But that's it for 2007 - back on the bike commuting (hopefully) late next June.
Friday, 31 August 2007
Last ride to work, summer 2007
Labels:
bike rides,
commuting,
Cycling,
summer
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Greenhouse sunset
These days, their businesses have to compete with growers from across the European Union. Many market gardeners have gone bust, their greenhouses lingering idle until the land gets sold for housing development. That's where the serious money is to be made round here these days.
This evening I snapped this greenhouse on ul. Trombity, one of dozens in Jeziorki, under a splendid sunset. How many will remain in five years time?
Labels:
Jeziorki,
sunset,
ul. Trombity
Where have the trees gone?
* Note for my non-native speaking readers: A reference to Shakespeare's Macbeth
Labels:
Jeziorki,
ul. Sarabandy,
ul. Trombity
Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Don't the moon look lonesome, shinin' through the trees?
At times like this, I feel I have lived before, I live now and will live again.
"Don't the moon look lonesome, shinin' through the trees" - a line from about a hundred and one blues songs. Above photo: 30 sec exposure at f3.5.
Labels:
Jeziorki,
reincarnation?
Sunday, 26 August 2007
Heron over ul. Pozytywki
Labels:
birds,
Grey heron,
ul. Pozytywki
Saturday, 25 August 2007
Late August cultivation
Neuroscientists will say that deja vus are all just a matter of electrical impuses in a certain part of our brain. I don't buy that. My flashbacks are too consistent in terms of time and place (just had another one in the kitchen). USA, 1920s to 1950s. Here in Jeziorki, these flashbacks are triggered with magnificent regularity and intensity, which give me a strong suspicion that indeed, I am living a blessed afterlife, right now.
Labels:
agriculture,
Jeziorki,
reincarnation?
Friday, 24 August 2007
"...said the spider to the fly"
Today I found this splendid specimen outside my bedroom window. Overnight it had caught a fly, which it was cocooning in silk prior to digestion. These large garden spiders, called 'Krzyzaki' in Polish on account of the cross on their thoraxes, are prevalent in late summer and into the autumn.
Last night's electrical storm (small pic below) hit Jeziorki hard. At quarter to four I was awoken by a flash of lightning instantly followed by an extremely loud thunderclap.The lightning was bright enough to illuminate my room through the curtains. I jumped out of bed to grab my camera, went for the light switch - nothing. Electricity was out in the house and indeed in all our neighbours' houses. Power was restored to Jeziorki by 10 am.
Labels:
Jeziorki,
spiders,
thunderstorm
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
Another summer storm
Labels:
Jeziorki,
summer,
thunderstorm,
weather
Kórnicka in transition
[Update - 26 Aug: No blacktop for ul Kórnicka, only paving stone. Not as durable, but calms traffic better, giving the impression of being a drive rather than a proper road.]
[Update - August 2008]: ul. Kórnicka gets five speed bumps along its length.
Labels:
development,
Jeziorki,
ul. Kórnicka
Sunday, 19 August 2007
New housing
Labels:
development,
starlings,
Zgorzala
Saturday, 18 August 2007
By bike to Czachówek again
Friday, 17 August 2007
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
More ominous in terms of civilisation encroaching on our NIMBY* heaven is the imminent tarmacking over of ul. Kórnicka at the north end of ul. Trombity.
UPDATE - September 2008. This has indeed happened. Each morning, just after 07:30, there's a queue of ten to 12 cars at the top end of ul. Kórnicka waiting to turn into ul. Baletowa.
* For my non-native English speaking readers, 'NIMBY' is an acronym - 'Not In My Back Yard'. Progress by all means, but not at the expense of MY lifestyle.
Labels:
development,
Jeziorki,
ul. Kórnicka
Thursday, 16 August 2007
Starlings on the wire
Wednesday, 15 August 2007
Armed Forces Day parade, Warsaw
After the parade, we walked to Ochota to dinner at our friends, who by coincidence live on the same street as my father did before the war. Along the way, we came across this commemorative plaque (below), marking the spot where my father's Home Army unit, Batalion Odwet ('Vengeance'), began its fight during the Warsaw Uprising.
Left: Eddie and Sabina on their way back from the parade.
UPDATE, OCTOBER 2007: PiS indeed got a drubbing at the ballot boxes.
Labels:
Family history,
national holiday,
Polish military,
Warsaw
Saturday, 11 August 2007
Where am I? In the village
Labels:
Llyn Peninsula,
Portmeirion
Thursday, 9 August 2007
I must go down to the sea again
The beach at Porth Oer, the finest on the entire Llyn Peninsula. Sheltered, safe and sandy, we went swimming here. Below: an RAF air sea rescue Sea King helicopter flies over, reassuring swimmers, surfers and canoeists that help is at hand if needed.
Labels:
Llyn Peninsula,
Porth Oer,
Porthor,
Whistling Sands
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Mountains or sea?
Labels:
Carn Fadryn,
Llyn Peninsula,
migration,
Yr Eifl
AR Y FFORDD I PWYL RHYDD

Left: The commemorative cross that stands outside the chapel in Penrhos. Erected over 60 years ago, the cross itself is made from the roof struts from a hangar that stood nearby.
Below: Some of the barrack buildings at Penrhos, as spick and span as they were when under military command. Now used to house holidaymakers rather than maritime patrol bomber crews.
There's something about this former airbase, the barracks, the layout, which triggers in my those anomalous memories - flashbacks, which suggest a strong familiarity with airbases, maybe from a past life. Something draws me here, year after year. It's not the Welsh landscape; I experience that old, strange-yet-familiar feeling here, on the site of this former military airfield.

"If I should die, think only this of me
That some corner of a foreign field
Is forever England", wrote Rupert Brooke in 1914.
The Polish section of the Pwllheli cemetary is indeed forever Poland. Click on the image to see individual graves.

Labels:
Llyn Peninsula,
Penrhos,
Pwllheli,
reincarnation?
Monday, 6 August 2007
Penrhos, the place we love
Looking the other way from the same hill is Yr Eifl (below), one of a group of dormant volcanic peaks that dominate the eastern end of the Llyn.
Labels:
Carn Fadryn,
Llyn Peninsula,
Penrhos,
Pwllheli,
Yr Eifl
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