The kittens at two months

Feline development is mind-blowing. To think that these little fellows, now eating solids, chasing each other, grooming, sleeping, eating, fighting – and using the two cat toilets in the sień. All those neuronal connections in place such a short time after birth – astounding. Developmentally, an order of magnitude faster than humans. Personalities taking shape. Each one of the five healthy and happy, enjoying life, exploring the environments of their home. Wenusia has proved to be the most excellent mother. Now the kittens are allowed to roam, she keeps a watchful eye on all five in case any should stray too far. But eight weeks of breastfeeding has hollowed her out; she is very thin despite eating vast amounts of catfood. Her favourite remains Dolina Noteci's salmon-flavoured stuff. [Trouble with this is cleaning the tins afterwards for recycling – the cat food is damned difficult to remove from the corrugations.]

Below: photo taken a week ago, towards the end of the kittens' eighth week. All five feeding. From the left: Scrapper, Czestuś, Pacyfik, Celeste and Arcturus.

Wenusia has also grown up tremendously these past two months. She's aged about 20 human years over that time. I have very soon have her sterilised – she does not want to or deserve to go through all that again. She's got lots of life ahead of her.

Scrapper – the first born – eyes wide open, manic, hyperactive – and if there's a fight going on, he's involved. Like all his siblings except the ginger tom Czestuś, all have kinked tails, with two 90­° bends, looking like little downturned question marks. Below: Scrapper in uncharacteristically calm mood. Normally, he's round-eyed, his head jerking rapidly towards any new stimulus that crosses him. A John Belushi character.

Celeste – a longhair cat, grey tabby with white underside, a ball of fluff who looks like a little teddy bear, as wide as she is long, stumpy-tailed but beautiful to look at and to stroke. Below: Celeste has her brother Pacyfik in a neck-hold. She might be the only girl, but she gives as good as she gets from the boys.

Czestuś – the friendliest of the bunch, he is the most likely to come over to me and give me that slow double-eyed blink of feline trust. And he'll lick my hand. The fourth born. During the first weeks, he was the biggest and fastest growing, now just slightly smaller than the rest. 

The twins, Pacific (Pacuś) and Arcturus (Arkcio); similar in behaviour; as they grew they weighed exactly the same, to the gram; they are placid, but able to fight back vigorously should Scrapper start on them. More likely to sleep apart from the other three (I now have two cat baskets).

Below, from left: Scrapper, Czestuś and Pacyfik, chilling in the sun.

Below: Arcturus, starting to look like a mature cat. Emotionally well-adjusted, most likely to wander off on his own. Two months ago, he'd just emerged into the world.

The vet will soon be called. Sterilisation reduces the risk of cancer and other diseases. I don't like the smell of male cat urine. I don't want more irresponsible cat fathering! Sorry mates, the humans will have your balls!

Ah yes, the 'm' word – mice. Wenusia has brought home three mice, two dead, one alive, on successive nights. The first was eaten by Pacyfik. End to end, leaving nothing but a small bloody stain on the kitchen floor. The second dead mouse was eaten in similar fashion, by Scrapper. The third was still alive. Celeste killed it and ate it whole. Now, Wenusia does much of her hunting in my neighbours' allotment, thus ridding them of a vermin problem for the various crops they're growing.

Will I give them away? Right now, every one brings me joy – more importantly, every one of them brings joy to their siblings and their mum. Keeping them together as a family for as long as possible is good for them developmentally and emotionally. In the wild, mothers will drive their little ones away at around six months old, after which they are expected to find and mark out their own territory. Should there be any conflict between them... well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Below: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe. family group – all five with mum. Wenusia is stretched vertically, licking her paw. Scrapper lies with his foreleg across her back, the other four are attempting to feed with various degrees of success.

I must say, the kittens have brought me so much joy. It's wonderful to wake up to a kitchen full of kittenish mischief every morning. So far, other than the usual scratches to fabric and my skin, no damage done. 

Below: Wenusia, fast asleep. She's given so much of herself. Instinct and intuition guide her.

Below: still feedin' with three on the teat this afternoon – Scrapper, Celeste (note her long hair) and Pacyfik. Kitten paws gently kneading mum's belly to express the milk.

