye, the chances of infection of a non-mask-wearing person by an infected non-mask-wearing person must be far greater than in the case where both are masked - deflection or absorption of virus-laden water droplets from the respiratory system. But then who am I to judge empirically. 

The stream of ill-informed opinions, malicious disinformation and ideologically motivated pronouncements  made it extremely difficult for most people to know what to do. Stay in? Go out? Wear a mask? Don't wear a mask? Get jabbed? Avoid the jabs? In situations like this, I go along with Blaise Pascal and his wager: if mask-wearing isn't effective, and I'm wear a mask, I've lost nothing. If it is effective and I'm not wearing a mask, there's a greater risk of catching Covid. If the vaccine isn't effective, I've suffered no more than soreness in my left arm for 24 hours. If it is effective, it has probably spared me from Covid and who knows - death. Back in April 2020, if you caught Covid, you'd have a 7.5% of death. Today, after three rounds of vaccinations and with the herd immunity effect kicking in, that risk has fallen to 0.9%. Risk of death is now eight times lower.

What worries me most is the muddle of public-policy response, vindictiveness towards public-health authorities (the demonisation of US chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci in particular), and above all the fact that we still don't know whether the outbreak was a lab-leak and if so was it a biological weapon under development. The number of overlapping conspiracy theories (Chinese Communist Party, World Economic Forum's Agenda 2030, New World Order's chip-carrying vaccines etc) have clouded many people's reasoning. Social media was full of voices saying "the Chinese are trying to kill us" while at the same time the same people were refusing to wear a mask and mocking those who did. 

If we - as a species - as 200 or so sovereign nations - cannot get our act together and learn quickly, I am filled with pessimism. If a new virus were to emerge tomorrow (or a more virulent and deadly variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus) - how would the world respond? 

What did governments get wrong?

Compare the deaths from Covid during the first wave, Poland and the UK. Poland got it right - rapid and thorough lockdown. Johnson vacillated and got it wrong. Result - peak death-rate per day in the UK during the height of the first wave was around 60 to 70 times higher than in Poland. Click to enlarge. Source: Our World in Data. That's 55,000 human lives cut short because of bad policy. That was just the first wave. In total, Covid claimed the lives of over 225,000 Britons before the WHO declared the pandemic over - more than three times the number of civilian deaths in the UK in the whole of WW2.

But it's not that simple. This was but the first wave. Poland might have dodged it, but the second and third proved deadly, with deaths peaking at over 600 a day in the late autumn of 2020 and late spring of 2021. The second wave in the UK was even deadlier than the first, again exceeding 1,300 deaths a day.

Successive lockdowns would have hammered the economies. Policymakers had to balance public health against the risk of a major economic depression. Looking at the chart (above) and GDP for 2020 (the UK suffered a 9.8% contraction of GDP, Poland a mere 2.7%), I'd say that Poland did much better with this balancing act than the UK. Not only did Johnson screw the country with Brexit, he also contributed to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths. Vile, narcissistic piece of dogshit. May he rot in hell. I despise him with a loathing reserved only for Putin and Trump.

What did we learn?

This time last year:

How does a 'better tomorrow' look?

This time two years ago:
Blossom time in Jakubowizna

This time three years ago:

Apple-blossom time in Jakubowizna

This time four years ago:
Busy doing nothin'

This time nine years ago:
Springtime pictorial

This time ten years ago:
Kitten time!

This time 11 years ago:
Warsaw-Centrum to Jeziorki by train with super-wide lens

This time 12 years ago:
Loose Lips Sink Ships - part II

This time 13 years ago:
Jeziorki in the infra red 

This time 14 years ago:
Some rain, at last!

AI, metacognition and Artificial Consciousness

Here's a challenge for any artificial intelligence taking the Turing test - "Describe a flashback or déjà vu moment you recently experienced." I must say, ChatGPT failed dismally when I asked it, replying that as an AI language model it has no such personal experiences, after which it proceeded to trot out Wikipedia's descriptions of both phenomena.

