280/365: Bare

280/365: Bare, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

October 7th

Some trees are already naked...

Some are not:

279/365:Playing with the kitties

279/365:Playing with the kitties, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

October 6th

After a long (oh so long) day at work it's a pleasure to play with the cats and admire their minimal needs for happiness. It would have also been nice if I could focus properly, but win some, lose some.

278/365: Up there

278/365: Up there, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

October 5th

Lunchtime walk. Can't go very far, or I'll be late coming back to work, and my line of work is such that inevitably, when I am not there, I am desperately needed (when in turn I stay put, there is nothing to do all day). So I go to the nearby sliver of forest and after looking low, I look high.

277/365: At home with the cats

277/365: At home with the cats, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

October 4th

Back from Berlin. I got to the Hauptbahnhof, and they told me 'Keine Platze'. Not only that. Keine Platze heute, keine Platze morgen. And I have to be at work morgen bis zum Morgen!

So my inestimable friend Linlen got on the internet and found me a ride via a hitch-hiking network. Amazing. I got in at two am, but I got in.

A hedgehog and a banana plant

My Standardgraphs broke; I'm on Rystor pens now. They're lovely.

276/365: Kaserne Elstal

276/365: Kaserne Elstal, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

October 3rd

Part two of my ghostly weekend trip to Berlin. Just outside the city, in the odd town of Elstal, there is a semi-abandoned Olympic Village, but this is not it. This is a building in an abandoned Russian Army complex, also in Elstal. The Soviets were stationed there, once. And that's really all I know.

275/365: Ghosts in Beelitz

275/365: Ghosts in Beelitz, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

October 2nd

I have a friend in Berlin who has a predicament; she is very fond of abandoned places, and yet can find no one among her circle of acquaintances with the same appreciation for them. Fortunately, Berlin and Łódź are only a train ride away, and what are weekends for?

She took me to Beelitz, a foresty place, with a sprawling sanatorium among the trees. Beelitz Heilstätten was a tuberculosis hospital built in 1898. During WWI it was converted into a general military hospital, then later in 1945 the Soviets took over it and held it well after the Reunification.

Parts of the hospital are still in use.

But when the Soviets withdrew, most of the sixty buildings that make up the complex were abandoned and are still empty today.

Incidentally, it was Reunification Day on the day we visited Beelitz.

I want to go back again. We did not have the pluck to break into the larger buildings, the operating theatre in particular, and there are photos to be taken there.

274/365: Leaves

274/365: Leaves, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

October 1st

Since we work for the same studio, but on different projects, ManiaKovalsky and I started taking lunch walks together. On October 1st, this tree was the yellowest of all.

She also took a photo of me:

I would love to claim that I look so ragged in that picture because I was jumping on the train to Berlin to crawl around abandoned places that weekend, and needed to travel light, but to be honest, that's what I look like every day.

273/365: Thursday evening on the way to the pub

273/365: Thursday evening on the way to the pub, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

September 30th

Phone photo, because when I go drinking, I leave my camera at home.

272/365: New person moving in

272/365: New person moving in, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

September 29th

A makeshift wall divider for their privacy, until the spare room at the end of the landing becomes available.