Tuesday 11 December 2007

'Zgnilizna' impressions

The weatherman on telly last night referred to the current spell of weather (which has been affecting us for pretty much all of December and two-thirds of November), as zgnilizna, which the Oxford University Press Polish dictionary defines as 'rot, putrefaction, decay'. It's now getting light at 7:35 am; the day is just over a minute longer than the shortest day (we're now just 11 days from the winter solstice). We leave home in the pre-dawn gloom, taking the back roads to avoid the stationary traffic on ul. Puławska. At this time of year, the unmade stretches of ul. Poloneza are still passable, but will give your car a total mudbath.

This is a sequence of snaps from the Nokia N95; the jolting, dirty, slow and halting nature of the morning commute come across well. I took the first two snaps, Moni the remaining one.


As is visible from the pictures, there's very little traffic coming this way. It plays hell with cars' undersides. Our brave little Nissan Micra, hand-carved from a single billet of titanium, can take it. Occasionally, the exhaust system can come adrift, or - as happened twice - the car bogs down in deep mud or snow. Otherwise, this route to school and on to work is infinitely preferable to standing in three lanes of stationary traffic on ul. Puławska.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So how did you manage to get out when you were last stuck in mud or snow? Did you have to call a tow truck/ tractor or did you manage to dig yourselves out/ get someone to push - bloody diffcult when it's muddy as you tend to get splattered if you're pushing.

I recommend the Aro 243d service based in Konstancin (you know my number) should it happen again:)