And now the controversial part. I feel fairly certain that Wenusia and I can communicate telepathically. I look in her eyes and think. And I feel she understands. I communicate to her my respect for the way she has handled motherhood. She responds with a slow blink...

This time last year:
A run of perfect days

This time five years ago:
Twilight motorbike ride

This time six years ago:

Are we Bodies or Souls?

This time nine years ago year:
Popping out for a drink

This time 15 years ago:
In search of happiness

This time 16 years ago:
Mercenaries and missionaries

This time 17 years ago:
Spectacular sunrise, Jeziorki

Weeding the tracks / rail photo update

What's this I see coming down the line towards Chynów station? I'm waiting for a train to town (from the other direction); no passenger service is scheduled on the southbound line... I get my camera and zoom in. Interesting. It crosses the points from the 'down' line, across the 'up' line, and finally ends up on the passing loop line by Platform 3.

Below: the train pulls into the side platform. Just five wagons long, three of which are cisterns...

I have ten minutes before my train to town is due; time enough to catch a snap of the entire rake or formation from the footpath east of the station.

Let's take a look at one of the cisterns...

The shunting engine at the head of the train is uncoupled and off it goes on its own...

Time to get back to the platform to catch my train to town. On my return from Warsaw, I look it up and find out what this is... It is a CHOT train (Chemiczna Odchwaszczarka Torów CHOT-50A, or chemical de-weeder of tracks). The train consists of a diesel locomotive, three cisterns and a crew wagon and a shunter at the other end. By the time I returned from Warsaw four hours later, the weedkiller train had moved on, presumably its job done. 

Meanwhile, into town. Below: the tram/train interchange at W-wa Wola, completed last year. An SKM train from Piaseczno to Zegrze Południowe approach W-wa Wola station overhead. All well and good in terms of connections here and at W-wa Młynów (with Line 2 of the Metro) one stop further on – but will trains from the Radom line finally return to the city centre? 

There's something about the yellow-and-red livery of Warsaw trams against a blue sky that appeals to my sense of aesthetics. Below: two trams passing at Plac Zbawiciela.

In that post from April 2024, I asked rhetorically whether it will be eight months or a year and eight months until the tunnel for passengers under W-wa Zachodnia is finally ready. Well, it wasn't the former. Will it be ready in another four months? Touch and go, I think... In the meanwhile, crossing from Platform 1 (WKD) to Platform 9 (for the Radom line) still necessitates walking up and down many flights of steps or taking a 700 metre-long step-free diversion. Watching elderly folk lugging their suitcases up the steps makes me wonder just how bothered are the infrastructure operators, contractors and subcontractors to get the job finished quickly, or how aware they are of the massive inconvenience of their tardiness. Below: view from the top of the steps from the footbridge looking down at one of the bus stops on the north side of the station.

Below: I'm looking down on W-wa Zachodnia, when I should be looking up at it from the glass-ceilinged tunnel

.

Below: taken one evening last week, I poke my lens through the barrier and down towards the unopened tunnel. It will make changing platforms at W-wa Zachodnia far easier. But then I've seen precious little progress here since the last great leap forward in October. Over the intervening ten months, all that's happened is that a) you can now get an escalator up to platform 9 and b) platform 9 has working digital display panels with real-time information.

Below: back to Chynów, and the spectacle of the Kraków-bound InterCity express train overtaking the Radom-bound local Koleje Mazowieckie service on the wrong track. This can happen at quarter to most hours if the express is running a few minutes late.

Below: a coupled-pair of ET41 locos hauls a coal train through Chynów bound for Siekierki power station. The train goes into the sidings south of W-wa Okęcie station; from there it is diesel-hauled to Konstancin-Jeziorna sidings, and from there on to Siekierki.