Flashbacks, or déjà vus, memories of qualia experiences - are to me an intrinsic part of what it is to be me. Walking back from the shops along a farm track today, I had one of these qualia memories of driving with my parents from London to South Wales in the early 1960s, a National Benzole petrol station, ivory-painted tin shack with pumps outside, probably somewhere in Gloucestershire, on the route of the old A40. It may have been triggered by the orchards in bloom, but the memory was very clear, and led on to the memory that my mother would tell me how even at the age of three I could identify all the petrol stations by their logos - Shell, Esho (as I'd pronounce Esso), National, Cleveland and BP.

I suspect that with time AI language models will learn - or be taught - what it is that humans define as 'flashbacks' and be able to hallucinate one up on demand, making it indistinguishable from an answer given by a random human when asked the same question. Now, whether a computer can ever tell us what it feels like to be a computer, to subjectively experience the being-ness of a computer and verbalise that to humans so we can empathise with its emotions - I doubt. Can we ever really tell whether a computer understands something, or does it merely regurgitate stored data in a logical manner? And more's to the point - will computers ever learn intuition? Does one even learn to intuit?

To me qualia experiences - such as the one I'm getting right now looking out of my window on the wood next door, bright green leaves bathed in sunshine - are the quintessence of what it is to be conscious. Even with the image in front of my eyes, and the full suite of Photoshop tools at my disposal, the image below delivers only a rough approximation of what I'm experiencing when I look up at this actual scene from the digital representation of it, which I share with you, below. 

Artificial consciousness, therefore, will, I believe, be out of reach to silicon-based computing. Yes, AIs will evolve - quickly - into AGIs (artificial general intelligences) - and though they may reason and learn and even create net new knowledge, the actual conscious experience of qualia will be beyond them. What of memory? ChatGPT has a record of each one of my hundreds of chats I've had with it since January 2023, but that's just data; there's no emotion there - no surprise or delight or dismay at being asked a question, like a bright pupil may have in a classroom encounter with a teacher.

Metacognition - thinking about thinking, monitoring one's own thought process, higher-level awareness that one is in the process of thinking and how that thought process can be optimised - is something that computers may be trained to learn. With leading AI researchers saying that they no longer know what's going on within the box once machine learning gets going - we see only input and output - we have little idea how metacognition is developing within large AI systems. But even advanced metacognitive skills are no proof of consciousness, only reason. 

Again, I turn to ChatGPT:

I would posit that even advanced AI systems that have high levels of metacognition would still not be conscious - with the proviso that once quantum computing becomes a reality, then things might change.

Quantum computing - which depend on qubits that, unlike bits (zeros or ones), are both zeros and ones at the same time, held in that superposition until the wave function decoheres. This property is known to be able to increase computers' number-crunching capabilities exponentially. Once the engineering problems are solved (like having to operate at near absolute-zero temperature), quantum computers could represent a huge leap forward. Now, according to Penrose and Hameroff, consciousness is a quantum phenomenon that takes place within microtubules within neurons (the Orch-OR theory first posited nearly 30 years ago).

So - say some AI researchers - future AI systems based on quantum computers rather than today's silicon-based processors - could be able to display something that is a semblance of genuine consciousness. 

But even Sir Roger Penrose has stated on many occasions that consciousness is not computational. And here's the nub of the so-called Hard Problem of Consciousness - whether it is an emergent epiphenomenon of evolution, something that's limited to the brains of higher-order animals on our planet (and who knows - on other planets too?) or whether consciousness permeates the Cosmos and is everywhere - or whether it pops into existence in the right conditions. I'll leave the last word to ChatGPT:

Current understanding of consciousness is still limited, and there is no consensus on what it is, how it arises, or how it can be simulated or replicated.

This time seven years ago:
Baletowa Blues

This time nine years ago:
Two rainbows

This time ten years ago:
Dandelions in bloom

This time 11 years ago:
Warsaw's city centre - a deli-free zone

This time 12 years ago:
Patching up the holes

This time 14 years ago:
In search of the sublime aesthetic

This time 16 years ago:
Flying in from the Faroes

Transitioning from owl to lark

I try so hard to maintain a routine. To get things done. Not to waste time; not to waste a life. Central to this is my to-do list (on paper, not digital) and my exercise-and-diet spreadsheet - for healthy spirit in healthy mind in healthy body. Just enough stress to keep me driven and motivated - not so much as to cause issues.