This time two years ago:
Dave: An Emissary

This time three years ago:
Fifty years with Virginia Plain

This time four years ago:
The Curve (and one's place on it)

This time six years ago:
Fifty years on, my last kolonia

This time 12 years ago:
Grodzisk Mazowiecki's pretty station

This time 13 years ago:
Exorcism outside the President's Palace

This time 14 years ago:
The raging footsoldier - a story about anger

This time 15 years ago:
Graffiti and street art 

Qualia compilation 11: the Roads to Henley-upon-Thames

Henley-upon-Thames is another of those special places that resides in my memory, a place much visited in childhood, adolescence and adulthood. The magnet for us London Poles was Fawley Court, a stately home designed by Sir Christopher Wren, which was for many years after the war a boys' boarding school run by the Polish Marian Fathers. Just north of the town, Fawley Court lies on the Thames, a beautiful setting. The Divine Mercy College closed in 1986 due to falling numbers of Polish boys born in the UK. In 2011 the Marian Fathers sold the Grade I-listed building for £22 million; much of that money being spent on the basilica in Licheń. This transaction remains controversial to this day, not least to the Polish community in the UK who had contributed so generously over the decades towards the upkeep of this historic building.

I must have visited Fawley Court and Henley-on-Thames scores of times. My earliest recollections were of the Zielone Świątki (Whitsuntide) gathering. My parents would go most years, along with thousands of Poles from across the UK. Coaches would bring them from northern towns and cities, London Poles would typically drive; the school's playing fields would turn into a gigantic car park. Open-air Mass and beer tents, walks along the Thames, for our parents, then in their thirties and forties, a chance to meet old friends. Later, in the Polish scouts we'd visit Fawley Court, usually out of term-time for zimowiska (winter camps) or weekend biwaki (bivouacs), which would involve route marches around the nearby countryside. Youth-group visits followed, and then, with my own car, going out to Henley with friends was no longer such a big deal, and trips there – a long walk followed by cream teas at the Old Rope Walk – happened frequently. And then cycling – load the bikes into cars, drive out to Henley, cycle around the countryside (typically to a nice pub), cycle back to the cars.

The town and its surrounding countryside are absolutely charming, the quintessence of rural England. Whilst I have many memories of my many visits to Henley and district, there's one qualia flashback above all that has stuck with me. It is the road to Henley. In the old days, before the M4 or M40 motorways were opened, the route out of West London would be along the A4 – the Great West Road, which would become the Bath Road; through Slough and Maidenhead, then turn off for the A4130, the Henley Road (again, before the A404 dual carriageway was opened). Through Hurley Bottom, and towards Remenham Hill, the Black Boys Inn on the right. And then – down White Hill, over the bridge and into Henley. Alternatively, one could continue along the Bath Road to Twyford, then turn right into the A321 Wargrave Road, and follow the Thames Valley to White Hill and then turn left onto the Henley Road and the bridge, and into town. 

Below: Google Gemini 2.5 rendered this image of Henley Bridge in the early 1960s.

Whichever of these routes we took, I can recall their charms, and that sense of nearing Henley. Then once across the bridge, the hoppy, malty smell of the old Brakspear brewery, the neat, narrow streets. A different world to the terraced sameness of Hanwell, London W7.

[In more recent times, getting there would be along the M40 out of London to Junction 4, then onto the A404 dual carriageway one junction south to Marlow, then along the A4155 to Henley. Quickest way.]

Several journeys stick in my mind. Two by train; on the way to a zimowisko with the Polish scouts, between Twyford and Henley, before Christmas 1972, it was a moonlit night and the Thames had burst its banks, flooding the meadows on either side of the tracks, the full moon reflecting off the waters. And during the hot summer of 1976, I decided to walk along the (live) railway line from Twyford to Henley. I was crossing the Thames by the railway bridge when I saw in the distance an oncoming train. I could neither get out of the way by running forward or running back, so I scaled the cast-iron parapet and dangled over the side until the train passed. Very, very foolish. Earlier journeys by car with my parents, the road bridge into Henley, Zielone Świątki, and a traffic jam mostly consisting of Poles who had motored across from London. And a red and black double-decker Oxfordshire bus.

Above all, the most often flashed-back qualia memories are of the drive through Hurley and Remenham Hill, past the Black Boys Inn (and its questionable pub sign). Be it on a summer Sunday with my parents or later with friends on a minibus excursion of a winter's evening; the atmosphere of the road to Henley stays with me; I recognise those moments when qualia memories of the journey return vividly to me.