My biggest personal enemy is procrastination, which attacks me from the moment I wake up. There's this voice, with a sensible tone, that offers me myriad rational excuses why not to start this particular day with a set of pull-ups before entering the kitchen from the bedroom, or not doing 50 squats as the kettle boils for my coffee. 

That procrastination pushes my exercises and other duties further and further back in the day, until the moment I realise I cannot get it all done unless I stay up to midnight. And so, indeed, lights go out at 00:00. And being blessed with good sleep, I drop off immediately, waking at 8am, with a wee-break or two on the way (after which I also tend to drop off immediately). Eight hours of quality sleep.

So all good then?

Well, no - I'm wasting the dawn. We're approaching that time of year when the night shrinks down to eight hours, and the day extends to 16 hours. And I'm going to bed at midnight. That's literally the middle of the night. If sunrise is at 4am, sunset's at 8pm, the middle of the night is midnight. 

Now, if I were to go to bed at 8pm and have eight hours of sleep - I could wake at 4am. Just think - five whole hours before the office Zoom call (instead of one). And still three hours of daylight after the end of the working day.

This is the post I was meant to have written two days ago - I didn't have time. Well, actually, I did have the time, but I wasted it. Mainly on doom-scrolling Twitter. Realising this, I have determined to dial back Twitter time and force myself to go to bed earlier - first 23:30, then 23:00, then 22:30, then 22:15 (it gets harder) - while each day performing all my tasks and doing all my exercises. 

Now, it's the exercises that are the problem. Having 'gamified' my routine with my spreadsheet and my  'beat last year' slogan, I cannot go to sleep until the exercises are all done and I'm ahead of my scores for 2022. If I didn't procrastinate and waste time, I'd get them done during the day, and not allow all seven sets to pile up until well into the evening.

So - by blasting through my exercises earlier in the day, by not letting procrastination bedevil my activity, I shall be aiming to retire earlier, keeping bedtime no later than 10pm, with a 9pm goal - and the reward will be more daylight hours to spend communing with the midsummer Sun.

Go with the flow, relax and take it easy? I try to do that too! 

Consciously striking the balance between getting on with it/getting stuff done on the one hand and taking it easy on the other is crucial to a happy life. Letting yourself go too often or pushing yourself to extremes should both be avoided. 

By nature I'm an owl with a messy desk. That's something that needs to change. It's never too late to mend.

This time last year:
Hills... I gotta have hills

This time two years ago:
Flashback to a Dream - subconsciousness and memory

This time 12 years ago:
'Old school' = pre-war

This time 13 years ago:
Britain chooses a coalition government

This time 14 years ago:
Landing over Ursynów

This time 15 years ago:
On being assertive in Poland

Corporate profits

It's fashionable these days to knock corporations, in the same way as it was for Britons to knock the EU back in 2016. It wasn't perfect (it still isn't!) but it didn't actually do them any harm. The monarchy is far from perfect but I consider a King Charles III vastly preferable to a President Boris. 

It's the same when it comes to capitalism. A quick scroll down my Twitter timeline shows that the corporate world is beset by enemies on the left and on the right.

Corporate profits! Corporate greed! CEOs' pay! Privatisation was a mistake! World Economic Forum! New World Order! 5G! Vaccine scam!

The voices of the radical left and radical right fail to see that, in the absence of any viable alternative economic model, trashing what we currently have makes no sense. "Smash the System!" they will yell. But other than offering the discredited dogmas of Karl Marx (who could never imagine workers as consumers or shareholders) or ideas that don't work at scale (imagine a workers' cooperative trying to introduce the smartphone or an oncology drug), or a totally unregulated free-for-all, they have no practical answer. Only ideology.

Corporate greed is seen as the root cause of the world's woes, and critics anthropomorphise corporations as high-net-worth individuals who own all the shares. 

Except they don't.

The vast majority of shares traded on the world's equities market do not belong to shadowy plutocrats. In the UK, only 13% of shares are owned by individual shareholders. And most of those don't own three yachts, a private jet or their own private island. Many of that 13% would have bought shares at the time of Margaret Thatcher's privatisations. I certainly did. I cashed in the 'obscene profits' made therefrom to pay off my mortgage early before moving to Poland. The biggest chunk (over a third) represents pension funds. Banks make up a significant chunk too - if you have an ISA, for example, a part of that pot will be invested in the stock market. The bond market is similarly invested in (indirectly) by individuals, be it people with a savings account or money in private or corporate pension funds. So rants against corporate profits and corporate greed are misdirected. I'm surprised by how many of those ranting against corporations are actually financially invested in them without even being aware of that fact or in the least bit curious as to how that happens - or taking up cudgels as shareholders at annual general meetings. It's easier to cry "Smash the capitalist system!" than it is to learn about its complexities.

Shareholder activism and consumer boycotts are powerful tools for those who seek change, understanding that reform is better than revolution. Pressure also needs to be put on politicians to regulate the market more equitably. The pumping of raw sewage into Britain's rivers and coastal waters is inexcusable - but a consequence of Brexit (the relevant EU Directive no longer applies). The UK's privatisation of railways was also a mistake; Poland's state-owned railways are far cheaper and more reliable. If you want higher standards in public utilities, make it an issue for the ballot box, but don't try to bring down the entire economy!

The regulated free market is the least-bad economic system there is; the only debate should focus about the nature of the regulation, not about smashing the system. But that's fiddly. It requires knowledge and wisdom - tighten the screws here, raise taxes there, loosen some laws here, stimulate some supply or some demand there. All about understanding the consequences of these tweaks, and working out how to avoid unintentionally creating more harm than good through implementing change.

And this is where it gets tricky. The electorate doesn't like big tricky issues. We're not talking about dilemmas or trilemmas, but massive, complicated, multidimensional problems that cannot be resolved at a single stroke. Look at Brexit. One vote, one decision, Article 50 triggered - consequence - economic growth stifled for a generation.

The economy is highly complex. It does need to be well regulated, but not smashed into pieces for the sake of ideology. If you don't understand it, try to. Or keep your simplistic slogans out of the argument.

This time two years ago:
Intimations of Immortality, revisited.

This time three years ago:
Things will never be the same Pt II

This time four years ago:
Up to my waist

This time five years ago:
Luton Airport's never-ending modernisation works

This time eight years ago:
Another office move

This time nine years ago:
Workhorse of the Free World's Air Forces over Jeziorki

This time ten years ago:
Looking for The Zone, in and around Jeziorki

This time 11 years ago:
I awake to snow, on 4 May

This time 16 years ago:
This is not America. No?

Under azure

The optimal public holiday configuration: Monday 1 May off work, Tuesday 2 May a bridge day, Wednesday 3 May another public holiday. Optimal weather - like yesterday, a crystalline azure sky, cloudless from horizon to horizon. And - due to a stiff westerly breeze - not too hot. Join me for a stroll round the neighbourhood.

Below: the western end of my street is Chynów, rather than Jakubowizna, and is officially named ulica Owocowa ('fruity street'). Apple tree saplings surround the house; the mobile-telephony relay tower on the horizon.

Below: Chynów's ul. Szkolna has a lovely and well-kept Marian shrine - note the flags (white and red for Poland, white and yellow for the Vatican, and blue and white for the Blessed Virgin Mary. May is the Marian month, hence the flags are out.

Below: entering Chynów from the south-west; crossing the bridge over the river Czarna. In the distance the white building is the town hall. This is the old DK50, bypassed in 2007, and as it's a public holiday - the traffic's mercifully light. Turn right for ul. Mostowa.

Below: here's ul. Mostowa linking the bridge to ul. Wolska that runs west to Widok, crossing the railway line on the way. 

Below: ul. Słoneczna rising modestly. The road to the left is on maps as ul. Działkowa, but the street sign says ul. Działowa (click to enlarge).

Below: across the tracks; water tank on the edge of an apple orchard - fringed by a pair of cherry trees. Let's go under one and look up towards the sky through the blossom…

Below: …and here it is - sublime cherry blossom at its finest.

Below: turn left for my part of Jakubowizna. Larks will sing.

Below: a well-invested orchard on the corner of my road - young trees, readily deployable protective netting, sensors, irrigation. One of about 20 orchards that line either side of the street.