This time six years ago:
One man went to mow

This time seven years ago:
Poland's economy: where next?

This time 11 years ago:
Eat Polish apples, drink Polish cider

This time 13 years ago:
Jewish Kraków

This time 15 years ago:
Dismal graffiti yields to street art, W-wa Żwirki i Wigury

This time 17 years ago:
A dove in the house

This time 18 years ago:
Coming in to land from the east

New wood discovered

I spotted this on the map; a feature mysteriously called 'Wilcza Góra' ('wolf hill') lying just to the north of the Krężel to Budziszynek road. Like, what hill? The land around here is flat... I go. Taking the train one stop south (from Chynów to Krężel), I head west, stopping off for provisions in Wygodne.

Below: the road bridge over the river Czarna, which flows northwards (much of its course in man-made canals) through the district. Across the bridge and to the right, the path into the wood.

The path is sandy. Before long, it turns to the right before entering a pine forest. Cannot see any hills. More like common land.

Left: I stumble upon an abandoned wooden house, in the process of being swallowed by the forest, beyond saving. I wonder who once lived here, and why it ended up being left like this.

Below: a long exposure with the camera on the windowsill. All glass, doors, etc has been removed. Being a long way even from a village, such a place does not attract vandals; it will quietly disassemble itself as entropy does its work.

Below: the white-yellow-white sign denoting a tourist trail (szlak turystyczny) – this one being szlak MZ-5153-y that connects the railway stations in Chynów and Warka (I've walked part of it last summer). The full walk is 21.3km. Below that the Lasy Państwowe (LP, state forests) logo, once the sign of a death sentence on a tree, when, during the last government, LP was taken over by a rapacious group hell-bent on extracting as much timber as possible before the elections. Fortunately, Lasy Państwowe are in more responsible hands today.

I didn't want to follow the tourist trail, which swings off to the west; I'd rather make my way to the river Czarna. At first, the meant walking along a fire road through the managed pine forest, below. A beautiful, nostalgia-inducing smell of pine trees in the heat.

Between the Lasy Państwowe plots and the river was a bank of dense undergrowth that I had to force my way through – but it was worth it. I found the Czarna – and a sorry sight it was too. The summer's not been particularly hot, and rainy days have not been rare, and yet the river has run dry; the snow-free winter has its consequences. Below: looking south along the riverbed, which had been channelled to flow in a straight line back in the early 1970s. It was particularly sad looking at the tracks of various wild animals down the riverbank and to the edge of the few puddles of stagnant, algae-covered muddy water. Their source of drinking water is diminishing by the day.

Below: looking north along the riverbed. Central Poland is certainly in the midst of a long-term hydrological crisis.

Below: having scrambled through the brambles on the east bank of the Czarna, I get to a track that leads to a clearing. An easier walk from here.

Below: the forest track that links ulica Warecka (the Chynów to Warka road) to the villages of Edwardów, Budziszyn and Budziszynek to the west. Too sandy for bicycles and motorbikes at the moment; a bit like walking along a beach. A few hundred metres further on and on ul. Warecka.

I finally leave the forest and return to familiar paths. While walking along ul. Graniczna ('border street'), another dirt track, back towards the railway line, I manage to catch this Polish Air Force C-130H Hercules flying low over Chynów (below). This one (serial number 1511) is the first of the batch that the Polish Air Force is buying to replace its ageing C-130E Hercules transports that date back to the early 1960s. The -Hs are some 30 years newer than the  -Es (a reminder that the prototype XC-130 first flew on 23 August 1954 – 71 years ago this month!)

Finally, on my way home along ul. Kolejowa ('railway street'), I am overtaken by a fine loco-hauled express on its way to Szczecin. This is the InterCity TLK Lubomirski service from Zakopane via Kraków, Warsaw, Gdańsk and Gdynia. Over 15 hours to cover 754km. No buffet car. But it does stop in Warka and Piaseczno.

A good, solid walk, an exploration, finding someplace new. A day well spent, over 18,000 paces (14km) walked!

This time last year:
Goldenrod (nawłoć) – friend or foe?

This time two years ago:
A low-cost future

This time three years ago:
Evolved Consciousness

This time five years ago:
Goodnight Belarus - may God keep you

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

This time 11 years ago:
Eat Polish apples, drink Polish cider

This time 12 years ago:
Hottest week ever 

This time 13 years ago:
Progress along the second line of the Warsaw Metro 

This time 14 years ago:
Doric arches, ul. Targowa

This time 15 years ago:
A place in the country, everyone's ideal

This time 18 years ago:
I must go down to the sea again

A walk in the sun

Nice start to the day, but clouds are forming, wind in the south-east; time for an early walk. Well, by early I mean setting off at soon after ten. Something tells me the walk will be a long one.

Below: house nestling in the forest, Grobice. Nice light, and I'm using a new pair of circular polarising filters on my standard zoom and long zoom lens.

Below: ulica Graniczna ('border street'), this being the border between the Grójec poviat on this side of the road and the Piaseczno poviat on the other. The road ahead leads to a tiny settlement called Zalesie, a dozen houses or so.

Below: crossroads. Left for Grobice, straight for Kozłów, left for Staniszewice, and behind me for Grabina and Adamów Rososki. Up ahead, asphalt has been laid on the road into Kozłów, though it does not continue through the entire settlement, fizzling out into a dirt track which disappears into the forest that lies beyond. Several new houses are being built in and around Kozłów.

Below: "Kozłów is literally a dump," I am thinking. On seeing this scene, I get a flashback; I'm getting a flashback to a flashback, in fact two flashbacks to a flashback. One was in South Wales, 1960, the other in the woods behind Ruislip Lido in the early 1960s. In both cases, there was a momentary flash of recognition of another time, another place, which felt like America. I felt it here today too. And again now as I look at it. The road? The sky? The vegetation? The wires in the sky? All clicks.

Below: wayside cross, Kozłów. Note the dates; 1917 and 2017. A reference to the apparitions in Fatima – or something more local?

Below: homeward bound, familiar paths. This is ul. Sosnowa ('pine street'), which leads back to Grobice. It may not look like much of a street, but it is one. In Grobice, I buy a bottle of Muszynianka mineral water. Half an hour later, I'm home, having walked 16,000 paces.

This time four years ago
Accounting for coincidence
[Henry Cow – Piekut]

This time five years ago:
Działka food

This time six years ago:
Proper summer in Warsaw

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

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

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

This time 12 years ago:
Behold and See (part V) - short story

This time 13 years ago:
Syrenki in Warsaw

This time 14 years ago:
What's the Polish for 'impostor'?

This time 15 years ago:
Running with the storm on the road to Mamrotowo

This time 17 years ago:
St Pancras Station - new gateway to London

This time 18 years ago:
Mountains or sea? North Wales has them both

High winds, high summer, night.

Last night; just gone ten pm. I've just finished my evening exercises. Bare-chested I go to take rubbish out. It's a strange night; though warm (still over 20°C) and dry (rain is expected within the hour), the wind is blowing hard. This is the tail-end of Storm Floris. Outside, the tall trees and bushes are rustling like they would be in the gales of early spring or late autumn. But it's summer, I'm shirtless and not feeling any cold...

I get that sudden flash of familiarity. I've experienced this feeling before. But never in this life... Scenes from old movies have triggered that same familiarity – two that I remember are Key Largo (1948) and I Walked With A Zombie (1943) – both films, shot in black and white, had scenes with high winds blowing through luxuriant vegetation at night. But watching a film on TV is not the same as living the experience, feeling the wind on my skin.

For those who tend to dismiss my reports of anomalous qualia memories, which I attribute to non-local consciousness from another time, as "memories of films you once saw", I can clearly tell the difference between the two! The films brought about similar instant sensations of familiarity, of an experience lived – yet not in this life.