Left: the wood next door to my działka; birches and pines. I love looking at it from my kitchen table, on which I work, facing this scenery.

Below: back on the działka - my own private paradise, my own acre. The wood is to the right of the fence. [Not too happy about the darker splodge of sky - looks like a Photoshopped burn-in - it's not; the polarising filter does that.]

13K paces walked today - a relaxing 1st of May. Rain tomorrow - good - the land is getting dry; the fruit trees and bushes need water.

This time last year: 
Łady roadworks
(similar weather!)

This time two years:
S7 extension works

This time three years ago:

Back to the działka after eight weeks locked down

This time four years ago:

Vol 2. of Bevis's Betjeman biography

This time five years ago:
New roads and rails

This time six years ago:
The Gold Train shoot - lessons learned

This time seven years ago:
The Network vs The Hierarchy in politics

This time eight years ago:
45 years under one roof

This time nine years ago:
Digbeth, Birmingham 5

This time ten years ago:
Still months away from the opening of the S2/S79 

This time 11 years ago: 
Looking at progress along the S79  

This time 13 years ago:
Two Polands

This time 14 years ago:
A delightful weekend in the country

This time 15 years ago:
The dismantling of the Rampa

This time 16 years ago:
Flag day

Landscapes around Warka

The start of a five-day weekend. I decide to pop down to Warka by train to visit the new Lidl which opened last month. A Lidl bigger and grander than I'd ever seen anywhere in Poland or the UK. My main aim was cheeses of quality and taste at a good price. A 200g presentation of Gran Padano, for example, sells at Lidl for 14.49 złotys, whilst my local Top Market sells 150g of the same cheese for 30zł. Anyway, shopping done (a 17-minute stroll from Warka station), I decided to walk one station close to Chynów - Gośniewice - to snap some landscapes.

Below: Warka's 'gate guardian' as you enter from the north, a Lim-2 (Polish licence-built MiG-15 bis) from a different angle. It could do with a polish-up! (two earlier shots from a different angle here)

 

Below: heading out of Warka along ulica Puławska towards Piaseczno. Not that ul. Puławska - and not that Piaseczno! A new development of about 50 new homes is being built here. Incidentally, the conductor on my train down to Warka was full of its joys and spoke of how the town is smartening up all the while and newcomers are moving in. With the fastest train times now down to 48 minutes to W-wa Gdańska and a remarkable 29 minutes to W-wa Służewiec, Warka is now within easy commuting distance of Warsaw, the more so if you only need to go in to the office two or three days a week. 

Below: this is what I came for - the gently rolling landscape as orchards are coming into blossom. Monoculture is dominating the land, with much new infrastructure for weighing, storing and packaging apples appearing, and many very smart new homes attached to the new warehouses.

Below: that 1950s rural U.S. vibe once again - on the skyline, the DW731 road between Warka and Potycz, where it joins the DK50 for Góra Kalwaria. O to be able to pop into Deke's place for a beer and a burger!

Below: the village of Prusy, just north of Warka. From here, I will turn left and take an unasphalted farm track west towards Gośniewice. 

Below: a distant wayside shrine. Note the farm buildings on the horizon - all part of the apple industry.

Below: a closer look. Still waiting for apple blossom, a profusion of dandelions.

Below: I reach Gośniewice for al fresco lunch (bread, cheese, blueberries and mineral water). A Radom-bound Koleje Mazowieckie train is just departing - next stop Warka. Note the staggered platforms at Gośniewice station. This station is one of the quietest on the Radom line - I was the only passenger here. I like the rural character of the place. Despite the lack of traffic, Gośniewice station was built to the same standard as every other piece of infrastructure along the line, such as the gated level crossing that only serves a farm track. More trains pass over than road traffic - I saw four trains and one tractor in half an hour.

Below: back at Chynów, that was my train rushing off northwards to Warsaw. Normally, I tend to go down the level-access ramp rather than the stairs (to get more paces in!), but today I'd already managed 15K, so I didn't need the bonus here. Note the sign at the foot of the stairs for Jakubowizna (click to enlarge). Incidentally, ramps are so much better than lifts, which are prone to break down.

Below: Jakubowizna. The mobile-telephony relay tower on the horizon marking the DK50. Back to the działka to do some gardening!