This time last year:
Interrogating one's intuition

This time two years ago:
Notes to a future me

This time three years ago
The End of Times

This time four years ago:
Going round in circles

This time five years ago:
Between wakefulness and sleep 

This time eight years ago:

Hammersmith, on Thames

This time 11 years ago:
In search of quintessential English countryside

This time 12 years ago:
Behold and See – short story, Pt III

This time 15 years ago:
Another return to Penrhos

Consciously, mindfully, averting misfortune

An early morning insight, between sleep and wakefulness: {{ We can preclude catastrophe; we merely need to consider the catastrophe and discount the possibility of it happening. That conscious act collapses the wave function* }} 

This is the notion of quantum luck. Misfortune often strikes unexpectedly. Rule it out by expecting it, by thinking about it, considering it... and at that moment the wave function collapses. [The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics postulates a multiverse in which an infinite number of universes co-exist, each sparked by collapsing wave function. So there is a universe in which you leave home consciously considering the possibility of your house being burgled – and you return home to find that it has been burgled. But not in this universe.]

The obverse is quantum luck is indifference to fate, to random misfortune. The obverse to quantum luck is also complacency; the thinking-by-default that if I were lucky yesterday, I'll be lucky today and I'll be lucky tomorrow. No. You will only be lucky today and tomorrow if you are grateful that you were lucky yesterday. You have to consciously feel that gratitude for this to work. Being mindful, aware, grateful.

You live in a world shaped by priors, things that have already been established, over which you have no control. Accident of birth is the most significant prior. But a whole series of unfoldings is constantly unfolding, possibilities that turn into realities. Fate, random events... 

You are studying for an exam. By chance you come across a fascinating article that explains some question that has been bothering you for some time. You set out this thinking in your exam essay – and it lands you a higher score, which gets you into a better university, where you meet the love of your life... Or not. Once the possibility has crystallised into reality, it becomes a prior from which further events unfold. Good and bad. You can't change the past, but you can influence the future. By action, obviously. But also by conscious consideration. Guided by a desire for good, rather than by ego.

The doomsday scenarios that we guard against. A supervolcano eruption. An asteroid strike. A devastating pandemic. A coronal mass ejection of the sun that knocks out all electricity on earth. Somewhere, on our planet, someone is considering each of these possibilities, and is thus guarding us against them. Last week's 8.8-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Kamchatka was the sixth-most powerful ever recorded and yet the death toll was zero. Good preparation (mass evacuations following tsunami warnings? Mitigation through better civil engineering)? Or – as news came over the airwaves of earthquake, could it have been the conscious hopes of millions of people around the world?

Mystical Judaism has the ideal that there are 36 righteous people (the lamed vovniks) who between them sustain the world. Mindfully watching out for all us sinners. Are there just 36 of them? Did God make the world in six days? I feel that yes, there are conscious folk out there watching for us at macro level just as I am consciously aware of averting misfortune at the personal level. 

Religion is a story we tell ourselves. Science is a story we tell ourselves. Which do you believe? Or do we each weave our own narratives to explain reality? Can God be boiled down to a physical formula? Can science explain the soul?

* I asked Google Gemini to explain the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics in simple terms: "Imagine you have a spinning coin in the air. Before it lands, it's neither 'heads' nor 'tails'; it's in a fuzzy state of being both at once. This fuzzy state is like the 'wave function' in quantum mechanics. It contains all the possible outcomes, each with a certain probability. The 'collapse of the wave function' is what happens when you catch the coin and look at it. The act of observation forces the coin to 'decide' on a single outcome – it becomes either definitely heads or definitely tails. All the other possibilities vanish instantly. In quantum mechanics, this is a central idea: until we measure or observe a particle, it exists in a superposition of all its possible states. The moment we measure it, its wave function 'collapses', and it settles into just one of those states."

This time last year:
Warsaw's progress to normality

This time four years ago:
Summer winding down

This time eight years ago:
My Mazovian roots

This time nine years ago:
My father revisits his battleground

This time 11 years ago:
Over the hill at Harrow

This time 12 years ago:
Behold and See - the Miracle of Lublin - Pt 1.

This time 14 years ago:
Quiet afternoon in the bazaar

This time 15 years ago:
The politics of the symbol

Qualia compilation 10: the Road to South Wales, 1960

Up in the hunter's pulpit in Adamów Rososki. Nice place on a summer Sunday afternoon; a wooden cabin on stilts overlooking fields and forest. Settle in, settle down, crack open the tinnie: Guinness Draught (with free kitten toy inside each tin). Out of the fridge and into a small cool-bag, the beer is suitably chilled. 

The field in front of me is green and yellow; goldenrod and tansy are coming into flower. As I sip the Guinness, I am cast back my first Guinnesses as a teenager. The Wye Valley, on the English side of the river. Yes, and the first Guinness I drank in Ireland in 1981. I remember the taste, the experience. Not Watney's Red Barrel or Skol lager but a far superior beverage. As the beer begins to have its effect, I allow myself to drift off into a reverie; I find myself savouring earlier memories – indeed, some of my earliest memories – from the journey from West London to South Wales when I was three...

A recurring memory (or set of memories) from childhood relates to when we lived, briefly, near Newport, South Wales. Much I recall of that happy time, but this specific set of memories relates to the journey there, by car, most probably in the spring of 1960. 

My father, a civil engineer, was posted to Newport, Monmouthshire, to supervise the construction of the foundations under what would become the Llanwern steelworks. This would have been late 1959, when I was two. From memory, my father went out first (photos of Christmas 1959 were from our West London home), my mother and me joined him later. I seem to recall making the journey several times. 

Many memories flooded back to me today as I sat there high up in the hunter's pulpit, sipping stout.

Our route took us west along the A40 (this was before the M4 and M40 were built). One memory was of leaving London, the A40 in Hillingdon as it crosses Long Lane. To the right there was a yard where construction equipment for hire was stored. Cranes, what have you. My father explained that his company hired pile-drivers and vertical drilling machines from here. The old road would wind through small towns and villages, the occasional wood, up and down hills – and traffic jams would be frequent. I remember that we were part of an enormous jam once – a bank holiday? As we stood there. stationary minute after minute in the heat, a car drove by the other way (traffic flowing freely). I remember it well; it was an estate car with wooden frame in the rear, not a Morris Minor but something older and bigger. Maybe a custom conversion, maybe even pre-war. Inside were several older children. They were laughing at us. My father, evidently cross at being stuck in the jam, said "huliganie" (hooligans). I had just learned the word 'cyganie' (gypsies, Romany), and associated the car-load of mocking children with gypsy-folk. 

As a child, I could distinguish cars, lorries and buses very well. The lorries I liked best were the ERFs and Fodens and the big Commers with their distinctive diesel growl, especially as the driver dropped a gear to labour up a steep hill. And the roadside food... Much as my mother distrusted the snack-bars, trailers parked up in lay-bys, there was often no alternative. I remember one such place; we stopped there more than once. The woman serving the hot dogs (with British bangers rather than frankfurters) would ask each customer in turn "With onions or without onions?" in a sing-song voice that my mother imitated as we drove on. Again, I remember the greasy smell of the onions and the fatty sausages with mustard served on a white bread roll.

 

And I remember the petrol stations along the way. National Benzole and Cleveland, brands long gone, sold from pumps standing outside tin shacks with corrugated roofs, My mother would tell me that well before I could read, I was able to identify all the petrol stations by their logos – Shell-Mex, BP, Esho (as I'd pronounce Esso), National (Benzole), Cleveland and BP.

In Herefordshire and Gloucestershire – orchards. It is the sight of the orchards around Chynów that snaps me back to those childhood memories. They also remind me that as a small child, even then, the sight of those orchards set off anomalous memories; a strong sense of familiarity, from where I knew not; I'd been here before but not here. Another time, another place.

This time last year:
Procrastination, time and mindfulness

This time time three years ago:
Summer as it should be

This time four years ago:
Measuring the unmeasurable

This time six years ago:
Heading Home [my father leaves Warsaw for the last time]

This time eight years ago:
From my father's historic return to Warsaw

This time nine years ago:
Country life in a capital city 

This time 11 years ago:
My ogród is my działka

This time 13 years ago:
Mazowieckie province tempts with mini- and micro-breaks

This time 15 years ago:
Pride and anger