This time two years ago:
Anatomy of a nightmare

This time five years ago:
Diverse bird life returns to Jeziorki

This time six years ago:
Gold train film shoot - day one

This time ten years ago:
Jarosław Gowin quits his post as justice minister

This time 14 years ago:
The cycle-to-work season starts

Spring magic

The past few days have been colder than last weekend - which was warm and gorgeous. The annual parade of spring wonder draws me out of the house - three walks today to catch the sun and gaze upon the miracle of rebirth.

Below: the forest between Jakubowizna and Machcin II, thinned out by the state loggers. High up in the treetops, raucous crows circle in the air protecting their nests from buzzards.

Below: composition in green, white and yellow under blue. I can see the inspiration for Koleje Mazowieckie's livery.

Below: apple blossom still biding its time - before long, the apple trees will blaze pink and the yellow dandelions will have gone to seed, turning into large, white dandelion clocks.

Below: time for an evening stroll. Looking towards the road, the first four apple trees surrounded by forget-me-nots. My stockade-style fence - made from pruned branches and twigs - is taking shape and gaining height. Cheaper and more eco-friendly than cement. 'Biskupin', remark my neighbours.

Below: photo taken from the site of the old level crossing on ulica Miodowa, an evening all-stations Koleje Mazowieckie service from Warsaw to Radom is passing...

Below: ...a minute later, it's stopping at Chynów station, seen through the long end of my 70-300mm Nikkor zoom. Green, white and yellow, like the spring landscape through which it passes.

Below: the sun now sets just before 8pm. Three months ago, it was setting at quarter past four in the afternoon. Looking north from Jakubowizna towards Wola Pieczyska on the horizon.

This time four years ago:
Building work almost done on the działka

This time five year:
Karczunkowska's closed again

This time six years ago:
Little suitcase in the attic

This time seven years ago:
What I read each week.

This time nine years ago:
Defending Poland, contributing to NATO

This time 11 years ago:
Balloon over Warsaw 

This time 13 years ago:
Happiness, Polish-style

This time 14 years ago:
And watch the river flow...

Spring explodes in Jakubowizna

I left for Poznań on Tuesday and returned from Wrocław on Friday; back in Jakubowizna those three days had experienced an explosion of blossom and flowers. 

Below: cherry blossoms (white) before apple (pink); the apple trees are still a week or more from flowering. As they make up the bulk of fruit trees in the area, it means the best is still to come. In the meantime - I just love that feeling of not having to wear a scarf, gloves, woollen hat and parka when going out for a walk. Sunshine on skin is delicious at this time of year (and in autumn too).

Dandelion is particularly spectacular when growing on lawns, like the one bordering the apple orchard (below) - it won't be long before the dandelions go to seed and the yellow flowers turn into white puffballs.

Below: focusing on the silver birch on the forest's edge, commercially grown pines making up its bulk.

Below: where orchard meets forest. Little wind today, the clouds moved slowly.

Below: cherry blossom still unfurling. Fruit in about six weeks' time. 

Below: wood anemones carpet the forest floor...

Below: ...and the small wood near the end of my street

Left: Dandelions in my own garden. With forget-me-nots. Rough wood surface, old enamelled mug found on a walk - full-on cottagecore/ goblincore aesthetic in the sun. Today is Earth Day.

Below: gratuitous shot of my Unikat Road Chief-inspired Drag Star, battery fully charged, and ready to set off for a shake-down cruise round the neighbourhood. The klimat was pure nostalgia; riding slow through Staniszewice, Wincentów, Linin, low-rev V-twin burble, taking in the qualia experiences - quite magical. It's 1951 all over again.

This time six years ago:
Litter makes me bitter
[six years on, the brudasi are as filthy as ever]

This time nine years ago:
Lent's over - now what?

This time ten years ago:
Completely in the dark

This time 11 years ago:
Ruch Palikota - a descent into populism

This time 12 years ago:
I cross two unfinished bridges

This time 13 years ago:
What's the Polish for 'grumpy'?

This time 14 years ago:
Do not take this road!

This time 15 years ago:
Seated peacock, Łazienki Park

This time 16 years ago:
Spirit of place: 1930s Kentucky - or Jeziorki?